[illirik]

The “weapon” here is just basic conscientiousness. A publisher decided to stop publishing some books because they denigrate people, and eBay decided that they did not want to be facilitating the sale of books that denigrate people. We are not talking about an H-bomb - there is no power structure wielding a “cancel button” here.

[coldtea]

>The “weapon” here is just basic conscientiousness

No, it's predominantly white-driven top-down (upper 20% income bracket) classism run amok, proping up specialist careers and pretending to be about "caring" and "wokeness".

>there is no power structure wielding a “cancel button” here.

Yeah, no "power structure", just the mainstream media, the corporate world, ad agencies, governments, government agencies, web-mobs, FAANG - the biggest tech companies in the world plus Clouldflare and others, payment processors, the "good society" class wise and so on, with an increasing number of BS laws on their side too...

[illirik]

> No, it's predominantly white-driven top-down (upper 20% income bracket) classism run amok, proping up specialist careers and pretending to be about "caring" and "wokeness".

I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement that racist caricatures are bad.

> Yeah, no "power structure", just the mainstream media, the corporate world, ad agencies, governments, government agencies, web-mobs, FAANG - the biggest tech companies in the world plus Clouldflare and others, payment processors, the "good society" class wise and so on, with an increasing number of BS laws on their side too...

My wording could have been better, but my meaning was that this "cancellation" (which is really just people acknowledging that something is bad) is not applied by some power structure, and is certainly not a weapon that can be aimed at arbitrary concepts at will. I agree that free speech is important, but hate speech is not.

[LudwigNagasena]

> I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement that racist caricatures are bad.

I am pretty sure it’s the opposite considering how the concept of racism has morphed in recent years.

> my meaning was that this "cancellation" (which is really just people acknowledging that something is bad) is not applied by some power structure

This is oxymoronic. Perhaps you misunderstand what power structure means. It doesn’t have to be a legal institution or centralized in any way.

[eek04_]

> I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement that racist caricatures are bad.

I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement that wiping out history and culture is bad.

The question is what is the appropriate tradeoff. Should new editions of these books be published, targeted to children? Probably not. Should they be effectively banned from being sold (used)? At least not without due consideration to the alternatives, like marking them.

[krona]

The discussion is not about whether racism occured, but how did it manifest. Unless something is specifically anti-racist, it is bad. Therefore all culture is bad. QED.

[illirik]

We're having difficulties getting consensus around the idea that racism is bad, which is a prerequisite for discussion

[coldtea]

We're having difficulties getting consensus around the idea that past racism reflected in some cultural artifacts (same as they reflect countless other things of the times) means they should be thrown out.

Else, few, and only fringe usually crazy people would not agree that e.g. slavery, seggregation, jim crow, redlining, etc, were and are bad.

But a certain modern "anti-racism" is not used against the establishment or the white privileged class, and is not even driven by blacks themselves demanding justice.

It's driven by upper middle class whites and their wanabees in-preparation (e.g. higher end college students), against lower class whites.

And as such, it's not just classist, but also blind to the injustices working class whites and "white trash", blacks, latinos, etc, face because of poverty and inequality - it serves as a class signal to perpetuate 'woke white supremacy' (and as a career to some).

Then again, what I know? I'm not American, and we have been actual slaves ourselves in my country...

[emn13]

The issue specifically with casually reinforcing negative stereotypes, especially in childrens books, is that it seems at least plausible that will influence readers' perceptions later on. I'm not entirely convinced by this argument with respect to these specific books so long as they're only a small part of a child's reading experience, but the argument is at least reasonable, right?

This is kind of like: should you be advertising cigarettes to minors? (Should you be advertising those at all?)

I do think it's quite painful to be cutting out culturally important artifacts like this, but I also understand the argument to do so, and it has pretty much nothing to do with upper-class vs. lower-class.

Most of the issues with these books seems fairly minor; it sounds like it should be feasible to release a new edition avoiding the negative stereotypes while retaining pretty much all of the cultural value. Not sure why the publisher didn't try to do that... or maybe they are, and this is just the way they're doing that so as to also hype up the new edition for sales. Who knows. (Yes, I realize eBay's decision is technically distinct from the publishers, but clearly they're trying to avoid negative PR here, i.e. being risk-averse by just following somebody else's lead - I doubt any of these dominos would have fallen without the publishers choices).

