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I am well aware that that is not what I looks like to people from the US.
I am European and they look very left of center to me.
Clearly, the context is within the U.S. Why use a straw man to respond to my question? I wouldn’t enter a topic about Canadians to talk about Brazilians. Very bizarre.
(I’m very well aware that American politics is quite different from the rest of the world. E.g., a neoliberal like Hillary Clinton is considered a leftist in America, which wouldn’t fly in most of the rest of the world.)
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
For the record, if, for whatever reason, you just don’t want me here, as much as I love this community, I’m happy to leave, because I’d rather do that than have my views silenced because they’re unpopular or be targeted like this for responding in kind to others who openly share their own views.
You're not being targeted personally and we don't take ideological sides nor care what your (or anyone else's) views are. If other people are breaking the site guidelines too, and their posts don't look moderated, it doesn't follow that moderators have deemed it ok. That's a gigantic non sequitur. Far more likely is that we just didn't see it: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
> The thread got more ideological as more folks commented.
In my experience, the feeling "other people just started behaving badly for reasons that had nothing to do with my post" is generally not very reliable. It does happen sometimes of course. But it's more likely that you (I don't mean you personally—I mean any of us in this position) are underestimating the degree of provocation in what you posted.
Funnily enough I was just writing about this in a different context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40601722.
I’ve reread my initial comment [0] probably a couple dozen times (at least) trying to see why it’d be considered a flamewar comment and I just don’t see it. What am I missing? Is it me calling the text I quoted an understatement? Or is it the last part where I object to the consistent negative rhetoric re Elon I see on HN? I have a feeling it might be the latter, since it specifically calls out the community. Do you mind clarifying so I can understand?
> You're not being targeted personally and we don't take ideological sides nor care what your (or anyone else's) views are. If other people are breaking the site guidelines too, and their posts don't look moderated, it doesn't follow that moderators have deemed it ok.
You’re generally pretty fair from what I’ve seen (and also from communicating with you via email), so I believe you and I appreciate that. Thank you for making that clear though.
> […] it's more likely that you (I don't mean you personally—I mean any of us in this position) are underestimating the degree of provocation in what you posted.
Fair enough—I’ll keep that in mind moving forward.
"I find it beyond unfortunate that so many in this community constantly feel the need to belittle Elon or downplay his accomplishments simply because they don’t like the guy, his politics, etc."
When I read a sentence like this it breaks down something like the following:
I find it beyond unfortunate - pejorative rhetoric
so many in this community - "me vs. the mob" is a provocation trope (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
constantly feel the need - this is a putdown as well as an assumption about the inner state of the other
to belittle Elon or downplay his accomplishments - more or less fine, except that "belittle" and "downplay" are pejoratives so it adds to the provocation
simply because they don’t like the guy - another putdown and imputation of inner state to the other
his politics, etc. - ups the ante at the end
I know I'm exaggerating quite a bit! I'm sure these interpretations are not what you intended. But this is exactly the sort of exaggeration that takes place in the reader's mind, so if the reader happens to be one of the people who you are criticizing, there's no doubt that all these signals will pack quite a punch, even if it wasn't a punch you intended to land.
It's hard to remember in these discussions that other people have thoughts and feelings and perspectives and fall back on assuming they're just being irrational, or trying to obfuscate their true motives.
This is why I'm a fan of this particular guideline:
>> "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
Maybe my interlocutor is a sniveling suck-up to power driven entirely by fantasies of becoming the next boot on my neck, but we sure aren't going to go anywhere in a discussion if I launch off with that assumption. Especially if I'm wrong.
I like it so much that I even wrote a mini essay about it a little while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602266.
It's hard to learn to recognize one's own part in the way things are and set ego aside, but it's one of those essential growth milestones that makes everything better.