[allenbrunson]

You are allowed to discuss reality here. What you are not allowed to do is make jokes about something as repulsive as rape.

If you are civil and respectful, you can make any point you want here. You failed that first test, though.

[eof]

I don't think he was buried due to his joke about rape. Or at least I hope not. He wasn't pulling rape out of thin air, as it's obviously the context of thread.

I imagine he was down modded for his weak use of sarcasm and abrasive way of making a weak point.

Gizmomagico seemed to be saying 'assange wouldn't have committed what he allegedly did; as it would retard his ability to move freely and he is too smart for that' -- which may or may not be true, and is irrelevant as evidence.

As a side note; getting offended about the content of a joke is really sort of silly. People seem to act like joking about something is somehow akin to 'doing' the thing. I don't think an argument can be made that a joke about rape makes rape any more likely; and while it may be crude and unfunny: making the claim that something is 'off limits' is really weak.

For example: 'statistically 9/10 people enjoy gang rape'

[allenbrunson]

are you really going to try to tease out a scenario where it might be okay to make a rape joke? because even if you succeed, i am calling that a pyrrhic victory, at best. maybe you can do that among friends, but not on a global message board with thousands of readers.

the more sensitive the topic under discussion, the more careful you have to be to avoid offense.

[gloob]

Given that we have already had two rape jokes in this thread, you might want to reconsider your notions of what people "can" and "cannot" do here.

Additionally, I need not "tease out a scenario" where it "might be okay" to make a rape joke. I am knee deep in such scenarios (unless you actually believe jokes about rape to be morally wrong, rather than merely distasteful; I know I don't). Less common are scenarios where I can make a rape joke without negative social consequences, but there's still no shortage of those, either.

[roel_v]

"the more sensitive the topic under discussion, the more careful you have to be to avoid offense."

You assumption is that one would want to avoid offense. (note that I don't mean 'not cause deliberate offense') Western newspapers were told to not run the Mohammed cartoons, so as to 'not cause offense'. Feel free to defend the position that people shouldn't make rape jokes, but basing that on 'you shouldn't cause offense' is not an argument.

[gizmomagico]

Gizmomagico seemed to be saying 'assange wouldn't have committed what he allegedly did; as it would retard his ability to move freely and he is too smart for that'

The idea was just to point out the ridiculousness of the bullshit political maneuvering, not to imply that the only reason why he would not rape someone is because it would hinder his movement.

[gizmomagico]

Yes, rape is terrible, and judging by your reaction, you're probably American. Was that a racist slur or just an observation?

Would it also be terrible to be falsely accused of rape, in an internationally public manner?

The problem here is that mine was the first comment to allude to the whole debacle being disgusting bullshit.

There weren't almost any comments in the thread, possibly because if you really wanted to discuss this, you'd have to discuss the whole thing being bullshit, and facing the bullshit-laden reality we live in is unpleasant.

HN doesn't want to discuss unpleasant realities.

That may actually be a good thing for maintaining the high quality of discussions on other, more pleasant subjects - who knows. But on the other hand, spreading awareness of bullshit being bullshit would do us all good in our role of ordinary citizens of various governments.

[allenbrunson]

You are showing no evidence that you heard what I said. This has nothing to do with my nationality, and a lot to do with this site's conventions. pg has worked really hard to keep news.yc from going down in flames, the way every other discussion site in the history of the internet has done, eventually.

You are not the first person here to suspect that Assange may be falsely accused. If you'd put it that same way, like I just did, you would have likely generated some discussion on the topic. As it is, you merely said something inflammatory and inappropriate.

A couple of weeks ago, this site featured a story about a woman who accused a man of groping her at ApacheCon. If there is a more loaded topic for discussion than that, I can't think of it. Yet this community managed to have a very civil discussion about it, due to those rules you are disparaging.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718

[gizmomagico]

You are showing no evidence that you heard what I said. This has nothing to do with my nationality, and a lot to do with this site's conventions. pg has worked really hard to keep news.yc from going down in flames, the way every other discussion site in the history of the internet has done, eventually.

I did acknowledge the potential quality issue, which is what you spent your message talking about. You didn't really address anything I said. I bet I guessed your nationality right, though, didn't I?

> You are not the first person here to suspect that Assange may be falsely accused.

As I said, I was the first one to hint at that quite likely possibility.

> a woman who accused a man of groping her at ApacheCon. If there is a more loaded topic for discussion than that, I can't think of it. Yet this community managed to have a very civil discussion about it, due to those rules you are disparaging.

That's nice, but what did you think the civil discussion might have devolved into? Hypersensitive overreacting about "assault"?

This Assange -story, on the other hand, is not only about alleged rape, but also about the place where conspiracy-theories and reality meet.

[ugh]

Do you have any evidence at all for your allegations?

[gizmomagico]

What allegations?

[ugh]

Your allegations that Assange is falsely accused because of some sort of conspiracy.

[gizmomagico]

Where's your proof that he isn't?

Also: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1917913

Shouldn't you go demand more "proof" from him too, or is it just easier to pile on the heavily downvoted guy?

It shouldn't be too hard to see this is all bullshit, and that's what I originally got downvoted for trying to point out (in a less-than-HNesquely-eloquent manner).

[ugh]

I make no claims about Assange’s guilt or innocence.

Productive discussions demand evidence and you provided none.