[whearyou]

Preach

[op00to]

No one is saying you need to throw out books, only that certain people decided not to sell them.

[sul_tasto]

A thousand times this. Neoliberal capitalism has hollowed out the middle class over the past 30+ years. The working class knows that the ruling class doesn’t address their interests. They have been voting for the change candidate since 2008. The election of Trump, despite all of his flaws, was a rejection of the ruling class. This ’woke’ movement is a reaction by the upper/ruling class to reassert their authority. As Dr. King said, the rich white plantation owner used slavery to keep the poor white man down. edit: I wonder if the post-WW2 expansion of the middle class was an anomaly, and that we are now just reverting to the mean.

[krona]

Changing the definition of a word without consensus will have the effect of the consensus around the underlying concepts changing. This appears obvious to me, and intentional.

[moduspol]

Just like we couldn't get consensus around "patriotism is good" to get continued support for wars after 9/11.

Either that or caricatures like "my opponents don't think racism is bad" are unhelpful straw-man arguments.

[istjohn]

A tolerant liberal society is built on the foundational principle that people are allowed to read bad books, think bad thoughts and say bad things. And I'm allowed to denounce these bad things as bad, but I'm not allowed to dictate my moral beliefs on you.

[CabSauce]

That's exactly what's happening...

[mcv]

> I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement that racist caricatures are bad.

I would love to believe that, but there's been too much evidence lately that some people love racist caricatures.

[crististm]

I'm on a fuck off spree lately. So fuck off with what you think is important and not.

[crististm]

To those that find my comments offensive - fuck off

[crististm]

And to those that are offended by fucks; fuck off as well.

That include anybody that cares to point me to HN guidelines. Have a nice weekend, but fuck off in the mean time

[crististm]

Do you feel woke? Fuck off.

Do you feel threatened? Fuck off.

Do you feel like an idiot? Fuck off.

Do you feel I'm having a bad day? Fuck off.

For the record. This post on Dr. Seuss has no place on HN. If it is allowed on HN but dissent ideas are not, then fuck off together with your woke HN points. I'm sick of idiots turned social warriors. Fuck off

[inglor_cz]

Using the word "denigrate" would be a reason to cancel you for some very conscientious minds. It sounds too similar to, ya know. And you aren't even talking Chinese [1]

[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-sus...

[electriclove]

No stretch needed, this poster could definitely be cancelled for using that word.

"If you "denigrate" someone, you attempt to blacken their reputation. It makes sense, therefore, that "denigrate" can be traced back to the Latin verb denigrare, meaning "to blacken.""

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/denigrate

[inglor_cz]

I was serious. No stretch needed.

[citysurrounded]

I wouldn't describe these minds as conscientious so much as "illiberaly liberal"

[inglor_cz]

Oh, yes, I was just citing the OP, it wouldn't be my choice.

I wonder if Illirik is brave enough to make a selfie with one of the yesterday-OK, today-awful Dr. Seuss books and publish it on the social networks. Just to test how many conscientious minds will try to get him fired.

[illirik]

Why would I take a selfie with a children's book containing racist caricatures? I don't have any of these books and certainly don't want any.

[inglor_cz]

Your standard of racism must be very extensive if you consider said pictures racist.

IMHO they are just stereotypical, but engaging in visual stereotypes is not the same as racism.

[ttt0]

I think the modern standard of racism is just being white:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/elena-guthrie/racism-white-...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/jul/03/raceintheuk....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/10/19/... ( https://archive.md/Tm3KK )

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/loreal-paris...

https://www.newsweek.com/kyle-korver-racism-white-people-nba...

[worik]

Stereotypes? Maybe. I have not seen them. It sounds like people are describing racist stereotypes, and using racist stereo types is racism, surely?

[godelski]

This one was weird as it's saying that English has ownership over sounds. If it sounds similar to a bad English word then it's also bad, even if context is given.

[inglor_cz]

Magical thinking at its best. The Middle Ages are back. You are not allowed to pronounce anything similar to the powerful incantation, lest the demons emerge. Regardless of context.

Of course, in practice, the demons are regular people with stones in their hands ...

[TeMPOraL]

So videoconference calls are modern seances ("Is anyone there?", "Can you hear me?"...), you tweet of the Devil and He doth retweets, ...

