Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 388 posts

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#61

Post by guerrilla »

h2odragon wrote: post #56
guerrilla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Become? I think one could argue it's less so than ever. Remember blasphemy and the inquisition? Do you think people were more tolerant prior to the 20th century, what about in the 1950s? I think until recently responses were pretty violent in some cases and could lead to quite some consequences. I don't really know, but I think it's worth considering.

Blasphemy is alive and well! Try saying you doubt the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines. The reaction is the same.

No doubt, but the consequences (most places) aren't death by stoning or whatever.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#62

Post by whatshisface »

SilasX wrote: post #40
whatshisface wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think factual inaccuracies should get a free pass under the principle of assuming good faith, because the principle of assuming good faith only applies to how ambiguous claims should be construed. There is no way to construe "the constitution does not mention privacy" as a correct statement.

Yes, as "the constitution does not explicitly mention privacy" or "... does not mention privacy by that term."

"The constitution does not use the word privacy, although it does directly protect it," is not a reasonable interpretation in context.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#64

Post by DocTomoe »

xg15 wrote: post #28

> There’s a certain phenomenon I often wonder about, one that only seems to occur with culture war topics. I mean, the term "culture war" itself is part of the "conservative" vocabulary in that issue. So I can see why the whole thing is not easy.

The term originated in the German "Kulturkampf", which was between the Imperial German state of the 1870s and the Catholic Church. In the US, it was introduced twice, neither time by conservatives.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#65

Post by mikewarot »

Wedge issues tend to elicit emotional replies. The algorithms that are used to maximize profit tend toward showing the most emotional replies first. This positive feedback loop rapidly leads to a bifurcation of the audience into opposing camps, while drowning out more rational discourse.

That's why.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#66

Post by robonerd »

car_analogy wrote: post #14
whatshisface wrote: post #3

> The Constitution doesn’t mention abortion. But what about privacy? Well, it doesn’t mention privacy either. That's not true - the 4th amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure. The search part prevents the police from reading your mail or wiretapping your phones without a warrant (which declares the search reasonable), except illegally.

Well yes, but as much as I am a proponent of both the right to privacy and abortion, the latter doesn't really follow from the former. Just because one has a right to privacy, it doesn't follow that everything done in private is legal. Nor is abortion necessarily private - one could declare one is going to have one, or one could be visibly pregnant and then get an abortion. It would be a bizarre law if abortion was l…

> one could be visibly pregnant and then get an abortion.

People don't talk about it a lot, but the miscarraige rate is something like 10-20%. You probably know at least a handful of women who've experienced one. It's fallacious to conclude somebody had an abortion because they're no longer pregnant but don't have a baby.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#68

Post by timoth3y »

The answer to the question in the title is contained in the title.

For a number of reasons, we seem to have reached the point where hyperbolic, emotional statements get attention and calm, rational discussion is ignored.

A world where everyone is trying to position themselves as the persecuted, besieged voice of reason defending simple truth against irrational attractors, does not leave much room for common ground.

It's interesting to note that the author does seem to have had anyone accuse him of being "traitorous" for trying to understand. He just asserts this strawman to paint those who might disagree as unreasonable and then bemoans his asserted lack of common ground.

I wish I could say this is an online phenomenon, and it's obviously much worse online, but it clearly has leaked into the offline world.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#69

Post by jdlyga »

It's easy to rationalize bad things if you spend too much effort trying to understand them. After all, even Hitler thought he was doing good for the world. Yes we all need to understand each other, to a point. Beyond that point, you need to fight for what's right.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#70

Post by tines »

ouid wrote: post #53

Morality and law both work like mathematics. This means that my beliefs are constructed, and once I have a construction, the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent. Moreover, understanding someone who has already demonstrated an inconsistent belief system is easy. They believe X because they believe something and its negation, and at least one of…

Great point about the prosperity doctrine. Such a cancer.
Post reply on HN