141–150 of 226 posts
It is a historical reference. This clearly was not well thought out.
Except it's not historical, the south didn't actually fly that flag at Gettysburg.
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First thing I checked was Wolfenstein 3D - and it's still there. The messaging on this is really bad. You can't feign outrage at symbols of slavery without doing the same for symbols of genocide.
Well, I guess that's a very delicate subject to talk about. In Wolfenstein 3D you can't play a nazzi shooting Americans (for example). You play the good guy shooting the bad guys. I also don't think the problem is the flag. IMO the real problem is that in most of the games you can play on both sides. Kids can easily start identifying themselves as the side on which they play and forget the important details. Like...…
The scariest thing is how fast sweeping and unanimous these acts of compliance are. It's like these companies just woke up suddenly, had a conference call and without a hint of discussion, analysis or feedback started enforcing moral revisionism. It reeks of dishonest, cheap PR. What's next on the agenda? The saddest part is that this has totally taken over the discussion of shootings in North Carolina. US is unique…
Who thinks Apple would stick their neck out to do something that they "care" about if the public wasn't 100% on-board already?
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I concur, and I think it might be doing even more disservice as many will shortly be quick to say "Racism? Racism isn't a problem. We got rid of the Confederate flag." By removing the visible signs of issues, you remove the easiest ways to talk about and educate others about the issue.
Exactly. No one really talks much about how biracial people are mistreated in the US, but it happens all too often (A couple close friends had to deal with it all their lives). And yet I've had people tell me "But Obama is President, so there can't be racism now." Pfft!
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Using a monopoly position in the market to influence what kind of media is available on the market at large, however, can get you in trouble with courts. Get in trouble for anti-monopoly stuff usually requires two parts: that you be a monopoly and that you somehow use it. Shaping a market to your desires is an example of using your monopoly standing. Apple won't get in trouble because they're not a monopoly, but that…
For ~50M (statistics?) iPhone users, they're a monopoly, no? IANAL, but I feel like there were previous monopoly cases successfully brought on behalf of far smaller groups than that. E.g. the fact that I'm a vegetarian doesn't invalidate a steak-knife monopoly
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You're cutting your own throat when you dismiss freedom of speech.
Apparently so. It's interesting to watch though. Both my posts, while perfectly reasonable opposite viewpoints are getting down voted a lot. HN feels like reddit when you touch a nerve on freedom of speech. Crowd mentality/emotion seems to take over even in a group that is usually very logical and rational.
Everyone else is discussing how to distinguish racist and historical use of symbols like swastikas and Confederate symbols.
You're actively advocating vicious totalitarian policy such as censorship that those symbols represent and that Conederates and Nazis used to promote, defend, and continue evil policies.
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"whether today's Confederacy enthusiasts agree or not, the Confederate flag surely sends that message to many of those who see it being flows -- particularly, of course, African Americans." If today's confederacy enthusiasts disagree, then it means the culture doesn't represent slavery. Many in the south had relatives that fought and died for the confederacy. It means something to them, but this doesn't seem to matte…
> If today's confederacy enthusiasts disagree, then it means the culture doesn't represent slavery. What a symbol represents is not determined solely (or even primarily) by the intent of the person displaying it. The swastika on my forehead is a symbol of love and peace. How could you be offended? > The confederate flag doesn't exist for the sole purpose of slavery. The Confederacy surely did exist primarily to promo…
This works equally in the other direction. The reason a symbol was originally created is not the final word on what it means today to large groups of people. For many people that flag means "the American South is a distinctive culture." I don't really care about the flag at all but I have seen people using it in various ways for years without any sort of racist intent and it's pretty crap to just write them off as racists or that they should have retroactively "known better" after this sudden, dramatic social pivot.
People are way too oversensitive. Reminds me of Muslims getting upset over cartoon drawings of their prophet.
It's like an emotional drug addiction for some people, they can't get enough outrage. They'll invent it as needed.
The media loves it to, it's great for ratings. So you have both sides feeding on a perpetually worsening cultural spiral.
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>free speech isn't always the solution >I'm not from the states There's a cultural difference that rears its head here. Free speech in the US seems to be nearly-absolute when compared to even its northern neighbour (Canada), which has some provisions for "hate speech". Europe, from what I can see, is even more interventionist. I'm not using this post to argue for or against either perspective, but only to show that p…
Very true. I don't like the idea of being so rigid though. It seems like Americans stick to the idea of things like free speech or right to bear arms (basically constitutional ideas) without considering the fact they may not be right or times have changed. It's almost a religious zealotry as evidenced by the quick down voting of my post. NB (to everyone not noarchy): Down down vote things you disagree with - down vot…
>Down down vote things you disagree with - down vote things that don't add to the conversation.
We just removing something that "intimates" us, you understand.
It is a historical reference. This clearly was not well thought out.
Except it's not historical, the south didn't actually fly that flag at Gettysburg.