They Died from Covid. Then the Online Attacks Started(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
They Died from Covid. Then the Online Attacks Started
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/27/style/anti-vaccine-deaths-social-media.html
68 comments
I don't "celebrate" their deaths, but when someone uses a position of authority to endanger others by discouraging basic measures like getting vaccines and staying 6+ feet apart, or by claiming the disease is a librul plot, and then dies of the disease, I can't help but feel some schadenfreude.
I still feel bad for their families. Not only did they lose a loved one, they learned the relative value their loved one placed on their lives. That is tragic.
I still feel bad for their families. Not only did they lose a loved one, they learned the relative value their loved one placed on their lives. That is tragic.
That does not sound very convincing. I think "Schadenfreude" in this case is an expression of an inferiority complex to be honest. Your pathos for victims doesn't seem to be genuine, it sounds like a pretext to be able to blame others, preferably along some partisan lines.
I am vaccinated but I don't believe unvaccinated people endanger me or other unvaccinated people, nor that we should mandate vaccination, especially not for young people. I assume that sooner or later we will have a conflict, it is fairly predictable.
I am vaccinated but I don't believe unvaccinated people endanger me or other unvaccinated people, nor that we should mandate vaccination, especially not for young people. I assume that sooner or later we will have a conflict, it is fairly predictable.
I think the overarching disturbing thing that leads to other disturbing things like that is a basic disregard for common decency in dialog, or, more simply, an enormous partisan divide.
When you have one side arguing they don’t want to get vaccinated because only old or unhealthy people are at risk, where is their empathy? Where is their care for not just the dead but the living and vulnerable? All this because medicine has been politicized by hucksters and opportunists.
The public shaming of figures like Herman Cain who contributed to the anti-vaccination discourse that is leading to thousands of preventable deaths is arguably justifiable when the person who died contributed via public statements to the spread of deadly misinformation.
The public shaming of figures like Herman Cain who contributed to the anti-vaccination discourse that is leading to thousands of preventable deaths is arguably justifiable when the person who died contributed via public statements to the spread of deadly misinformation.
See for yourself the Reddit forum that NYT alludes to:
https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
Notable rule on that subreddit:
> Posts about non-public figures must redact the entire name(s) of everyone in every image. Block it out completely. Don't scribble and allow redacted names to leak through. Profile pictures are not allowed and must be blocked out.
https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
Notable rule on that subreddit:
> Posts about non-public figures must redact the entire name(s) of everyone in every image. Block it out completely. Don't scribble and allow redacted names to leak through. Profile pictures are not allowed and must be blocked out.
Adding on: some HNers are strawmanning, claiming HCA is mocking random poor innocent covid deceased, when the rule specifically says (emphasis mine):
> "Nominees have made public declaration of their anti-mask, anti-vax, or Covid-hoax views, followed by admission to hospital for Covid"
Much of the point of the Herman Cain Award is that the award winners were mocking others for wearing masks, getting vaccinated, and socially distancing.
These anti-mask/anti-vax people have been absolutely prolific in physically assaulting (up to and including murdering) retail staff. Harassing and assaulting flight attendants, with record numbers of . Harassing school committee members and public health officials, such that meetings have had to go virtual or have police presence.
...and here we are clutching pearls because the stuff they posted publicly on social media is being reposted? And occasionally people are figuring out who they are and harassing the families?
It's worth noting that HCA posts regularly include follow-up social media posts by family members or friends expressing anger at the deceased's friends who continue espouse anti-mask/vax views, or who express regret, or encourage people to mask and vaccinate...and that from reading the sub for months, I often see a lot of comments from people empathizing with the family members and friends of the deceased.
> "Nominees have made public declaration of their anti-mask, anti-vax, or Covid-hoax views, followed by admission to hospital for Covid"
Much of the point of the Herman Cain Award is that the award winners were mocking others for wearing masks, getting vaccinated, and socially distancing.
These anti-mask/anti-vax people have been absolutely prolific in physically assaulting (up to and including murdering) retail staff. Harassing and assaulting flight attendants, with record numbers of . Harassing school committee members and public health officials, such that meetings have had to go virtual or have police presence.
