Comment by spoiler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spoiler | Hacker News Reader

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> Often "I want to say controversial things" is a way to say "I want to say hateful things". The tolerance for hate speech is decreasing and hopefully will decrease further, which is great. If that applies to your situation (and I'm not saying it does), I suggest you question your narrative a bit more

I agree with this sentiment. I also think that it's good that tolerance for hate speech is on a rapid decline.

However, there's this recent trend that anytime someone doesn't like a topic, they claim it's hate speech and equally hypersensitive people[1] flock to crate a hate mob.

I've seen a children's book author trying to start a conversation about incredibly nuanced topics be accused of hate speech, and called a "vile hateful person", sent death threats (which is somehow acceptable and encouraged??), and attempts to cancel them. Everything they said was perversely twisted to the point it was outright lies, etc. Which is just trading one form of hate and intolerance for another, IMO. (Aside: I'm very close to the topic in question and was appalled and ashamed of my community's reaction)

Seems like we keep yo-yoing from one hate trend to the other.

It's ironic how much self awareness we lack collectively as a species, considering we prides ourselves on our heightened self awareness amongst other creatures we share the planet with.

People suck.

[1]: I'm not trying to offend. Some people just haven't learned adequate coping skills in childhood. That's a bit endemic lately due to rapid lifestyle changes that are happening for the past few generations... and parenting quality took a major hit in that process. However, people need to learn coping skills; we can't expect everyone else to cope for us instead.

Well as the OP I would like to thank you for writing out an insightful reply. You are speaking about the topic in a way that I also feel captures some of the nuance and frustration about communication and free-ness these days… Much seems to be aligned with shutting people up as opposed to having a moral standard.

I think on the surface I agree. Hate mobs doesn't sound great and death threats are simply illegal and should be prosecuted.

If it is in fact all lies etc, then sure. But, I do think this is often exaggerated, and a lot of times "start a conversation about incredibly nuanced topics" might not be so nuanced and in fact hateful, look at dog whistles for example. That there is no tolerance for intolerance is kinda necessary (paradox of tolerance). Idk the case you are referring to so can't say if that's relevant to this situation or not.

I do strongly disagree that people suck. My experience with people is that generally they mean well, try to live their best live, and wish well on others, even if they might disagree on some things. A good test is to just think about the people you interact with day to day in real life, not tv, not twitter, not whatever. That's reality.

At the end of the day, I don't think we can socially afford this kind of social engineering.

The best we can, or should, do might just be "restrict actions but let people talk".

Let people talk about killing minorities but make it illegal to act on it.

Otherwise, you start imposing this whole fear-based command set of "you should never say certain things because I've decided in this moment that there's never a legitimate reason to ever say them and it might lead to action which we want to optimize out from even becoming a possibility because the Fourth Reich will rise irresistibly at any moment".

It's a deeply depressing outlook to have about your fellow man, and that itself will drive bad outcomes. "You think making edgy jokes is not legitimate and that I'm about to slide down a slippery slope of fascism? Well, now maybe I will, or at least pretend to, if only to troll humorless Orwellian cunts like you."

I.e., something like the https://psychology-spot.com/rebound-effect-in-psychology/

But I think nobody is arguing that all of it should be illegal, but there is a big difference between legality and whats socially acceptable.

That's often conflated, and actually the point I have been trying to make; you can say a lot of wild stuff legally, but you can not expect others to just accept it, not react to it, and not change their opinion of you.

There are also things that should be illegal, as example do you think death treats are fine? Or is that what you are referring to in my comment?

> I do strongly disagree that people suck. My experience with people is that generally they mean well, try to live their best live, and wish well on others, even if they might disagree on some things. A good test is to just think about the people you interact with day to day in real life, not tv, not twitter, not whatever. That's reality.

I gave this some thought these days and I think you're right.

I guess there are certain people who care about some issues at cost of everything else; not sure how I feel about that and how we help these peope be less antisocial sometimes. I guess at the end of the day even those people are at the very least trying to do good too.

It's good to be reminded of that, so thank you

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