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Comment by pyrale | Hacker News Reader

> "you are wrong, you should feel bad, you're not allowed to use the thing you were wrong about anymore".

I didn't remember reading that in the article. Just as a second-check, I've re-read and none of what you say appears in the text. You're building a strawman.

> you're not allowed to

Specifically about this part, we're talking about someone writing on his blog about something he took the time to dig into and sharing his opinion. There isn't much the author can do to be less prescriptive, besides shutting up.

This trope of interpreting every counter-cultural opinion, in every form, as "the powers that be want to gag us" is a way of saying that you won't hear even the smallest dissent.

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The article ends by saying:

"The pop-culture cargo cult erases the decades of colonial oppression, along with the cultural upheaval and deaths from World War II. Melanesians deserve to be more than the punch line in a cargo cult story. Thus, it's time to move beyond the cargo cult metaphor."

for which the OPs summary is an acceptable paraphrase.

> for which the OPs summary is an acceptable paraphrase.

So someone writing their opinion on their personal blog is equivalent to some authority making a ruling about what you're allowed to?

Freedom of speech has always come with other people being free to tell you that you're wrong and should stop. There is nothing wrong in it, and no freedom of speech is harmed as long as the person stating their position is not in a position to enforce some form of authority.

People may not like what they hear, but feeling oppressed because someone wrote their disagreement on a personal blog is a pathological form of this free-speech rethoric.

You're changing the subject. They said it was a scolding blog. You said that there was no scolding. Someone pointed out obvious scolding. You said freedom of speech includes the right to scold. What you should have said was "sorry, I was mistaken."

You started dishonestly (accusing someone of distorting the article when they were just disagreeing with it), why would anyone now want to have a completely different conversation with you about "free speech"? Do you assume that everyone should want to censor everything that they disagree with?

> People may not like what they hear, but feeling oppressed because someone wrote their disagreement on a personal blog

Now people aren't allowed to feel? Why?

> is a pathological form of this free-speech rethoric.

Are you a doctor or something? Do doctors diagnose rhetoric? Is it "rhetoric" to say how something makes you feel? Why are you telling people how to feel, or giving lectures about free speech?

You've done a great job of tearing off from the actual topic in just the right subtle ways to make it seem like what you're saying actually makes any sense in the context of the blog post and the person you're replying to. Bravo.

The original person you are responding to never said they were oppressed, they said calling for the abandonment of the term is woke nonsense.

Someone’s personal conclusion can be summed as “you should feel bad”? I think that’s if you feel bad for using the metaphor after reading this, that’s on you. The author just wrote up a deep dive into the problem and concluded that it’s not a great metaphor, in their opinion.

The thing about these woke types is they usually mean really well. But in the process they will effortlessly fall into being absolute cunts.

This one time I got a 'concerned' mail from a dude, remarking that he didn't like some of my public comments. It was longwinded, verbose and Very Serious. He tried to empathize with me by imagining what my politics might be, how I might feel about some of his remarks, etc.

The thing was:

- he got my politics completely wrong

- at no point did he actually cite a single concrete example

- he never actually asked any questions or clarifications

The entire thing was a one-sided lecture he was delivering to an image of me he had created in his head. Once you understand this, you understand woke and why so many people find it so unbearable.

I don’t think the author made a single judgment call on people who use the metaphor. However in the first paragraph of your comment, you lumped them into a strawman group that you use profanity to refer to. So my point is just that readers are taking personal offense to an untargeted opinion piece, and then directing that back to the author and unknown other people with uncalled-for animosity.

Edit: “delivering to an image of me he had created in his head” - the author doesn’t know you, afaik. He probably didn’t send you this link personally after writing it. You yourself have decided that the article is targeted at you and that it is intended to be negative.

I’ve used the term cargo cult a hundred times. I generally think it’s a useful metaphor. I do not feel offended in any way by this article.

So you think the guy shouldn’t post this on his personal blog?

I didn't imply that the article said those exact words, I was restating the article's subtext. I should have used italics rather than quotes though, my bad.

> You're building a strawman.

Given the large number of people in this thread who got the same impression from the article as me, I don't think so. I think this is the actual subtext of the article, stated simply.

> There isn't much the author can do to be less prescriptive, besides shutting up.

Actually there's a huge amount they could do to be less prescriptive, such as using phrases like here's what I'm gonna do but you can make up your own mind.

> Given the large number of people in this thread who got the same impression from the article as me

People count doesn't make sound logic. You will find large numbers of people believing the weirdest things, if you're so inclined.

> I think this is the actual subtext of the article, stated simply.

You used the sentence "you are not allowed". How do you think the blog owner will coerce you if you do not comply with his order ?

> Actually there's a huge amount they could do to be less prescriptive, such as using phrases like here's what I'm gonna do but you can make up your own mind.

Would you describe your own reply on HN as telling people what they're allowed to do or not to do?

Why are you being so obnoxiously pedantic? You know exactly what he meant in his initial comment haha. I suspect this might be a fools errand to ask as this place is chock full with socially inept nerds as it's a tech board but... have you ever had a conversation in real life? You're solidifying statements and hyperbole in a strange and unnatural manner.

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