...and here we are clutching pearls because the stuff they posted publicly on social media is being reposted? And occasionally people are figuring out who they are and harassing the families?
It's worth noting that HCA posts regularly include follow-up social media posts by family members or friends expressing anger at the deceased's friends who continue espouse anti-mask/vax views, or who express regret, or encourage people to mask and vaccinate...and that from reading the sub for months, I often see a lot of comments from people empathizing with the family members and friends of the deceased.
These were individual actors but you blame people as a group. You can justify that all you want, but it will never be anything other than a distraction of your own personal failures.
Reddit is famously okay with hate if you hate the right group of people see /r/FuckYouKaren, /r/COVIDAteMyFace/ and of course aforementioned sub.
And thank God for it. Entitled people harassing retail workers deserve our hate. Idiots who endanger those around them by ridiculing anti-pandemic measures deserve our hate. You act like hate is a bad thing where criminals and plague-spreaders are the targets.
You've unfortunately been using HN primarily for ideological battle as well as breaking the site guidelines egregiously, and repeatedly, in other ways. We ban accounts that do that, because we're trying for something considerably different on this site.
I'm not going to ban you right now because I've noticed a few good comments in the mix*, but we badly need you to review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules if you want to keep posting here. Would you please do that? We'd appreciate it.
* e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29360124 (Nov 2021) and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27163099 (May 2021) - those are the kind of thing this site is supposed to be for!
I'm not going to ban you right now because I've noticed a few good comments in the mix*, but we badly need you to review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules if you want to keep posting here. Would you please do that? We'd appreciate it.
* e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29360124 (Nov 2021) and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27163099 (May 2021) - those are the kind of thing this site is supposed to be for!
Reddit has a similar subreddit for the opposite, people who didn't take the vaccine and died, and it's also so filthy. Seems hypocritical of NY times not to report on it.
> Reddit has a similar subreddit for the opposite, people who didn't take the vaccine and died
/r/HermanCainAward is the subreddit you're referring to here.
/r/HermanCainAward is the subreddit you're referring to here.
What's the difference in subscriber numbers? Probably one or more orders of magnitude. I've never even heard of the one you're alluding to.
this is one of the many reason the left has left me.
things like /r/covidatemyface and /r/HermanCainAward/ - full of so-called progressives and their endless pseudo-empathy, not seeing this as opportunity to increase understanding about this situation and more as an tribalistic moment to "score points" and have a good laugh at the ignorance and death of others and the pain their families have to endure in the wake of their loss.
things like /r/covidatemyface and /r/HermanCainAward/ - full of so-called progressives and their endless pseudo-empathy, not seeing this as opportunity to increase understanding about this situation and more as an tribalistic moment to "score points" and have a good laugh at the ignorance and death of others and the pain their families have to endure in the wake of their loss.
You can be progressive and not have any compassion left for ignorance. Don’t confuse policy positions with being a doormat for those who equate beliefs and opinions with facts (which is troubling frequent in a post truth world).
My apologies to Meta, “data wins arguments.” All of this loss (r/HCA) was mostly avoidable (based on all available information) with a free vaccine, and the subreddit raised over $56k [1] for vaccine donations to those who were not so lucky to have it freely available.
(Posted while waiting for my child’s COVID vaccination to be administered)
[1] https://gogiveone.org/coalition/
My apologies to Meta, “data wins arguments.” All of this loss (r/HCA) was mostly avoidable (based on all available information) with a free vaccine, and the subreddit raised over $56k [1] for vaccine donations to those who were not so lucky to have it freely available.
(Posted while waiting for my child’s COVID vaccination to be administered)
[1] https://gogiveone.org/coalition/
Progressive doesn't mean compassion. It did once for a period but society has progressed into something else. Progressive now means welding power over those views you wish to change for the greater good. Progressive became regressive.
