Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by chmod600 » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 6:52 AM UTC

There is one person with enough credibility to tell the Left to be liberal again: Barack Obama.

If he were still president, he would have never let it get this far, but he restrains himself because he doesn't want to undermine the Presidency or dilute his legacy. But he needs to lay some ground rules: liberalism is the vision of the Left, and book burning, race obsession, antipatriotism, and cancel culture won't get there.

Nobody on the right has any credibility on the left, so they can shout all they want and it won't make a difference. Biden doesn't have much credibility either. It needs to be the strongest person on the Left to define its destiny, so it must be Obama.

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

#562

Post by lgleason » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 6:53 AM UTC

As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here.

Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don't stand up for everyones ability (including views you do not like) to freely speak, the censorship will end up being turned against you.

The key things with all of this, is that if enough people were to collectively have the courage to push back against this craziness it would stop...people recognizing that there is a problem is a good first step.

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

#563

Post by tablespoon » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #492

whatever10 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah the typical authoritative propaganda “they are all the same, at least we have order”. No we don’t have in the US a non elected politburo making nationwide decisions on speech issues.

You miss the point. The point is the US in a way is worse than a totalitarian regime like China: in a totalitarian regime it is the government the pushes censorship and hatred in the disguise of morality. In the US it is the elites and ordinary people who do that voluntarily for the so-called narratives. The US is building its own highway to tyranny.

> You miss the point. The point is the US in a way is worse than a totalitarian regime like China: in a totalitarian regime it is the government the pushes censorship and hatred in the disguise of morality. In the US it is the elites and ordinary people who do that voluntarily for the so-called narratives. The US is building its own highway to tyranny.

That's utter nonsense, and actually echos one of the propaganda lines that an actual totalitarian regime uses to deflect criticism of its actual oppressive polices. You're also forgetting that lots of people buy into totalitarian government propaganda, and push it voluntarily (from stuff like this https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-internet-c... to nationalist internet trolls to Red Guards).

Real totalitarian regimes do stuff like this (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/business/china-online-cen...) and worse. Your so-called "worse" regime just occasionally has bosses fire employees for saying something impolitic and business that refuse to carry certain items (with the effect of only making them slightly harder to buy).

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

#564

Post by imhoguy » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 6:59 AM UTC

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…

That way is going to have reverse effect. Same like Mein Kampf in Europe. It was banned for a long time but any teenager had access to it. This is how a cult grows.

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

#565

Post by dang » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #323

divbzero wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hop on Pop is also a good one, great for learning phonemes.

Hop on Pop is a disgusting book. It encourages violence against fathers.

Please do not troll HN threads. Shit is bad enough as it is.

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

#566

Post by elefanten » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 7:07 AM UTC

beachy wrote: post #394

sossles wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read a few older books with my kids that contained mildly questionable things, like a boy saying that girls can't do certain things, but I much prefer having that awkward conversation about how things used to be, over tossing it all out and pretending things were never any different.

So true. I enjoy discussing parenting articles with our 8 year old. Yesterday it was one about "yelling less and praising less" [0]. We had a great discussion about the concepts. Then some fun trying out faint praise and faint yelling. I think discussing with kids how things used to be, and why we try and do things differently now, is super powerful - that notion of historical change helps kids think at a higher leve…

Not to mention we were all raised that way. It’s always a part of parenting and passing on culture. Pretending otherwise is abdicating necessary responsibility.

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

#567

Post by anonisko » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 7:08 AM UTC

lgleason wrote: post #562

As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here. Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don't stand up for everyone…

Too many people support the development of powerful weapons without considering what happens when their enemies get a hold of them.

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

#568

Post by josefx » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 7:09 AM UTC

Fezzik wrote: post #61

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…

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...

> Edit, to add: as a comment below notes eBay only allows annotated versions of the book.

I wouldn't be surprised if this started as a copyright issue. Bavaria inherited Hitlers copyright and aggressively banned any sale of Mein Kampf, only annotated versions got around that ban and even that was a legal uphill battle as far as I remember.

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

#569

Post by yawaworht1978 » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 7:10 AM UTC

It is so hard to decide whether racism or racist hints (in the UK it is more discreet, disguised as classist but all the same) should be banned because racism is not compatible with todays civilized society or if it should be allowed so the stupid racists can expose their bigoted selves. EBay has all the rights to do this, private platform and all that. Having Such books in the product portfolio is contaminating the brand.

Somebody interestingly said that working class latinos or immigrants in general do not care much or primarily about this kind of speech or imagery. Nothing could be further from the truth, they have human feelings and perceptions as well and the economical dependency makes people pretend to not care. Of course the people are offended, often for a very long time.

Every step towards eradicating racists and bigots from society should be applauded. They have never brought anything good to society and their freedom to express themselves and edgy comments were never funny.

Will not happen in my lifetime but every little step towards that is welcome.

The author is most welcome to change the title pictures to something deemed less offensive. You cannot expect your freedom of expression being enforced on something like eBay to promote the broadcasting and emission of your crap. It is not just the c level who do not like it, maybe some other employees do feel offended by beeing part of such a company.

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

#570

Post by mikaeluman » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 7:12 AM UTC

It’s bad enough that the company self-cancels the books.

But now we also can’t even have a secondary market for what already exists.

People have severely underestimated the influence these woke people have.

In my company, we receive forms from clients asking us to survey our employees for their sexual preferences and racial categories, essentially based on the same nomenclature used in nazi Germany.

It is completely bizarre and abhorrent.

At least this particular piece of poison is thus far resisted in Sweden.

All of this is connected and needs to stop. It starts with each and everyone of us no longer “just going along” with each new book burning and each new forbidden word they introduce.