231–240 of 1001 posts
Am I not alone in thinking this Neo-puritanism is going too far?
Nobody on Hacker News compares that policy with Nazi book burning though.
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The Seuss books being removed aren't Green Eggs & Ham: they're the older racist books that Seuss apologized for later.
They're not racist - they're books with caricatures of any number of cultures, including Western cultures. It's possible people could be offended, but they're not any more offensive than any creative depiction of anything (Edit: poor choice of words there - they are more offensive than 'anything' but not more so than many things). All of Disney's films, even the most modern one's are caricatured articulations of cult…
My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for rapid acceleration rather than moderation.
It’s been steady progression for a while. Welcome to the struggle, lol. The only bright side is that the people on other side are really incompetent. The gender studies degrees have no meaning when power goes out and sink is backed up. Most people play along because they think it’s their kids play acting to progressive ideals. They will get rude awakening when the little progs come for their heads. This will play out…
Would you please not create accounts to break the site guidelines with? We're trying for something other than that here.
I think nearly every reasonable person agrees: - Particular illustrations have not aged well - The content itself nor Dr. Seuss can be accused of malice - The offending content is not really a high risk of perpetrating future malice - It's completely within the right of the publisher to not want to profit from these books anymore But at no point did it seem like anyone made the point that you can't read or enjoy the…
I don't agree with this. Dr. Seuss's books are read by children when their minds are most malleable and least able to recognize context. Leaving these problematic images on library shelves for them to discover means that some of those children will grow up believing it's okay to think about other people that way. I know by my own experience how difficult it is to unlearn something I saw as a child. I wouldn't want to expose my children to the same things that will burden them with those stereotypes. Or worse, that they wouldn't think of the stereotypes as a burden.
Certainly we can't and shouldn't erase the past and these books are an important part of our history. But they should be left alone there, solely for historians and researchers and not for children.
Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…
> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Private libraries can do whatever they like. Public ones should be required to carry even the most offensive book.
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its not a cultural revolution, its a cultural intimidation, where groups have come to realize the real power of social media is to name, shame, and blame. there is no middle ground here, you cannot debate anything, as they consider no moral higher than what they profess. this is some serious Soviet Union type stuff being done to rewrite the world, no limits on how back one can go for an accusation, and then erasing p…
What’s happening is exactly the same as the Chinese cultural revolution.
About 5 years ago a friend of mine was saying, "yeah, it's bad at the universities but it doesn't affect the real world." Pretty funny how quickly things accelerated. I'd like to get off this ride.
Yup. The adults in the room should have nipped this crap in the bud but instead they entertained it. Now it’s a much bigger problem to solve. Check out SFUSD renaming racists schools like “Lincoln High”. Eventually parents had start a recall effort to end it.
What is the problem that needs to be solved?
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and from a platform that still allows Mein Kampf to be listed it seems especially idiotic... Edit, to add: as a comment below notes eBay only allows annotated versions of the book. So maybe they are consistent; I didn’t click through any of the listings when I searched. I also have no idea how you annotate Mein Kampf to not be racist/anti-Semitic propaganda...
Only annotated editions apparently.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26350364
My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for rapid acceleration rather than moderation.