81–90 of 176 posts
We all know that OSC is a horrible bigot, right? I feel like any sort of fatherly advice he emits needs to be suffixed with "...unless you're gay, then you should be in prison."
Personally, I suspect that he is in denial anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The time has come now to the point where anyone who holds a pro-Obamacare position is criticized and/or boycotted. The time has now come to the point where anyone who holds a pro-privacy position is now criticized and/or boycotted. The time has now come to the point where anyone who holds an anti-polygamy position is now criticized and/or boycotted. Yes, lets all give up reasoned discourse and simply attack those who…
Is "don't buy from Nazis" really the same as "don't buy from Jews"? It's not about attacking people who disagree, it's about withdrawing support from those who attack others. Let's say, someone beats their wife brutally, but they're very good at bowling, and always treat you respectfully. Would you feel good about going bowling with them, regardless of how much objectively correct things about bowling they could teac…
The distinction you are attempting to draw about attacking others makes little sense given the examples I cited. Opponents of polygamy, supporters of Obamacare and opponents of privacy all favor attacking others (polygamists, people who don't buy health insurance, and people who don't cooperate with spying). Most public policies involve attacking someone - all laws are ultimately enforced at the point of a gun.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could argue that "we" always practiced the methodology of penalizing people with beliefs that were perceived as abnormal. Case in point: Alan Turing. However, this is not the level I want this considered at. Instead, I invite you to look at what you're comparing here. There is OSC's philosophy of hatred on one side, and Alan Turing's sexuality on the other (which was never about harming anyone and hence could alw…
You are trying to retrofit current sense of morality onto the sense held by people in the past. What if people during Turing's time actually thought that homosexual behavior was unethical (which I think is not too far from the truth)?
In case you'd like to catch up on previous discussions of this, here are some of the previous submissions. The majority of the conversation and comments are on these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866486 (netjeff.com) : 45 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552821 (carolyn.org): 23 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5372726 (zoion.com) : 14 comments There are also a few comments on some…
You've been doing these for a while, so: thank you for taking the time! It's just that I get the feeling your "job" should be done automatically by a sidebar or something ;) Seriously an automated element containing "previous discussions about this subject" would be a nice addition to HN.
I disagree strongly: I would gladly pay a human for curating & summarizing HN just like ColinWright did -- on the order of 4EUR / month.
We all know that OSC is a horrible bigot, right? I feel like any sort of fatherly advice he emits needs to be suffixed with "...unless you're gay, then you should be in prison."
Once you realize that 100% of his writing is about the self-hating gay Mormon experience, you notice a lot more subtext. In this piece, the junior programmer who becomes a middle-manager to please the marketers is a metaphor for gay Mormons who marry women to please the church.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference here, is that it's not the 1800s, and OSC continues to not just hold, but evangelize his hateful positions. See: http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html for one of the reasons people find him repellent. Choice quote (after he had a chance to reflect on the response to his essay): "...it has become clearer and clearer to me, since writing this essay, that gay activism as a movement is no long…
This is not a hateful position. It is a political position and a stance of how society should operate. I see no gay hatred there. Simply the strong need for family and society building. Just because you can't understand his reasons and emotionally react to some of his opinions does not a bigot make.
We all know that OSC is a horrible bigot, right? I feel like any sort of fatherly advice he emits needs to be suffixed with "...unless you're gay, then you should be in prison."
Once you realize that 100% of his writing is about the self-hating gay Mormon experience, you notice a lot more subtext. In this piece, the junior programmer who becomes a middle-manager to please the marketers is a metaphor for gay Mormons who marry women to please the church.
We all know that OSC is a horrible bigot, right? I feel like any sort of fatherly advice he emits needs to be suffixed with "...unless you're gay, then you should be in prison."
If we ignore everything ever said by people with nasty beliefs, we'd basically never read anything written more than 100 years ago, and a decent chunk of the stuff written since. Anti-slavery campaigners in to 1800s used to beat their children. Pretty much every writer in antiquity was either a slaver or pederasts by modern standards. Where do you stop? It's worth being aware of so you know to take such things into a…
Which of the two do you believe?
1) There is an objective Correct Set Of Beliefs, and we're closer to it now then ever before, hence you can judge people in the past. 2) There are no objectively correct beliefs, hence people in the past would be just as correct to say that you have nasty beliefs.
If #1, where do you get your objective set?
If #2, why do you make your statement?
I hope you don't take the inconsistent position many people do: say there's nothing objective when others judge you, but act as though there is when you judge others.
(Personally I believe there are objective truths, and each generation gets some things right and other things wrong. But that's a Christian view.)
We all know that OSC is a horrible bigot, right? I feel like any sort of fatherly advice he emits needs to be suffixed with "...unless you're gay, then you should be in prison."
It's like saying, "You wouldn't learn algebra from a COMMUNIST, would you?"