It makes sense to reject the groupthink of the Parties and see the merit in both left and right flavored analyses of issues. But your focusing on "the left" is indicative that your comment isn't straightforward. The few long tail extremists associated with either Party aren't an indictment of the core, rather they're a straw man for the other Party to bash to shore up their own ranks.
It's ghoulish, but it's also just a very political version of the Darwin Awards and Florida Man, which the internet has collectively decided is acceptable.
Is this really news? I don't think this is a new phenomenon. I think most of us have witnessed comments like this in one topic or another - 'people who didn't get vaccinated deserved to die' (or the old gay people and AIDS stuff), 'anti-gun Baldwin killed more people than all of my guns' (other old Ted Kennedy car saying), etc.
Putting aside any special reverence we might have for the dead, I guess the abstract question is: is there any social value to publicly shaming those who uncritically call into question settled scientific claims, putting others at risk?
I would say there is some value. Our society will not survive if it is socially acceptable to do this. COVID is exhibit A. Climate science is exhibit B.
Settled scientific matters, like the usefulness of safe vaccines, is not on the same playing field as politics or religion. If there is a belief among some that settled scientific questions are a matter of non-expert public debate, then that needs to be corrected. Public shaming might help.
I would say there is some value. Our society will not survive if it is socially acceptable to do this. COVID is exhibit A. Climate science is exhibit B.
Settled scientific matters, like the usefulness of safe vaccines, is not on the same playing field as politics or religion. If there is a belief among some that settled scientific questions are a matter of non-expert public debate, then that needs to be corrected. Public shaming might help.
public shaming, and more so mobbing, is not an adequate method of civilised dialogue. The argument in favor is highly consequentialistic: if the total result is a net positive, the method is deemed morally right. However i consider this method wrong on principle as it uses emotional/psychological violence at the hand of vigilantes. More so the use of such violence is eristic: the method itself doesn't lead to a deeper truth or understanding, it just aims at winning a dispute, claiming that the victims must best be forced to see the truth. Because of this it can easily be abused to lead away from truth as well. It does not matter how obviously stupid or wrong you consider your opponents opinion to be: the restriction that the use of such methods is ok, when it is used by the right side of an argument, doesn't lend itself to an enlightened discourse. Now one may argue that humans are naturally violent, that their behavior is highly linked to how it influences their social status and that shaming and mobbing are natural phenomenons in how group dynamics work, that humans are not, at large, enlightened, but from the perspective of civilized morality it is a barbaric method. It is unsurprising that it happens, but one should sneer at it and clearly show those who use it that they are not morally sublime ;-)
I guess that depends on who gets to decide value and in what manner.
Settled scientific facts are not the same as politics and policy. They can be useful in determining policy, but are not a default policy. It also depends on how those facts get linked together. You need to question the n-order impacts to devise good policy.
"If there is a belief among some that settled scientific questions are a matter of non-expert public debate, then that needs to be corrected."
Policy should be debated by the people. You need an informed citizenry for democracy to function.
Sure, we can publicly shame people for just about anything (1st Ammendment). What is acceptable depends on what the group or society decides. For example, should we fat shame people to reduce healthcare costs on aggregate?
We also need to weigh societal benefit of shaming against any societal detriment like a reduction in civility.
Settled scientific facts are not the same as politics and policy. They can be useful in determining policy, but are not a default policy. It also depends on how those facts get linked together. You need to question the n-order impacts to devise good policy.
"If there is a belief among some that settled scientific questions are a matter of non-expert public debate, then that needs to be corrected."
Policy should be debated by the people. You need an informed citizenry for democracy to function.
Sure, we can publicly shame people for just about anything (1st Ammendment). What is acceptable depends on what the group or society decides. For example, should we fat shame people to reduce healthcare costs on aggregate?
We also need to weigh societal benefit of shaming against any societal detriment like a reduction in civility.
> Settled scientific facts are not the same as politics and policy
Except that we are talking about scientific facts here, and not policy. If the political movement accepted that vaccines are seemingly safe and effective, but still rejected getting them based on some other critique, that would be a political topic. Or if say the "anti-mask" movement were solely against mask mandates, while encouraging everyone to be personally responsible and wear a mask, that would be political (I myself would have been in this camp if more people had worn respirators). But rather than making a defensible political point in the wider context of scientific reality, these movements have backstopped their positions with blatantly false scientific-seeming disinformation. And so the overall situation really is a matter of scientific facts having been politicized, and not science being used to dictate policy.