... we've managed to turn magic and superstition into reality, just not in a way we expected.

[inglor_cz]

This is a very funny perspective, thank you :-)

[pineaux]

Or, and this might be something to consider: this restructuring of of culture into groups of "good and bad culture" is something that happens each generation. Like the hippies against the old ideals, the 80 kids/punkers against the hippies, the smooth millennials against the 80-kids. Every generation did their own thing. We are getting old and do not subscribe to the new future. We are losing our childhood loves. They will disappear into the fold of history. Just like we will.

[avesi]

Historically, culture wasn't so quick to change. Typically, parents would be able to pass down their culture and traditions to children, instead of having society foist an entirely new culture onto their kids that's incompatible with what the parent grew up with.

[pineaux]

This happened too many times in history to even name. I could sum some recent examples if you want. Do you want that?

[bostik]

Or as Shakespeare put it, "The Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

[yerwhat01010]

Voldemort!

[Shish2k]

This is the actual reason that the company I work for decided to standardise on “denylist” rather than “blocklist”...

[anonisko]

I thought "blocklist" was the replacement for "blacklist".

[Dirlewanger]

Yup, try using the words niggle and niggardly in a public setting.

[PontifexMinimus]

Absolutely. If illirik was sacked from their job and made destitute, would that be "just basic conscientiousness"?

Maybe illirik should consider that the cancel culture weapon could just as easily be turned on them.

[ttt0]

Now I wish I was keeping the archives of all those cases where supporters of cancel culture got cancelled and they suddenly didn't liked it anymore.

[ketamine__]

I am surprised Jeff Bezos hasn't been canceled. He was attempting to cut deals with Muhammed bin Salman. There is photographic evidence of Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Jeff Bezos cozying up to a regime that is anti-LGBT.

Bezos was chatting with MBS on WhatsApp before MBS allegedly hacked him. It seems more likely he wasn't hacked by MBS and the culprit was his girlfriend's brother. Maybe Jeff and MBS are due to mend their friendship?

[gitrog]

I believe you don't have that archive because it doesn't exist. Ultimately people who are "supporters of cancel culture" most likely aren't explicitly that, they just don't agree with your definition of cancel culture [1]

Those people then receiving retribution for some action (whether they deem it reasonable or not) doesn't necessarily imply that they've come to see things your way.

[1] https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/undefined-cancel-game

[Koshkin]

[1] 那个

[imgabe]

Hey, can I come look through your house to make sure there are no books there that offend me? It would be incredibly rude of you to consume any content that random strangers might object to. I'll be over in an hour.

This has nothing to do with conscientiousness. Buying a book to read at home by yourself is not the business of anyone else and neither eBay nor anyone else should be dictating what you're allowed to read.

[spamizbad]

Actually you have the property rights angle all wrong: People who control the publishing rights and the intellectual property behind an ecommerce platform to distribute things have both decided they don't want to sell certain works for whatever reason. A stupid one IMO. But it's within their rights as we currently understand corporate power. Perhaps we shouldn't be so willing to indulge liberal market freedoms as they can be a double-edged sword - property owners can "censor" cultural touchstones thanks to powerful intellectual property laws.

To fix your analogy: Someone comes to YOUR house and demands you release a "problematic" work of fiction to the public from your private collection because people are censoring it and people need to see its no big deal. You refuse, because it's yours and you don't feel like it... maybe you agree with the rabble? Either way... you know your rights.

If you want to defeat cancel culture you should advocate for LESS property rights, less market "freedom", and strong labor protections. This whole idea that you can somehow defeat a moral panic with some sort of counter moral panic (or backlash) has been tried for over 40 years - it's not working.

[imgabe]

> Someone comes to YOUR house and demands you release a "problematic" work of fiction to the public from your private collection because people are censoring it and people need to see its no big deal. You refuse, because it's yours and you don't feel like it... maybe you agree with the rabble? Either way... you know your rights.

Not really. It's more like Person A wants to sell a book. Person B wants to buy a book. Persons C through Z, who are not involved, haven't read the book, have no intention of ever having anything to do with the book, but saw a tweet that said it was bad, interject themselves and decide that persons A and B are not allowed to conduct their transaction.

