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At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

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Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#61

Post by dang »

ReadFList wrote: post #25
Jabbles wrote: post #17

This may be related to the recent controversy over RMS at the FSF foundation: https://rms-open-letter.github.io/appendix.html In 2015 and 2016 RMS made three posts on his website about Down’s syndrome. - He recommended that, should someone find out they are pregnant and the child tests positive for Down’s syndrome “the right course of action for the woman is to terminate the pregnancy.” - He referred to people decidi…

It's amazing how lots of things, such as research on anything that remotely touches Human Intelligence is considered "Eugenics", bad, fascist. But killing the unborn is a-ok because they would "suffer", and the worst of all, they would be a burden on the parents who would not be able to continue their hedonistic lifestyles, they should be consuming stuff all the time, for the good of society! Now that is good and des…

Your account has been using HN primarily (even exclusively) for ideological battle. That's not allowed here because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for. We therefore ban such accounts, regardless of which ideology they're battling for or against, and I've banned this one.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#63

Post by dang »

Jabbles wrote: post #18
CptMouse wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, dang is a notable case.

You seem to have missed the point that making fun of Down Syndrome is not appropriate.

I appreciate the intention, but this thread is so full of good spirit that I don't think we need to worry too much about rules at that level.

The comment was making fun of me anyhow and I laughed.

Edit: incidentally, that account is banned so the comment was killed, but HN has a bug where flagging dead comments sometimes unkills them...how's that for irony.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#64

Post by blendergeek »

dang wrote: post #63
Jabbles wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have missed the point that making fun of Down Syndrome is not appropriate.

I appreciate the intention, but this thread is so full of good spirit that I don't think we need to worry too much about rules at that level. The comment was making fun of me anyhow and I laughed. Edit: incidentally, that account is banned so the comment was killed, but HN has a bug where flagging dead comments sometimes unkills them...how's that for irony.

While you may find the statement humorous, it uses Down Syndrome as a form of an insult. This could be highly offensive both to people with Down Syndrome and to their friends and family.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#65

Post by dang »

blendergeek wrote: post #64
dang wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the intention, but this thread is so full of good spirit that I don't think we need to worry too much about rules at that level. The comment was making fun of me anyhow and I laughed. Edit: incidentally, that account is banned so the comment was killed, but HN has a bug where flagging dead comments sometimes unkills them...how's that for irony.

While you may find the statement humorous, it uses Down Syndrome as a form of an insult. This could be highly offensive both to people with Down Syndrome and to their friends and family.

It's a tradeoff. I get the intention, but in the long run this way of thinking does more harm than good. It compounds into the bureaucratic kind of discourse that tries to force people to be good, or to hide badness behind rigid rules. The heart doesn't function this way, and it's the heart that we need when relating to each other and when dealing with profound human issues like the ones in this thread.

Trying to sanitize too much ends up being bad for health. We've learned this about immune systems; I think this is similar. Each individual move to exclude dirt or kill germs is impeccable—beyond criticism, lest one be accused of favoring germs—but the endgame is sterile and leaves us vulnerable to worse ailments. Cracking down sternly on everything that is "not appropriate" and "could be offensive" is not taking us to a good place—it's making us meaner and colder, and even in many cases crueler (I'm not talking about you). Online discourse badly needs a way to get off this train. Maybe we need to risk some injury by jumping off before we crash.

I posted this article. I put it in HN's second-chance pool (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380), so it got a random placement on HN's front page. I turned off the flags on it because it's obviously on topic for this site (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). I've moderated the thread by banning or cajoling accounts that were breaking HN's rules, and by collapsing the places where it derailed into flamewar. I've rolled back the clock on it a couple times, too—we do that when a thread is particularly good, sort of like slowing down when you're reading a great book because you don't want it to end. These are ways to, in my view, support understanding and good feeling. From my perspective, shaming people when they make a bad joke doesn't serve love. It's more in the lineage of schoolteachers who used to rap kids' knuckles with a ruler when they didn't behave. We need better ways to learn not to hurt each other.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#66

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

Daub wrote: post #11

I worked in a residential community consisting of many young people with various disabilities. Most of these had Down’s syndrome. From the OP... > Individuals with Down syndrome generally have outstanding social skills... Dam right! They were amongst the most compassionate, loving and witty people I have ever met. I remain humbled at their extraordinary humanity. Other things the articles mentions are also true. Cert…

> They were amongst the most ... witty people

We have to be careful about praising the disabled like this, because we risk being condescending. This is an age-old phenomenon – in Ulysses (published already a century ago), James Joyce has his protagonist muse on the fact that people are so quick to praise a blind person for his jokes not because the person is actually funny, but simply because people’s expectations towards the disabled are so low.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#67

Post by fakedang »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #66
Daub wrote: post #11

I worked in a residential community consisting of many young people with various disabilities. Most of these had Down’s syndrome. From the OP... > Individuals with Down syndrome generally have outstanding social skills... Dam right! They were amongst the most compassionate, loving and witty people I have ever met. I remain humbled at their extraordinary humanity. Other things the articles mentions are also true. Cert…

> They were amongst the most ... witty people We have to be careful about praising the disabled like this, because we risk being condescending. This is an age-old phenomenon – in Ulysses (published already a century ago), James Joyce has his protagonist muse on the fact that people are so quick to praise a blind person for his jokes not because the person is actually funny, but simply because people’s expectations to…

I think he was talking about Down Syndrome folks, and I can tell you that DS folks are the most friendliest folks in the crowd. I'll even go ahead and say that they are more charismatic than most software engineers.

My younger brother has Down's, yet he tends to be way more friendly with not only strangers but my relatives too, compared to myself.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#68

Post by mensetmanusman »

Interesting how scientific technology gets used in various cultures. Ultrasounds are illegal in some countries because people abort based on gender due to their cultural view of humanity.

Western secular society looks at humans more as mechanistic units in an economic machine instead of as spiritual beings with inherent value, so it’s no surprise that 90% of downs tests result in an abortion.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#69

Post by ben_w »

slothtrop wrote: post #56
Daub wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always wanting to subvert serious situation. For example... me being in a bad mood having to get up at 5.00am to milk the cows, and this Downs boy looking up at me with a crazy big-ass grin that would completely wipe all sour thoughts from my mind. They play with language in a very disarming manner. Not highbrow, but will find compelling nicknames for their loved ones and deliver them in a way that is difficult not t…

That's all very nice, but it isn't wit.

Comedy is extremely situational — first scene in first episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer made somebody dying funny — so if OP says someone was witty when they did something, they almost certainly were.

Re: At Home with Down Syndrome (2008)

#70

Post by C06aka »

dang wrote: post #62
C06aka wrote: post #27

[flagged]

There are deep issues to discuss here. Flamebait and name-calling destroy that possibility, so please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

No issues to discuss with the removal of my post, apparently. Not sure where the flamebait or name-calling were. You just didn't like my post. Own your bias.
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