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

What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 215 posts

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#91

Post by njharman »

rglover wrote: post #56

Something that's always confused me about the world and people as a whole. Why are so many people hell bent on implementing some "moral standard" that everyone needs to follow? Honestly? There's this bizarre projection of the individual and his/her motivations onto every living being that fails to make any logical sense. Is there any psychological premise for why we feel the need to dictate the behavior of others suc…

> fails to make any logical sense

By and large humans are not logical, our actions are not logical/rational at least on individual basis. They are rational from a evolutionary species domination POV. We are herd animals. Enforcing "moral standards" is outcome of Herd dynamics. e.g. way to maintain control / "leader of the herd" status and to distinguish other herdmembers.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#92

Post by te_platt »

rglover wrote: post #56

Something that's always confused me about the world and people as a whole. Why are so many people hell bent on implementing some "moral standard" that everyone needs to follow? Honestly? There's this bizarre projection of the individual and his/her motivations onto every living being that fails to make any logical sense. Is there any psychological premise for why we feel the need to dictate the behavior of others suc…

This is somewhat simplistic but consider life as a kind of prisoner's dilemma. Cooperation has many benefits and the people cooperating have a strong incentive to make others cooperate as well. It's not an exact match but try substituting "cooperation" where you would use "moral standard" and it will usually make good sense.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#93

Post by jack-r-abbit »

If this hadn't been labeled "suicide letter" I never would have read into it that the writer wanted King to kill himself. "You know what to do" is actually pretty vague. Do what? Come clean about his affairs? Leave the country? Quit being a pain in the ass for the government? Quit working on civil rights?

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#94

Post by vezzy-fnord »

mkempe wrote: post #85
[deleted] wrote: post #62

[deleted]

Do you realize that it was Democrats, the "left" in US politics, who were opposed to MLK's message of equality and freedom for all? that the battle for Civil Rights was won thanks to Republicans, against Democrats? that it was Democrats who were the anti-abolitionist party?

Don't know why you're being downvoted. You're absolutely correct. The Democratic and Republican parties had polar opposite platforms from their present ones until the Southern Strategy beginning in the late 1960s.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#95

Post by soperj »

jobu wrote: post #48
Mikeb85 wrote: post #19

It continually amazes me that Americans can perpetuate the myth that their government is a democratic, moral force in the world given everything they have done, and are still doing...

"Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

USA should try democracy then instead of being a republic.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#96

Post by Torgo »

rooster8 wrote: post #29
Mikeb85 wrote: post #19

It continually amazes me that Americans can perpetuate the myth that their government is a democratic, moral force in the world given everything they have done, and are still doing...

Any system as large and complicated as this one will have failures. Our job is to learn from the past and try to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Democracies don't have memory, they only have momentum.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#97

Post by phoboslab »

[deleted] wrote: post #62

[deleted]

We have the Piratenpartei in Germany, full of nerds and people who take a strong stance for privacy, net neutrality and many other things tech related. They get laughed at and ridiculed (often for good reason) and are considered "unelectable" by many, even in the tech field.

BUT they force other parties to think more about these issues and take position themselfs. I think the Piratenpartei is extremely beneficial for the political landscape here.

I have often wondered why the US seemed so slow to adopt these ideas. From my limited understanding, a good deal of the problem is probably the 2 party system in the US, but that doesn't mean a "HN party" couldn't apply a lot of pressure to democrats and republicans alike.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#99

Post by smm2000 »

comrade1 wrote: post #52

This was in the 1960s. Imagine the projects being conceived now for targeting individuals and population subsets to change opinion, mood, etc. using things like social media, targeted communications, etc. The US then and now was totalitarian and authoritarian. Some of you, especially here on hn, may not fall into those mind-sets but it doesn't matter - you've lost - you're barely scraping by, working 60 to 80 hours a…

Chill out and pick different audience. Most people on HN are not just "scraping by" unless making >$100k first year after college is now called scraping by. I would say overall HN audience benefits much more from current political, economic and financial situation than suffer from it. It's probably not true for reddit so you can find more receptive audience there.

Re: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

#100

Post by vectorpush »

[deleted] wrote: post #62

[deleted]

> We could be to the left what the tea party is to the right.

Extreme and uncompromising to the point of absurdity? Actually, that does sound like the HN community!

More seriously though, even if there were enough cohesion among HN thinkers to build up anything resembling a worthwhile political entity, at least in the USA, it would be a powerless symbolic party, fit only for mockery by late night television comedians. The USA's current political system is completely intractable to the point where the current two parties are the only option; the only viable path is to move the two parties in our direction, alternatives are assuredly doomed to failure.

Post reply on HN