[jeremyjh]

Person C operates a marketplace platform. They are very much involved in what is sold in their marketplace. They do not want to be associated with material deemed objectionable. They don't need you to agree it is objectionable. Do you think they should be forced to list anything someone might want to sell that isn't illegal? What kind of freedom is that?

[imgabe]

If you don’t want to be associated with material that might be “objectionable” then don’t position yourself as a platform where arbitrary people can sign up and list whatever they want for sale.

Instead hire buyers to vet the merchandise you’re selling and stand behind it and take responsibility for it. You don’t get to have it both ways.

[jeremyjh]

Where have they positioned themselves as such? They have always had control over what can be listed, they have never said you can sell "whatever you want". No marketplace has ever been what you are describing. Do you have any references that explain this ideology in more depth because I do not understand it.

[op00to]

Persons A and B are allowed to conduct their transaction, just not on a particular platform. Put an ad in “dumb racist old books” magazine and find someone to buy your book.

[imgabe]

How about instead you restrict your book buying to a specialty “woke only” bookstore that carefully curates a selection guaranteed not to offend your delicate sensibilities?

If you want to live a life of restrictions you are more than free to do so. What you may not do is impose them on others.

[g051051]

Not a good analogy either. In this case, the publisher is perfectly within their rights to not offer these works for sale anymore. However, under the First-sale doctrine, they have no right to control resale of the physical copies of the works already out there. eBay delisting them means they are choosing to side with the publisher over the rights of the sellers.

[legutierr]

But you can dictate what eBay must allow its users to sell?

[imgabe]

Yes, just like we can dictate that eBay can't make a rule that only white people are allowed to sell on it. Operating a business involves being a part of society and society is justified in imposing rules on your business to ensure that your business is not harmful to the general welfare of the public.

[legutierr]

So you are advocating for some standard according to which marketplaces should be required to sell anything the public brings to them to sell?

Is there a line, in your conception, between what eBay should be forced to sell, and what they are allowed to prohibit? For instance, explicit pornography is legal. Should eBay be forced to sell explicit pornography? If so, is there anything in your mind that they should not be forced to sell on their website?

[imgabe]

Yes! We have this standard. It's called "laws". We elect these people called "representatives" and if we want people to not be able to buy or sell certain things like a kilo of heroin or a machine gun, we have them make a law that prohibits it. This way the public has input on the process and it is not left up to the arbitrary prejudices of any particular corporate drone.

eBay is not selling anything. The users on eBay are selling things and they can choose what to sell or not sell. If Wal-Mart wants to decide not to sell the book, fine. If you purport to offer a marketplace where other people can sell and buy things, you should not be involving yourself in the customers' transactions unless they are illegal.

[AshWolfy]

Ok how about this, should my local farmers market be forced to allow me to set a pornography stand?

[legutierr]

Ok, so “racially insensitive” material and explicit pornography are both legal currently. Are you saying that eBay should be forced to allow their users to sell both, or are you saying that we enact a new law that says that eBay should be forced to allow their users to sell “racially insensitive” material, but not explicit pornography?

[growse]

There's a difference between discriminating against people's immutable identities (ie black people) and people's choices.

I can't kick you out of my bar for being black, but I can kick you out for being loud.

[imgabe]

There is a difference between those things, but that doesn’t mean we should automatically support all discrimination that isn’t based on immutable qualities.

If eBay decided to delist all copies of White Fragility we should oppose that too. Ideas need to be freely exchanged and debated not forcibly censored by whoever happens to have power at the moment.

[growse]

In a free society with free markets, you are free to oppose antyhing that a business does that you don't agree with.

You have many existing mechanisms for expressing that disagreement, including protest, and starting your own business and competing. If people agree with your values, you will succeed.

eBay choosing to delist all copies of a book is eBay exercising their own freedom of expression. Having the government coming along and censoring that freedom seems counter to the idea that "Ideas need to be freely exchanged ... not forcibly censored".

[UncleMeat]

I doubt the same people would oppose it though. Rights of downtrodden groups are constantly shit on without a peep from the “free speech absolutist” crowd.

[LudwigNagasena]

There is no difference. Whether something is immutable is to a large degree irrelevant.

[growse]

So do you think I should be allowed to kick people out for being black, or that I should be forced to serve everyone no matter their actions?

[stef25]

> there is no power structure wielding a “cancel button” here

There absolutely is. Ebay is nipping in the bud a potential social media lynching.