Except that we are talking about scientific facts here, and not policy. If the political movement accepted that vaccines are seemingly safe and effective, but still rejected getting them based on some other critique, that would be a political topic. Or if say the "anti-mask" movement were solely against mask mandates, while encouraging everyone to be personally responsible and wear a mask, that would be political (I myself would have been in this camp if more people had worn respirators). But rather than making a defensible political point in the wider context of scientific reality, these movements have backstopped their positions with blatantly false scientific-seeming disinformation. And so the overall situation really is a matter of scientific facts having been politicized, and not science being used to dictate policy.
Perhaps the lumping together of various opinions and he implication that the political movement doesn't accept general safety is what's causing the disconnect here. It seems that many of those being shamed on that Reddit did not share misinformation, or even any public misinformation on the vaccine.
Vaccines are generally safe. There are a number of factors that an individual may weigh to consider their value. Many of the opponents are against mandates so that individuals can weigh the choice themselves.
Sure, there are people who say things that are blatantly untrue (on both sides). We can try to shame them for false information. We still have the question of how civil this shaming should be. It also depends on group/public sentiment on how useful this will be - it could be seen as a badge of honor, group think can play a role too.
Vaccines are generally safe. There are a number of factors that an individual may weigh to consider their value. Many of the opponents are against mandates so that individuals can weigh the choice themselves.
Sure, there are people who say things that are blatantly untrue (on both sides). We can try to shame them for false information. We still have the question of how civil this shaming should be. It also depends on group/public sentiment on how useful this will be - it could be seen as a badge of honor, group think can play a role too.
Shame is like a gun, it's only as good as the hands that its in.
And even then winds up doing more harm than good.
Best case scenario, you shame someone into compliance and then there's a good chance they harbor negative feelings over how they were treated.
And even then winds up doing more harm than good.
Best case scenario, you shame someone into compliance and then there's a good chance they harbor negative feelings over how they were treated.
The results of Millikan's oil drop experiment were settled. They were also wrong.
Calling for people to not subject fact claims to scrutiny because they're considered settled is not a pro-science position. It's anti-science.
Matters of science don't need anyone to come to the universe's aid by telling people to give it a rest. They'll hold up.
Calling for people to not subject fact claims to scrutiny because they're considered settled is not a pro-science position. It's anti-science.
Matters of science don't need anyone to come to the universe's aid by telling people to give it a rest. They'll hold up.
There is a difference between the results of one experiment in a narrow subfield, and the results of an uncountable number of experiments across disciplines and time.
There is a difference "subjecting fact claims to scrutiny" and people without scientific training weighing in on scientific questions.
Most people on this forum would have no problem mocking someone who believed their cell phone worked by magic. Somehow the logic is different when the topic is vaccines.
There is a difference "subjecting fact claims to scrutiny" and people without scientific training weighing in on scientific questions.
Most people on this forum would have no problem mocking someone who believed their cell phone worked by magic. Somehow the logic is different when the topic is vaccines.
> people without scientific training weighing in on scientific questions
Tell Faraday.
What is the end goal? What you're describing carries a non-zero risk but provides zero benefit. To repeat: science by its nature doesn't need anyone to ensure the scales are tipped in its favor. They're welded into that position.
> Most people on this forum would have no problem mocking someone who believed their cell phone worked by magic
Should they? If you're doing something for sport, then be honest about it. Don't couch it in pro-science terms when actual belief goes the other way just because circumstances mean you can get by without having to show your work this time.
> Somehow the logic is different when the topic is vaccines.
This is pretty blatantly dipping a toe into waters of both strawmanning and ad hominem. Stop trying to read between the lines. It's not helping you get the right answer here. (I'm vaccinated. Cast your insults and aspersions somewhere else.)
