Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by malandrew » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

da_big_ghey wrote: post #251

api wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"A Center that Can Hold" from mid 2018:

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/a-center...

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

#492

Post by hintymad » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

whatever10 wrote: post #392

hintymad wrote: post #347

I was wondering if Americans learned history of other countries in school. HN users or Americans in general probably think China is a totalitarian country, but even Chinese students are taught in both elementary and high schools, repeatedly, that an authoritarian regime always started with moralizing everything, always started with telling its citizens to hate their neighbors, and always told their citizens that misi…

Ah the typical authoritative propaganda “they are all the same, at least we have order”. No we don’t have in the US a non elected politburo making nationwide decisions on speech issues.

You miss the point. The point is the US in a way is worse than a totalitarian regime like China: in a totalitarian regime it is the government the pushes censorship and hatred in the disguise of morality. In the US it is the elites and ordinary people who do that voluntarily for the so-called narratives. The US is building its own highway to tyranny.

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

#493

Post by tlholaday » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

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…

> Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale?

Consider that the copyright owner, the Dr Seuss Foundation, has made the decision to cease publishing these six works. That is not the case for the other materials you mention.

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

#494

Post by cable2600 » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:47 AM UTC

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.

Wars over, the ultra-left won via social network and Internet. They will ban more stuff. You ever heard of good people banning books and banning words? It is mostly dictators doing that.

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

#495

Post by quadrifoliate » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #4

It's weird that these books got pulled from circulation in the first place; the offensiveness is relatively mild (especially for the time), and quite a few of these have historical and literary significance (including the very first children's book published under the "Dr. Seuss" pen name). eBay deciding unilaterally that people can't buy or sell already-printed copies is just icing on the weirdness cake. This is the…

> eBay deciding unilaterally that people can't buy or sell already-printed copies

eBay is not "unilaterally" deciding anything. I can't remember the last time I bought or sold anything on eBay for instance. As I see it, they probably want to avoid the resulting controversy from any of these items, and don't want anything to do with them on their platform.

As an immigrant to the US, this is what I don't get. Isn't the whole idea of capitalism supposed to be that eBay's delisting is an opportunity for ten other websites specializing in obscure Dr. Seuss books to pop up and eat their business? [1]

Or would you rather have one centralized government agency in charge of deciding which books can and can't be sold?

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[1] What I personally suspect (without much evidence) is that there is very little of a secondary market for these books. Sure, some are going for $500 because people will collect anything, but the person simply doesn't care about them one way or the other.

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

#496

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

breakfastduck wrote: post #114

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…

Yep. I err on the side of not censoring. However, if they're gonna stop printing a couple of books because of severe racist overtones then whatever. But if they're banning the sale , which then leads to ownership , that's too far. We have to draw a line somewhere. As a heavily left leaning person who feels unnerved about the state of politics at the moment, this decision is extremely discomforting.

[deleted]

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

#497

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

tired-dev wrote: post #264

refurb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The adults in the room should have nipped this crap in the bud but instead they entertained it. Now it’s a much bigger problem to solve. Check out SFUSD renaming racists schools like “Lincoln High”. Eventually parents had start a recall effort to end it.

Counterpoint: I graduated from a university still named after the confederacy that held "slave auction" fundraisers all the way into the 80s. I think it's easy to downplay how pervasive racism still is in America, and to imagine that hypersensitivity is the result of "fragility" instead of "constant exposure".

Was your university doing something kind of like Halloween, where people dress as demons to show the demons have no power over them, or was it more enamored with the past?

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

#498

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

breakfastduck wrote: post #114

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…

Yep. I err on the side of not censoring. However, if they're gonna stop printing a couple of books because of severe racist overtones then whatever. But if they're banning the sale , which then leads to ownership , that's too far. We have to draw a line somewhere. As a heavily left leaning person who feels unnerved about the state of politics at the moment, this decision is extremely discomforting.

[deleted]

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

#499

Post by umvi » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

major505 wrote: post #96

I don't know any culture that banned books independent of their content that people didn't regret in the future. A few months ago I was reading about schools banning the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" because it contains basically the "n" word. I'm not american, and and havent read that book. I watched the movie, through, and it seemed to me to be a very anti racism message. I think instead of banning, schools should w…

Why ban it when you could just censor it like Agatha Christie's magnum opus

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

#500

Post by pengaru » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

Sounds like one of what will likely become many stupid decisions creating opportunity for an ebay competitors to gain market share in the online auction space.