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Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

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Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#251

Post by da_big_ghey »

api wrote: post #180
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #62

About 5 years ago a friend of mine was saying, "yeah, it's bad at the universities but it doesn't affect the real world." Pretty funny how quickly things accelerated. I'd like to get off this ride.

Unfortunately your only choices today are this or overt neo-Naziism. You have to stake out the most extreme, divisive, fanatical position possible. If you try to be nuanced and rational you get attacked by both sides. I think social media has a lot to do with it. We created a global communication medium and then programmed it to prioritize the most "engaging" content, which is of course the most triggering and contro…

The irony of downvotes on this above comment above mine comment.

There is a third option. Most people are stuck with this. It is staying quiet and saying nothing. Because there is unity in extreme right. And there is unity in extreme left. And there is no unity in the center so these extremes can pick off each individual center person who says something.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#252

Post by vageli »

slg wrote: post #185
supernova87a wrote: post #55

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…

Maybe you are not familiar with eBay's existing policies, but this seems to fall well in line with their prior behavior. From their official policy [1]: >Listings that promote, perpetuate or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination, including on the grounds of race, ethnicity, color, religion, gender or sexual orientation, aren't allowed. This includes but is not limited to the following: ... >Items with racist, a…

Why is Mein Kampf available then?

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#253

Post by sixQuarks »

dmingod666 wrote: post #239
chroem- wrote: post #75

My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for rapid acceleration rather than moderation.

These conversations always crack me up. Its just so comical. An empire with the largest military presence around the world, outspending the rest of the world to buy weapons that can decimate the world population multiple times over, but, somehow that is not "offensive"..

It's also not offensive that America is the only "developed" country that doesn't have universal healthcare.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#254

Post by unityByFreedom »

caeril wrote: post #134
unityByFreedom wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Ebay is a private merchant. They can choose what to list too. Maybe this presents a copyright problem with clones, we don't know. I found the books by googling the title and PDF because I was curious about why they were removed. Curiosity satisifed and I still love Dr. Seuss.

The "private company" argument, while fully and technically correct, is such a ridiculous canard to trot out at a time when we slide rapidly into public-private authoritarianism. Someone (probably), in 1934 Hacker News: "BASF, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, Bayer, BMW, and Siemens are private merchants. They can choose what to sell, and to whom. Maybe this presents a survival problem for the Jews, we don't know." I guess…

> The "private company" argument, while fully and technically correct, is such a ridiculous canard to trot out at a time when we slide rapidly into public-private authoritarianism

So make a company yourself that specializes in trading items banned from other shops. It wouldn't be the first and it's completely legal. I bet someone is already capitalizing on the outrage over this news. I don't know how exactly and I don't mean the media.

About the companies you list, we study them to look at the rise of Hitler, and we have put anti-discrimination laws in place to hopefully stop someone from abusing their positions like that again.

This isn't the state entering your home and burning books. Wrong hill.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#255

Post by jaimex2 »

question000 wrote: post #103
jaimex2 wrote: post #73

If you want to send a clear message to eBay you can close your account here. https://www.ebay.com.au/help/account/changing-account-settin... It should not be up to them what is and isn't offensive. I did the same to Netflix last year. Money talks at the end of the day.

I'm just so offended that you would economically harm all the good people working at EBay due to political stances they might not even agree with. People are so reactionary these days. This is the real cancel culture.

If enough people do it they will back peddle.

Big tech really needs to get the memo that they need to be a neutral party.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#256

Post by bitdizzy »

jjcon wrote: post #206
jfengel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not just cartoons. They're caricatures associated with racist tropes, which have been used in conjunction with discrimination and even violence. The African pictures in particular look like minstrel shows, which were deliberately intended to demean black people in America. It's not that the publishers were afraid of getting in trouble. It's that they were ashamed of their own book -- with good reason.

> which were deliberately intended to demean black people in America So if someone makes caricatures to demean the irish should we ban those? Seems pretty ridiculous...

Yes.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#257

Post by tired-dev »

legitster wrote: post #106

I think nearly every reasonable person agrees: - Particular illustrations have not aged well - The content itself nor Dr. Seuss can be accused of malice - The offending content is not really a high risk of perpetrating future malice - It's completely within the right of the publisher to not want to profit from these books anymore But at no point did it seem like anyone made the point that you can't read or enjoy the…

Keep in mind that Seuss's early career involved drawing racist WWII propaganda. While he largely reformed in later years, it would be inaccurate to say that some of the content has merely "not aged well"

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#258

Post by divbzero »

eric4smith wrote: post #70

A bit off-topic, but I use Green Eggs and Ham to help teach my friends English here in Asia. It works pretty well, since there is quite a limited vocabulary. And it's pretty magical! I can have someone reading aloud from the book quite fluently, with extremely limited english skills, after only a few hours. The other part is, because of the superior illustration skills of the author, people quickly understand the dif…

Hop on Pop is also a good one, great for learning phonemes.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#259

Post by dmix »

supernova87a wrote: post #55

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…

And you get downvoted on HN for even mentioning “slippery slope”.
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