Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zapzupnz 2047 days ago
> maybe you should check what you think of other cultures, before getting offended for a software using the name GIMP

I have no idea what that has to do with my comment, I didn't say anything about that.

But even so, how does one offensive stereotype mean that something else, also offensive, should be dismissed as non-stereotypical?

If you feel so strongly about "mamma mia", then you should have no problem with other people feeling strongly about the implications of 'GIMP', regardless of its origin (which you haven't mentioned once; it's a film reference).

If you don't feel that strongly about people saying "mamma mia" as an Italian stereotype, naturally you would have no particular interest in GIMP. So why the passion and derision for those who do care?

I know why.

To throw in a cheap shot at Americans.

Disclaimer: I'm not American.

> Edit: but, as usual, judging from the immediate downvote Americans won't accept that they are only 5% of the World population...

> Americans can't accept that their culture is meaningless globally and their puritans problems have no significance for 95% of the World population

Your vitriol against Americans, as though anybody expressing an opinion with which you don't agree and speaks English must be American, speaks more to me about your position on this matter than anything else.

That's one reason I downvoted your comment.

> This isn't Reddit, I known this is a circle jerk of people thinking they are better than redditors just because it's what you're supposed to think here.

Actually, no. The reason I mentioned that this isn't reddit is because we have a set of community guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Second guideline from the bottom: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

Because yeah, people getting upset about downvotes is dull. Moreso when it includes a needless dig at our users and American friends.

That's another reason I downvoted your comment.

> On Reddit at least people don't downvote you without commenting on why

Actually, they do. It's a well-known problem that people don't just downvote for content that they think is inappropriate or irrelevant, as per reddit's guidelines, but rather downvote content or comments with which they don't agree.

Heck, that was the motivation for hiding actual vote numbers a few years back. It's a known problem.

Besides, people on HN do tend to comment because constructive argumentation is generally encouraged by the community guidelines. So long as it leads somewhere.

1 comments

> If you feel so strongly about "mamma mia", then you should have no problem with other people feeling strongly about the implications of 'GIMP', regardless of its origin (which you haven't mentioned once; it's a film reference

Pffff

That's some heavy twisting of my words

Or some kind of cognitive dissonance

I don't feel anything about "mamma mia", I feel that the people that invented a false stereotype, which is also offensive to many, because it's not representative of Italians just like Nazis are not representative of Germans, has no right to feel offended by something that is their own creation.

Stephen Frey gave the perfect definition of this behaviour

> It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.

I pointed to Americans because they are the only ones who constantly whine about everything, not knowing that they are a very very very small part of the World population and their whines are insignifcant

They really can't understand it

Either because they are dumb or assholes is yet to be determined, but it's a fact.

Constantly lamenting that GIMP is offensive on every thread about GIMP or GTK or even something not directly related like someone posts "have you ever tried GIMP" or "that could be solved with some GIMP-FU", while it is actually not a problem for billion of people, is so annoying that I wish Colombo stayed home sick that day he left for the Indias.

> Actually, they do. It's a well-known problem that people don't just downvote for content that they think is inappropriate or irrelevant

That's because the majority of Reddit users read subreddits where the majority of commenters are American

It's just a bias towards the platform given by the fact that the majority of its userbase comes from the same country with the heavy social issues I was talking about fee paragraphs before.

I don't hang out with American redditors anymore, I only read subreddits of things I like that are not of interest to American general population and my opinion of Reddit completely changed

I also met a lot of Americans there who share this sentiment on their country and are sad of the state of the things, just we were when Berlusconi was an important politcal leader

HN, on the other hand, can't change because there's only one HN and you can't make your own sub HN