Tell Faraday.
What is the end goal? What you're describing carries a non-zero risk but provides zero benefit. To repeat: science by its nature doesn't need anyone to ensure the scales are tipped in its favor. They're welded into that position.
> Most people on this forum would have no problem mocking someone who believed their cell phone worked by magic
Should they? If you're doing something for sport, then be honest about it. Don't couch it in pro-science terms when actual belief goes the other way just because circumstances mean you can get by without having to show your work this time.
> Somehow the logic is different when the topic is vaccines.
This is pretty blatantly dipping a toe into waters of both strawmanning and ad hominem. Stop trying to read between the lines. It's not helping you get the right answer here. (I'm vaccinated. Cast your insults and aspersions somewhere else.)
In a general sense, can you call something a "settled scientific matter" if so many people are in disagreement about it (ignoring your or my own personal beliefs)? The idea that anything is "settled" with regards to something as young as covid seems a little bold to me.
That aside, there is plenty of social value to trashing people that are in the out group. If you meant is there utility for the whole population, sure, if you can guarantee that you are correct in your position and that shaming will have the desired effect. That seems unlikely in general, but especially in the case of a bunch of redditors shitting on dead people.
That aside, there is plenty of social value to trashing people that are in the out group. If you meant is there utility for the whole population, sure, if you can guarantee that you are correct in your position and that shaming will have the desired effect. That seems unlikely in general, but especially in the case of a bunch of redditors shitting on dead people.
The OA story is a great illustration why we should never put aside common decency. Break down indecent behavior dampening barriers at the risk of fickle mobs looking for the next target to shame. No one is safe. Even the most self-interested person has plenty to gain from a society that highly values common decency.
* Meet other people? The settled science is that you are putting others at risk of infectious disease.
* Drive a car? The settled science is that you are putting others at risk of blunt force trauma.
* Have a barbecue party? The settled science is that you are putting others at risk of food poisoning.
* Meet other people? The settled science is that you are putting others at risk of infectious disease.
* Drive a car? The settled science is that you are putting others at risk of blunt force trauma.
* Have a barbecue party? The settled science is that you are putting others at risk of food poisoning.
The usefulness isn't settled at all. We don't even know how long it protects. It pretty much doesn't severely help people under the age of 50 by mortality rate.
We know it does not protect against transmission or infection. It probably only reduces the severity of the disease. But that data is anything other than settled.
We know it does not protect against transmission or infection. It probably only reduces the severity of the disease. But that data is anything other than settled.
Settled science matters is an oxymoron. The very nature of the scientist method is to continually question.
Public shaming of anyone who questions non-experts who only remain experts if they parrot the party line?
Sounds like you've moving into religion.
Public shaming of anyone who questions non-experts who only remain experts if they parrot the party line?
Sounds like you've moving into religion.
There's not much use in reading the comments on /r/HermanCainAward, but the submissions themselves can be quite enlightening (the ones tagged "awarded" or "nominated").
These follow the same general format: assorted social media posts from the subject over the course of the pandemic to the point they are hospitalized or killed by COVID, often followed by social media posts asking for help with medical bills or funeral expenses.
The social media posts are often reposting memes and agreeing with them. People are using these memes to help make medical decisions. Many seem convinced that by taking advice from memes instead their doctor, local or state departments of health, and similar that they are "doing their own research".
The first thing that surprised me was how weak many of these memes were. For example I've seen several were people seemed to be taking seriously as an anti-mask argument a meme about how underpants and pants can't stop people nearby from smelling your fart so why would you expect a mask to stop a virus?
I don't expect everyone to remember enough from their school days to remember that we sense odor by sensing individual molecules emitted by the source of odor, that these are often quite small (one of the major fart smell molecules just has 3 atoms), and that viruses are much larger (the smallest virus has almost 30k atoms, and the COVID-19 virus has about 6700x as many as that).
But I'd expect everyone, before deciding that a meme is a better info source than the doctor, health departments, etc., to do at least a little checking like Googling what causes farts to smell and Googling the COVID virus and then seeing that the former is a lot smaller, and so yes you should expect some difference in what it takes to filter them.
