[imh]

>Yes, we disagree constantly. But what makes our disagreements so toxic is that we refuse to make eye contact with our opponents, or try to see things as they might, or find some middle ground.

This bothers me so much. In my social circle (and I expect many of yours) simply understanding the other side is demonized. It's a sin to admit that, despite their conclusions being terrible, these human beings have some sense somewhere.

When you hear a view you disagree with, instead of disagreeing, first try to understand. These are intelligent human beings who will surprise you. Most often, it turns out the point they are making isn't quite the one you thought, or at least it has some nuance and the truth is somewhere in between you.

It's bad even here on HN. There was a post last week about using genetic algorithms to solve jigsaw puzzles. It looks like this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nemanja-m/gaps/master/imag... .

One commenter was disappointed at the test image used, because:

> At best, it's crass and tasteless. At worst, it's openly disrespectful and hostile to women.

Another commenter asked:

> Why is it crass and tasteless? And why is it openly hostile and disrespectful to women?

The response was:

> If I need to explain to you why using a nude image of a model (taken from a pornography magazine, no less) is hostile and disrespectful, then I suspect you are part of the problem.

As typical, treating your "opponent" as an intelligent moral person, trying to understand them first, applying the slightest bit of empathy, then even if you agree that the picture is crass/hostile/whatever, it's much more respectful and likely that the asker simply did not know the history of it, rather than the asker being immoral (from that POV).

Jumping straight to "you are part of the problem" is an extreme version of what happens in most of these disagreements. There's no respect or effort towards empathy and it makes me really sad.

[Mz]

I generally agree with you, but:

applying the slightest bit of empathy, you'd immediately realize that the questioner simply didn't know the history of the test image (the original uncropped image was from playboy).

You are implicitly agreeing that with the idea that naked pictures of women are fundamentally crass, tasteless, openly hostile and disrespectful to women. I think this is not really a good thing to do, though I realize it is politically correct and the safe route.

I'm female and occasionally rant about how fashionable misandry (or the demonization of anything hetero male) has become, a la: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/11/having-sad.h...

I have a lame hypothesis that if a woman makes such comments, maybe people will see the logic. Experience seems to not support that hypothesis. Haters keep on hating anyway. Sigh.

[imh]

I'm trying not to implicitly disagree or agree with either side. The point here regards the meta discussion about disagreement and arguers not respecting and trying to understand the other side before jumping on them.

I'll try to clarify what I meant more concretely. The parent commenter in that thread seemed to think that any good person who knew the context would understand why it was bad. The next comment didn't see why it was bad, so the first person decided the next must not be a good person. Had they examined the other premise (context), they would have seen that lack of context is more likely. Of course there are other buried premises and assumptions, and all of those are more likely in some way imprecise or something rather than the next commenter simply being a bad person. Even in the most extreme cases, miscommunication happens all the damned time. Fixing those instead of deciding you're better/smarter/whatever is where I think those discussions should go.

The point is how the disagreement looked from the point of view of the person making those comments. I figured my own point of view isn't relevant to the meta-discussion.

[Mz]

One framing that would avoid the implication:

"Even if you agree that the picture is crass (etc) due to being from Playboy, a much more likely and respectful explanation is that the asker simply did not know the history of it."

There may be others. It is incredibly hard to sidestep the wider cultural framing that women exist solely as sex objects, they are prey and men are predators. It is a problem space I have thought long and hard about. I think my statement that your statement implicitly agrees with certain things is accurate.

However, it wasn't intended to accuse you, personally, of anything. The degree to which it does so is an error on my part. It is late. I am tired. Etc.

I wholly agree with you that jumping to accusations was poor form. I did not witness that particular discussion of the Lena test photo, but I have seen such discussions before on HN. They tend to be incredibly uncharitable. This is really common when anything vaguely related to sex enters discussion.

I do my best to respectfully critique it. I am aware sex is a very sensitive subject. But the subtext of most such derails is that all heterosexual sex is inherently abusive of women. I really think that needs all the gentle, kind push back humanity can muster. I do what little I can.

Best.

[imh]

That's fair. Communication is hard. I edited my original comment along the lines of your suggestion. I hope that it's still clear and concise and now does a better job of not taking sides. I think sometimes I go overboard in trying to empathize with the side I disagree with and end up appearing to agree with it.

[Mz]

:-)

[dahart]

> You are implicitly agreeing that with the idea that naked pictures of women are fundamentally crass, tasteless, openly hostile and disrespectful to women. I think this is not really a good thing to do, though I realize it is politically correct and the safe route.

Respectfully, I disagree. It's not a given that the comment implicitly agrees that naked pictures of women are disrespectful. The comment might implicitly agree that the economics of nude photos is disrespectful in this case, or in general, since this particular image is one that was sold. The comment might also be referring to the history of criticism of the Lena image: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Criticism