One misstep nowadays and the CEO spends weeks grovelling about how they're still learning and are determined to do better and thank you Twitter mob for pointing this out.

You can't buy Doctor Seuss, but you can buy "The Anarchist Arsenal", hydrogen peroxide, acetone and a few pounds of screws in the same cart.

Edited typo by / buy

[legutierr]

I hope the irony isn’t lost on you that you are using the word “lynching”—which in its literal, non-metaphorical usage refers to the terroristic murder of racial minorities in the United States—to refer to the non-violent use of cultural power by members of those same minority groups to demand respect from institutions and powerful individuals.

You may think that some of these demands have gone too far, and you may believe that some institutions have been too obsequious in adhering to these demands, but surely you must admit that the use of the word “lynching” in this context is offensive, no?

[stef25]

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm still learning and am determined to do better next time.

[legutierr]

There’s a Spanish idiom that describes your reply here really well, I think. It doesn’t occur to me what the comparable phrase in English would be. Es una cachetada con guante blanco.

I disagree with you, but I have to say, well done. Point made.

[manigandham]

No, because it's not the same context. That's the point. These extreme reaches are the same as banning "master" as the name of a branch in git repos as if it has anything to do with social history.

[legutierr]

To the contrary. The context here is the same, as I explained in my original comment. The connection between the literal and metaphorical use of the word here is too close, which is what makes it rude and offensive.

This is different than using the word “master” to describe the trunk branch of a repository, because when we are talking about a “master branch” it is not in the context of a discussion of offensive racial caricatures being removed from eBay’s website.

[manigandham]

No, I disagree, along with many others. Nothing is rude and offensive on its own, nor do you know what everyone else thinks. What you really mean is it's offensive to you, in which case you should exercise your personal freedoms and rights by reading something else instead of worrying about the rest of us.

As a member of a "minority group* myself, there's no connection to "minority groups demanding respect" here, just the typical outrage over the wildest reaches by those who feel they represent everyone else. By the way, treating people as monolithic groups is where bigotry comes from in the first place so why don't we just stop doing that all together?

[legutierr]

> No, I disagree, along with many others.

If I were trying to win any popularity contests, I wouldn't be discussing this topic on HN. It's risky business!

> Nothing is rude and offensive on its own, nor do you know what everyone else thinks.

I'm not purporting to know what everyone else thinks, only that given the context, the usage of this particular word in this particular situation is offensive.

It's a strange thing for you to insinuate that I feel that I "represent everyone else." Is it not enough for me to be speaking for myself? And what's wrong with users of this website speaking up to negotiate the standards of discourse we all follow here? As I've commented elsewhere, there is a standard of civility, respect and politeness that we all expect from interactions on HN. What that standard comprises should be discussed from time to time.

> As a member of a "minority group myself, there's no connection to "minority groups demanding respect" here..*

If you are going to quote me, then please quote me accurately. I didn't equate OP's "social media lynching" with "minority groups demanding respect". The language I used referred to specific (albeit hypothetical) individuals doing a specific thing. I wrote that "members of those same minority groups" were using "cultural power...to demand respect". It is you who are talking about monolithic groups here—I'm talking about individuals.

If you are a member of one of the minority groups in the US that were historically terrorized by lynch mobs, or were ridiculed in the popular press by the kinds of caricatures that are referenced by the article, then absolutely your opinions on this matter are salient.

It shouldn't require membership in any particular group to view the juxtaposition within OP's metaphor as offensive, however.

The "potential social media lynching" that OP accused eBay of kowtowing to must by its nature be perpetrated by individuals who don't want denigrating, racist caricatures to be promoted and popularized. This is a straw-man in OP's argument, so we don't know precisely who OP would be referring to, but it's not too big a stretch to interpret OP's comment as referring to individuals whose ethnicities are being ridiculed in these books, including African, Native American, Chinese and Arab ethnicities. In fact, a brief search of media reports regarding this controversy would reveal that many prominent commentators on the subject have been African-American and Hispanic educators. Most of this actual commentary has been well-reasoned and civilized, however, and is not at all mob-like.

