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Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

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Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#61
If you are expressing your opinion on a topic, unsolicited, in a public forum, you are absolutely promoting the held opinion and seek to influence others by the act of sharing it. That also connotes that you place importance on the topic. Choose your battles judiciously.

I personally disregard anything that is opinion from anonymous sources. It is literally a worthless opinion, regardless of topic. The worth of an opinion is largely based upon knowledge of the source. Is it someone I trust? Is it someone I respect? Or is it someone who has been consistently incorrect or shown to be a liar? If the opinion held is worth sharing, then it is worth sharing with attribution to a real person. You need to have skin in the game.

Sometimes it is important to share an opinion in order to inform change, be it societal, policy, etc. Silence is the acceptance of the status quo. But again, choose your battles judiciously.

A lot of the replies really zero in on the example topic of incest, rather than abstracting actual subject. Like delving into the backstory of the characters in a word problem. Weird.

Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most incest happening in the world is not done between consenting adults. It is done through rape of children. Leaving that out may be construed as a way to shift of the overton window on incest.

You can, of course, point to reliable statistics on that, collected and analyzed using defensible methods. Right? I suspect that you are wrong, and that most incest happens between same-age adolescent or young adult siblings (and even more between cousins if you count cousins). But I don't have any actual data to back that up either, and would be amazed if any worthwhile data even exist.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens

34% of reported sexual assault on children take place by family members.

Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, of course, point to reliable statistics on that, collected and analyzed using defensible methods. Right? I suspect that you are wrong, and that most incest happens between same-age adolescent or young adult siblings (and even more between cousins if you count cousins). But I don't have any actual data to back that up either, and would be amazed if any worthwhile data even exist.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens 34% of reported sexual assault on children take place by family members.

... which has exactly zero bearing on the question.

Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#66

Reddit has "normified" over the years, like most of the Internet. Would the average person on the street have anything to say about the morality of incest? Of course not, and we don't expect them to. You will have to go to specific or niche subreddits to find interesting conversations.

Really? I would very much expect that most people would have a strong negative opinion about the morality of incest.

Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens 34% of reported sexual assault on children take place by family members.

... which has exactly zero bearing on the question.

Let me make sure I got this right... I make a statement about how a lot of incest is due to rape. You cannot fathom that and ask for stats. I provide them from a child abuse organization that also links to the underlying government statistics. You respond with it's irrelevant. You are not arguing in good faith.

Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which has exactly zero bearing on the question.

Let me make sure I got this right... I make a statement about how a lot of incest is due to rape. You cannot fathom that and ask for stats. I provide them from a child abuse organization that also links to the underlying government statistics. You respond with it's irrelevant. You are not arguing in good faith.

The word you used was "most", not "a lot".

Even "a lot" could reasonably be treated as having been a statement about the proportion, but it would not have been a precise enough statement to argue about. And "a lot" could also be treated as talking about an absolute number, in which case the question of whether something was "a lot" would be a total matter of personal opinion.

"Most", on the other hand, has a very clear meaning in terms of relative numbers... which that RAINN link does nothing to support.

"Arguing in good faith" includes not trying to quietly rewrite your position in the middle.

Re: Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On some level this response seems sane, but the more I think about it the more insane it is. Are we seriously questioning why someone wants to share their opinions on a topic? Are we actually clueless as to what they get out of it? Is telling them they should instead spend a great deal of time following a completely unrelated pursuit our solution? "Hey, I'm having a hard time expressing myself while feeling safe from…

> Are we seriously questioning why someone wants to share their opinions on a topic? Are we actually clueless as to what they get out of it? Yes, feel free to explain why that’s insane. It seems absolutely normal to keep things to yourself

The possibility to have a healthy debate on any topic is the root of progress!
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