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Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

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Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#381

Post by Aerroon »

supernova87a wrote: post #55

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.

If the library is publicly funded, then I don't really think this is OK. They might decide to not purchase additional copies of some books they disagree with, but I certainly don't want them to limit lending of what they have.

If the library takes no public money then they can obviously do whatever they want.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#383

Post by xvedejas »

leguy wrote: post #335
supernova87a wrote: post #55

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…

Eh, I feel eBay has more of a right to ban books than a library. Both are bad, and it’s terrible that society is in a place where book banning is virtuous.

I don't necessarily think eBay should be forced with legal might to sell these books -- but it's a terribly bad look for their company. Book banning has always felt scummy to me, and I always think back to being a child when many in my community participated in Harry Potter book burning events. Book burning, witch burning, it's all mob mentality and it's terrifying.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#384

Post by refenestrator »

hintymad wrote: post #347

I was wondering if Americans learned history of other countries in school. HN users or Americans in general probably think China is a totalitarian country, but even Chinese students are taught in both elementary and high schools, repeatedly, that an authoritarian regime always started with moralizing everything, always started with telling its citizens to hate their neighbors, and always told their citizens that misi…

History is written by the victors in all cases. If Hua and Deng didn't win against the Gang of Four, you'd have a different history of the cultural revolution. Fortunately, they won.

America's won too much, even when we're wrong or stupid, and our historical frame has suffered.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#385

Post by BLKNSLVR »

Igelau wrote: post #288
snicksnak wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hypersensitivity all started at universities. Eventually those bubble-wrapped students will enter the workforce and eventually will end up in higher positions in HR or PR departments driving those decisions. No surprise there.

Too late. HR has been moving to make us to stop using: blacklist, whitelist, sanity check, and master. It's a frighteningly difficult exercise in doublethink to take a required security course (produced by a third party) that refers to blacklist and whitelist and then having to self censor your own peer discussions about it.

What's a terminology to replace 'master' in the case of a 'master list'. I've used 'primary' and 'main', but they both imply the existence of a secondary or other acceptable replacement, which is rarely the case. "Single source of truth" is too cumbersome and often the incorrect context. 'Prime' looks like the best candidate going by synonyms. 'Authoritative' has too many syllables, although gets the point across.

Blacklist and whitelist, when looking at the etymology these terms are obviously problematic, and I happily use block/ban list and allow list. Easy. Even "Green list" and "Red list" would work fine, traffic lights won't mind.

Sanity check, never thought about that one. "Sense check" may have similar connotations, but the word sense, itself, has multiple meanings, so that's got a backdoor. Congruity check? I don't want to have to explain the word every time I ask for someone to "congruity check" a set of data.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#388

Post by cwkoss »

allturtles wrote: post #24
tomdell wrote: post #16

Surprised by the majority of comments here. How many of you have actually looked at these pictures? A private entity decided to stop publishing certain things. Another private entity is declining to sell old copies of said things. This is not “cancel culture” like conservative commentators want to make it out to be - and I think the publisher and now eBay are making the right call - children are impressionable, and p…

> children are impressionable Like how exposure to pictures of demons and pretending to be wizards turns young D&D players into satanists? And exposure to violent rap lyrics turns them into murderers? I have looked at the pictures, some make me cringe a bit, others don't seem like a big deal to me. And ultimately the Seuss copyright holders can do what they want, it's their property. I'm not sure why eBay feels the n…

I saw some of the images. eBay's actions seem a bit heavy handed, but I think its entirely appropriate that the Seuss estate wishes to stop producing new copies. If I was a parent and I randomly bought a Seuss book and got the racist caricature I saw, I'd be disappointed in the brand.

Most purchasers of Seuss books are not looking to start a dialog with their toddler about racism.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#389

Post by unityByFreedom »

refenestrator wrote: post #384
hintymad wrote: post #347

I was wondering if Americans learned history of other countries in school. HN users or Americans in general probably think China is a totalitarian country, but even Chinese students are taught in both elementary and high schools, repeatedly, that an authoritarian regime always started with moralizing everything, always started with telling its citizens to hate their neighbors, and always told their citizens that misi…

History is written by the victors in all cases. If Hua and Deng didn't win against the Gang of Four, you'd have a different history of the cultural revolution. Fortunately, they won. America's won too much, even when we're wrong or stupid, and our historical frame has suffered.

Economies are not zero sum. Every transaction has winners on both sides. People need different things at different times.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#390

Post by kiba »

refenestrator wrote: post #384
hintymad wrote: post #347

I was wondering if Americans learned history of other countries in school. HN users or Americans in general probably think China is a totalitarian country, but even Chinese students are taught in both elementary and high schools, repeatedly, that an authoritarian regime always started with moralizing everything, always started with telling its citizens to hate their neighbors, and always told their citizens that misi…

History is written by the victors in all cases. If Hua and Deng didn't win against the Gang of Four, you'd have a different history of the cultural revolution. Fortunately, they won. America's won too much, even when we're wrong or stupid, and our historical frame has suffered.

History is a lot more complicated and varied than the victors writing histories. Actually, it's people who know how to write that write history that writes history. Even then, they are not the final words on the subject.

Who care about the conqueror and winners of wars if they aren't literate?

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