Furthermore, a lot of these people seem to have quite a few social media friends. So even if they fail to do all of the above I'd expect them to have at least one friend who either remembers how odors and viruses work or who looks it up and warns them that the meme is giving bad advice.
I knew social media exposes you to a lot more misinformation than you would normally get, but I had thought that for people with many social media friends that large friend group would somewhat counter that but that doesn't seem to be the case. For some reason it seems people's friend groups on social media are too homogenous, and so the same weak meme gets them all.
It's similar for most of the other memes common on these posts. Most are as flawed as the fart one, I would have expected a fair number of people to see the flaws immediately just from general knowledge from middle school or high school, and if not I'd have expected many to do the small amount of research to check it out, and for those who do neither I'd have expected some of the friends to do so and post. Seeing how far off my expectations were has been an eye opener.
These follow the same general format: assorted social media posts from the subject over the course of the pandemic to the point they are hospitalized or killed by COVID, often followed by social media posts asking for help with medical bills or funeral expenses.
The social media posts are often reposting memes and agreeing with them. People are using these memes to help make medical decisions. Many seem convinced that by taking advice from memes instead their doctor, local or state departments of health, and similar that they are "doing their own research".
The first thing that surprised me was how weak many of these memes were. For example I've seen several were people seemed to be taking seriously as an anti-mask argument a meme about how underpants and pants can't stop people nearby from smelling your fart so why would you expect a mask to stop a virus?
I don't expect everyone to remember enough from their school days to remember that we sense odor by sensing individual molecules emitted by the source of odor, that these are often quite small (one of the major fart smell molecules just has 3 atoms), and that viruses are much larger (the smallest virus has almost 30k atoms, and the COVID-19 virus has about 6700x as many as that).
But I'd expect everyone, before deciding that a meme is a better info source than the doctor, health departments, etc., to do at least a little checking like Googling what causes farts to smell and Googling the COVID virus and then seeing that the former is a lot smaller, and so yes you should expect some difference in what it takes to filter them.
Furthermore, a lot of these people seem to have quite a few social media friends. So even if they fail to do all of the above I'd expect them to have at least one friend who either remembers how odors and viruses work or who looks it up and warns them that the meme is giving bad advice.
I knew social media exposes you to a lot more misinformation than you would normally get, but I had thought that for people with many social media friends that large friend group would somewhat counter that but that doesn't seem to be the case. For some reason it seems people's friend groups on social media are too homogenous, and so the same weak meme gets them all.
It's similar for most of the other memes common on these posts. Most are as flawed as the fart one, I would have expected a fair number of people to see the flaws immediately just from general knowledge from middle school or high school, and if not I'd have expected many to do the small amount of research to check it out, and for those who do neither I'd have expected some of the friends to do so and post. Seeing how far off my expectations were has been an eye opener.
Good to highlight this. I became aware of the evils of the "alt-right" when they started trolling suicide memorial pages.
This is a similar attack coming from the polar side of the political spectrum. You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this.
If the pro-vaccine left does not distance itself from this ugly evil within their midsts, it should go a similar route as the alt-right did, in the eyes of the public: a terrorist and fascist organization.
Should really make you pause the next time someone on Twitter points to a target and says: do your thing.
This is a similar attack coming from the polar side of the political spectrum. You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this.
If the pro-vaccine left does not distance itself from this ugly evil within their midsts, it should go a similar route as the alt-right did, in the eyes of the public: a terrorist and fascist organization.
Should really make you pause the next time someone on Twitter points to a target and says: do your thing.
Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. It's exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'm generally sympathetic to arguments using parts of this framework ("be careful with this shit, Left"), but
"the pro-vaccine left [should be seen as] a terrorist and fascist organization"
is insane.
Vaccines are mostly advocated by the technocratic center. There are things to be annoyed at this faction about, but they're not extreme and they're not bad.
Arguably, they're not even especially "left".
And the tribal Democrats who gloat about COVID, while shitty, are not even the dangerous/radical part of that party. They're just the stupid ones, the "football fans".