In contrast, "lynching" in the United States primarily existed as a tool by which white mobs terrorized non-white communities into social, economic and political subservience, by murdering people. Take a look at some of the pictures, and read some of the history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States

Lynching is not just some better-forgotten historical grievance. It was a tool for genocide and white supremacy—a tool used to rob Mexican and indigenous landowners of their property, and to keep black people subjugated and to deprive them of political power and economic independence. The last known lynching in the United States took place less than 40 years ago—within my own lifetime. The downstream effects of this violence persist today.

Lynching was also part of a continuum of white supremacist culture that included ethnic caricatures that were intended to ridicule subjugated people, and which had the effect of dehumanizing those people. Dehumanization is a necessary precursor to mob violence, and lynchings would not have been possible without the cruel, dehumanizing propaganda that promoted white-supremacy in the United States for more than 100 years after the civil war.

OP's metaphorical lynch mob would include individuals whose ancestors were terrorized by actual lynch mobs. To convert metaphor to simile, OP was saying that these individuals whose ancestors were terrorized by lynch mobs are themselves like a lynch mob when they complain about the on-going, present-day publication of imagery that was originally created to promote the persecution of those same ancestors.

Is this not offensive on its face? Even if you disagree with these people, how can you not see OP's metaphor as demeaning towards them? And even if you don't care about offending people in the wider world, what about those of us on this website who also fit the same description? Is it not rude to us?

Look, I don't want anyone to be shamed, punished, penalized or "canceled" here. That would be ridiculous. I wasn't even looking for any kind of apology. I'm just hoping that the standards of civility and respect followed by members of the HN community can incorporate an awareness of what this kind of language really means to some of us.

There are some things that no civilized person will say in polite society—that idea, I think, is not controversial. Let this particular use of the word "lynching" be one of those things.

[pm90]

I can’t help but point out the incredible situation where you are engaging in precisely the kind of behavior that the person you’re replying to seems to have issue against : )

[legutierr]

And what behavior is that, precisely?

Pointing out that certain usage of language can be offensive? That we shouldn’t be unintentional when causing offense? That if we cause offense intentionally, we shouldn’t be surprised by the reaction of the party we have purposely insulted?

[moduspol]

We haven't seen evidence anyone has been offended yet. Only that you are concerned others might be.

A surprisingly common phenomenon.

[legutierr]

Perhaps I was offended and was trying to point that out politely.

I wasn’t badly offended. I was offended enough to take the time to write these comments.

Keep in mind that on HN, rude and offensive comments are down-voted all the time. There is a politeness standard on this website, and perhaps that standard should incorporate the use of language like this!

[Amezarak]

While Black people were disproportionately victims of lynching, lynching was not in itself a racial phenomenon, even if racists frequently employed it. People of all races were commonly lynched by people of all races. It's a legacy from a time when mob justice was common, in part because of the limitations of the legal system.

So his usage seems quite correct.

[Dirlewanger]

You sound like someone who'd have a problem with someone because their last name is Lynch.

[PontifexMinimus]

> there is no power structure wielding a “cancel button” here

This is hardly an isolated occurrance, as you well know.

So we have all of Big Tech acting in concert to ban what they deem wrongthink -- but, oh no, that's definitely not a power structure! Nothing to see here, folks!

[pm90]

Yes, because it’s certainly plausible that the leadership of Big Tech that are always at each other’s throats to dominate their corner of the digital market would want to put aside any such differences in direction, and decide that this is the one issue that they could show a United front on because this after all is what affects their goals of market dominance.

It’s this that dominates the meeting of their leadership, who are always just hanging out with each other, combing through a list of things to cancel, put together a coordinated plan to cancel the thing, and then — in secret, nobody should know! - execute on that. Because what else could they possibly be bothered with?

[bawolff]

Ah yes, mein kampf is ok [1], but dr suess is a bridge too far.

[Before anyone makes assumptions about my political views, i'm fine with publishers no longer publishing if tastes change, but i can't abide banning the sale of books in general. I don't really care what the content is]

[1] https://www.ebay.ca/itm/MEIN-KAMPF-1939-Complete-Unabridged-...

[pineaux]

Nobody banned the sale of these books. The only argument any of the people who are crying their eyes out could make here is: we need open source decentralized bookselling to ensure that people who don't care about the bad feelings people have about these books can still buy these books. Every other argument is just weak and quite frankly, herdmentality of the right wing political sphere.

[LocalH]

What are you talking about? eBay banned the sale of these books.

[pineaux]

They banned the sale of these books at other places?

