Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

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Ignoring the fact that the status of women as property was a literal and legal fact for thousands of years...

I don't subscribe to such a convenient ethics, I'm afraid. The enormous power I derive from the society I live in I owe, in good part, to racial slavery, to the genocide of the people who lived where I live now, and, yes, to the systematic oppression of women, all in the name of the very nation I now consider myself a part of. By my privilege, I owe a moral debt to those murdered, enslaved, and terrorized people, and if it cannot be repaid it should at least be atoned for.

I could likewise say that I do not enslave children, while I purchase products made by those who do; but I do not believe that is the path to a better world.

Not all societies were patriarchies. Some are/were matriarchies. There were even some (like Sparta) that treated their women pretty equally.

>Ignoring the fact that the status of women as property was a literal and legal fact for thousands of years

No, it wasn't. You are deliberately conflating the life of some women to that of women period. It would be every bit as absurd and dishonest to claim that "the status of men as property was a literal and legal fact for thousands of years" because some men were slaves.

> By my privilege, I owe a moral debt to those murdered, enslaved, and terrorized people, and if it cannot be repaid it should at least be atoned for.

Yes, I know that your beliefs are hilarious. I am not suggesting that I do not understand them, but rather that they are in fact ridiculous. You can not atone for someone else's actions, and even if you could, being a whiney, hypersensitive bully on the internet is not atoning for anything.

And I understand you don't feel any culpability for evil done by others in your name and for your benefit. I suppose we will have to agree to disagree.

What evil was done in my name, or for my benefit? You are deliberately conflating someone incidentally benefiting from something with it being done to benefit them. Your consistent, deliberate dishonesty speaks volumes about your faith in your beliefs.

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