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Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

> if one side wanted to murder children and the other wanted to control women’s bodies. Spend a few minutes honestly imagining the opposition has good intentions

Why should I? One side is happy to push absolute known BS about "post birth abortions", about harvesting of fetal body parts for everything from alternative medicine to a quest for immortality.

The time for "assume good faith" is long, long, long gone. These arguments are not in good faith. And I can rule out good intentions when you can't even have a sincere argument about it and lie through your teeth, knowingly and deliberately about it.

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For the sake of argument: if a foreign power would want to destabilize the US there are few better ways than promoting ideas like the above as much as possible.

If compromise isn't possible on any issue because the other side is evil incarnate and completely unreasonable - well that doesn't leave many nice places where a democracy can go.

"And why should I change? If I change, I loose everything! I loose my self! Who in their right mind would accept such a fate? That's why..." - Amalthus, circa 4058 Alrest.

It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.

Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position. At best you might get some likes on social media though, which can feel nice.

Most of the web consists of this, so if that's what you prefer, I guess it's just going with the flow.

As anodyne as this post appears, there is real brilliance is linking the inability to convince others of your point with the inability to imagine other people's point of view. Just wanted to thank you for this one.

> if you ... simply fail to understand the opposition's position ... your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining

So, so good.

What position is that?

The one where it is okay to be absolutely, and objectively, dishonest, to get what you want?

When you have people who say "I don't actually care if your position is correct", your position that it is somehow my obligation to cater and pander to them, and that it is a failing of mine to not be willing to do so is farcical.

This is literally idiocracy in the making.

If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.

> One side is happy to push absolute known BS about "post birth abortions", about harvesting of fetal body parts for everything from alternative medicine to a quest for immortality

Doesn't that increase the chances that one side consists of a significant number of good people who have simpy been duped? How does demonising them help?

Many people think incest, rape, and vitally-risky abortions total something more than 7% of abortions. Not remotely close.

Knowing that the vast abortions are preventable and essentially extremely ethically lazy birth control may also be a factoid worth "evangelizing".

   Embryonic stem cells only come from four to five day old blastocysts or younger embryos. These are eggs that have been fertilized in the laboratory but have not been implanted in a womb.

https://www.cirm.ca.gov/myths-and-misconceptions-about-stem-...

Ironically, 'science' and 'religion' actually oppose each other as to when "life" begins. Which ironically neither side can even cognitively process, because they are so blinded ideologically.

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