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Comment by snowwrestler | Hacker News Reader

An example of the great 21st century American power struggle: a fight to define who has been victimized more, and can therefore assume the mantle of moral authority.

edit: spelling

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I don't read PA's critics as arguing from a position of having "been vicimized [sic]." Their status as survivors is incidental to their argument. I read the criticism as being about the lack of empathy of PA's authors for their audience. You could replace the critics' status with gender-minority, and you'll find a more recent incident where Gabe was unable to empathize with his audience (denying the existence of transgender). Some comedians bill themselves as jerks and carve out a niche for their audience, but Penny Arcade purports to provide laughs for all gamers.

While I am pleased that race-gender-sex-preference tensions are being discussed in public in the 21st century, but I find it highly questionable that this is a greater power struggle than the classic 20th century struggles of war and labor. Especially given that what is at stake here is mostly audience size and hurt feelings, compared to livelihood and physical anguish.

40% of transgendered people have attempted suicide. Assault is pretty common. There is a lot of life at stake here.

I meant what is at stake in the victimization olympics framework that I was responding to. Downplaying violence against minorities was not intended.

I must have missed the memo where I was told I have to care. Maybe my sense of social order is broken, but I tend not to care too much about who's trying to be king of that hill.

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