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Comment by jwkpiano1 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that you have equated Polynesians and Melanesians here, two completely disparate groups of people, does not help your point whatsoever.

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Welp, unfortunately it's too late to fix my comment.

I didn't mix them up on purpose, and I won't pretend to be an expert on the taxonomy of the various Pacific Islander ethnicities.

Yes, the article does mention Melanesians by name. So what. It mentions other important things and people by name that I don't remember either. So what. Those exact names and identities are not important, neither to my point, nor to the point the article is making.

I think it is strongly indicative that your underlying bias so colored your reading of the article that you made a very basic factual error. I would encourage you to read it again with a more open mind.

Bias against what? I have no idea what you're talking about. Try making an coherent argument, if you have any, instead of throwing vague insults.

“That said, the article would have been a lot better without moralizing about harmful colonialism,”

Your bias towards flippantly dismissing colonialism is insulting to those groups of people who experienced it. Do better.

No need to be rude

It wasn't any more "rude" than repeatedly throwing vague insults and insinuations at me without providing the real reason. But I don't see you caring about that. We both know why. Because "rudeness" is not your real concern, your real concern is the same as the other culture warrior, and you're avoiding stating it directly for the same reasons – it's entirely unfounded and indefensible. So instead you go with vague nastyness that you think could be mistaken for something profound and is therefore above criticism (it can't, and it isn't).

If by any chance that is not what you meant to come off as, you may want to reconsider low-effort passive aggressive one liners as your communication medium.

On the contrary, I'd say it proves their point. They don't know or care whether it's about Polynesians or Melanesians (and I don't think you care either - would you have considered their comment fine if they'd named the correct group of people?). It doesn't matter.

You’re dead wrong, I do care. It does matter. I disagree with the comment but I would not have responded this way if it hadn’t made such a blatant factual error. If we’re going to make assumptions about the internal mental state of other commenters, would you have said the same thing if he misidentified, say, Germans for French? I don’t think you would have.

> would you have said the same thing if he misidentified, say, Germans for French?

In a context like this? Yes. I struggle to think of a phrase that bears the same relation to France or Germany, but can't think I'd care more. (I think I heard once that the "let them eat cake" princess was actually in Spain rather than France? But no-one cares)

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