Yes, they should be told not to act like this. But in the long run they can be ignored.
"the pro-vaccine left [should be seen as] a terrorist and fascist organization"
is insane.
Vaccines are mostly advocated by the technocratic center. There are things to be annoyed at this faction about, but they're not extreme and they're not bad.
Arguably, they're not even especially "left".
And the tribal Democrats who gloat about COVID, while shitty, are not even the dangerous/radical part of that party. They're just the stupid ones, the "football fans".
Yes, they should be told not to act like this. But in the long run they can be ignored.
[deleted]
>You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this.
Who is "you"? An individual decrying the trolling of suicide victims while themselves trolling COVID victims? Then yes, you're right. But "the alt-right" is not a single person, nor is whatever their polar opposite is. This fallacy is at the heart of virtually all political bitterness. I do believe when something horrible happens and is highly correlated with a political group, leaders of that group should denounce it, but when something horrible happens in group A and a similar horrible thing happens in group B, that doesn't inherently mean that anybody is a hypocrite. It just means that horrible people are members of both groups.
Who is "you"? An individual decrying the trolling of suicide victims while themselves trolling COVID victims? Then yes, you're right. But "the alt-right" is not a single person, nor is whatever their polar opposite is. This fallacy is at the heart of virtually all political bitterness. I do believe when something horrible happens and is highly correlated with a political group, leaders of that group should denounce it, but when something horrible happens in group A and a similar horrible thing happens in group B, that doesn't inherently mean that anybody is a hypocrite. It just means that horrible people are members of both groups.
You are trying for a false equivalence. What is the "pro-vaccine left?" Is there a "pro JFK Jr. is dead left?" What does that even mean?
This exact rhetoric is something you often hear whenever any sort of left leaning person does anything remotely incriminating. It's really hard to separate the reasonable criticism from the neonazi trolling, which usually leaves one to search for embedded dog whistles. Of which this post has a few. I will leave it up to you if that is something you wish to address.
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'll try to be better. This was ill-advised.
Reuzel(2)
I'm always suspicious about who is actually making these posts. Surely it is obvious to them that nobody would ever fall for it or treat it in good faith. The only conclusion that seems to make any sense is that the authors are being paid to write these comments.
> Surely it is obvious to them that nobody would ever fall for it or treat it in good faith.
This says a lot about you, and makes me suspicious about your posts.
You either assume that someone with a different view is lying, that they don't even believe in their own views, because these are obviously wrong.
Or you are unable to treat posts in good faith, suspecting a commercial incentive.
So, you can not contribute anything to this community. If you disagree, it is because you disagree with liars. And who treats something in good faith, when they suspect the other person is not acting in good faith?
Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute and should look for a community where everybody agrees or promises to act in good faith.
This says a lot about you, and makes me suspicious about your posts.
You either assume that someone with a different view is lying, that they don't even believe in their own views, because these are obviously wrong.
Or you are unable to treat posts in good faith, suspecting a commercial incentive.
So, you can not contribute anything to this community. If you disagree, it is because you disagree with liars. And who treats something in good faith, when they suspect the other person is not acting in good faith?
Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute and should look for a community where everybody agrees or promises to act in good faith.
> Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute
It is quite rude to tell someone that they have absolutely nothing to add just because they confess they have trouble seeing a benign motivation behind your post.
Clearly they have something to contribute: a viewpoint that is their own, that they are willing to talk about without undue animosity.
It is quite rude to tell someone that they have absolutely nothing to add just because they confess they have trouble seeing a benign motivation behind your post.
Clearly they have something to contribute: a viewpoint that is their own, that they are willing to talk about without undue animosity.
I think most posts are made by real people that believe they are doing the right thing. Sometimes tragically
1. Celebrating the deaths of people who didn’t get vaccinated because they were pro.
2. Mocking the deaths of anyone who died from Covid under the assumption that it’s being politically over-labeled.
There’s a sign in a funeral home in my hometown with a quote that leaves me very disturbed about our future. “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”
- William E. Gladstone