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Comment by MentallyRetired | Hacker News Reader

YES, let the fascism wash over us. More profit. Forget the people and the polar bears. As long as the imaginary bank account number grows and grows and we're beating the other rich people, none of that stuff matters. We're building a rocketship anyways and we won't be here much longer. We'll leave them all gasping for air in the wake of our plumage. Yesssss Bezos Yes.

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Yeah look there's nothing in the above I'm actively disagreeing with here. What I am disagreeing with is the way you've said that. It isn't productive. It doesn't shed any light on things. It doesn't assume the best of the person you're replying to. It goes nowhere.

There's plenty of other places where this kind of response is welcome. Also @dang will get cross and we can't have that.

There is this liberal idea (nicely explained in https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/) that all disagreements are about facts, i.e. if we all understood reality well enough, we would surely agree (mistake outlook). But some disagreements are about values. That's the conflict outlook. In this case, some people simply value ecological future more than short-term profit.

There are as many different ways of disagreeing as there are pairs of people.

I don't know what this kind of naked abuse with no substance achieves but whatever it is, there are /plenty/ of places to do it. It's been a thing discouraged here in house rules. Making no progress without it seems no worse than making no progress with it to me. I find especially when I just /know/ I'm completely correct about something important and feel emotionally engaged in that, someone is right there to use that to exploit it. So even though I'm right, and obviously so about something deeply, deeply important to the world, remaining calm and rational has value for me and for the proper prosecution of the thing I believe in so strongly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

Ymmv. Anger and rage have their place.

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