[morlockabove]

When there's one company (due to network effects) that does something, that company's a de facto arm of government for that thing.

So yes, we do need distributed everything.

[pineaux]

So. You think all the companies in the world are defacto arms of the government? I don't get what you are saying

[morlockabove]

Monopolies are de-facto government bodies. It isn't that Ebay is administered by USG (although I'm sure Ebay has an NSA/DHS detachment); it's that it makes no difference to the user whether a government bans the sale of books on online flea markets or the only practical online flea market does.

If the only store within a 2-hour drive is walmart, walmart is your equivalent of the soviet centrally-planned economy.

[worik]

That is not a children's book.

People getting that book have some idea what they are getting I hope.

I do not want racist stereotypes in books I read with my children

[bawolff]

Sure. i wouldn't suggest stocking it in the children's literature section (although i think you would be shocked how racist some books aimed at children can be once you start looking for it, including many written not just long ago but in the last 30ish years).

However children aren't the only people who read books like this. Dr Suess is one of the most influential children's authors. All of his books are certainly worthy of study from an academic perspective due to their long lasting influence.

[patentatt]

I have literally just had the experience of stumbling on one of these racist dr Seuss books while reading with my kids, and I can tell you that I would have at least wanted a warning. It’s just not what I expected, and not something I would have wanted to expose my kids to. Which is kind of a shame, because scrambled eggs super is (aside from the overt racism) an awesome example of seussian prose.

[Veen]

And yet, eBay does sell a crap load of Mein Kampf editions and gollywogs. The motivation seems to be corporate virtue signalling rather than any commitment to a principle.

[tibbydudeza]

Yep no doubt due to recent CPAC conference and too early for a "War on Xmas " so they needed to focus on the nemesis of "cancel" culture rather than the disaster of Covid-19 deaths.

[jessaustin]

Don't worry, they'll focus on that disaster soon enough. They'll want to blame Biden for the 650k who will die of covid this year, just like they didn't want to blame Trump for the 350k who died of covid last year.

[pm90]

This argument seems really silly to me, have you thought this through? It appears to be a “talking point” as a few other right wing sites seem to be making the exact same argument.

The flaw in the argument is that Mein Kampf is not a children’s book. If hitler wrote a popular racist book series for kids, eBay would likely delist that too.

[erhk]

>eBay decided that they did not want to be facilitating the sale of books that denigrate people

Objectively false. eBay responded to a headline and will continue to permit the sale of many works of similar nature because it is ultimately apathetic

[bzbarsky]

eBay has no problem facilitating the sale of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", or "Mein Kampf", or "laddie magazines", or cartoons of Muhammad, or any of a variety of other things that "denigrate people". So let's not pretend like this is a principled stand of some sort by eBay.

Leaving aside the question of whether the books in question actually denigrate people, what makes this case so special that eBay takes action? eBay is losing money by not allowing sales of the books; presumably they either feel like they would lose even more money if they did allow it or feel that the books are morally repugnant enough to be worth the loss. Any other options?

The second option does not seem to hold water given all the other things eBay allows. The first option leaves the question of why they would lose money. Digging into that is where you find the power structure you are refusing to see.

[Number157]

The weapon is censorship. Dictatorial governments supported by control over information have killed far more people than H-bombs.

[millstone]

But there was no government action here. Dr Seuss's estate made a decision, and EBay reacted to it. A dictatorial government would either prohibit or demand publishing the books. The US government has rightly done nothing.

[bluescrn]

The distinction is barely relevant. Megacorporations govern us these days.

[anonisko]

Megacorps are starting to think about creating their own currencies (FB diem).

We stumbled into accepting dictatorships in the emerging virtual realms without even realizing it.

[patentatt]

Maybe that’s the problem that needs to be addressed here. Because what I’m seeing should be something a libertarian would approve of. The free market at work, eBay is a private company making a decision of how they want to do business. Libertarians should love this.

[jessaustin]

There is a difference between libertarians who support liberty and "libertarians" who mostly just want there to be less government spending on anything besides military weapons.

[moduspol]

It was removed from the recommended reading list by Biden's administration for the "Read Across America" Day [1]. That's not directly related to eBay, unless you've seen the pattern before where "woke twitter mobs and politicians signal distate in X, tech megacorps subsequently take supporting action."

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9318259/White-House...

[UncleMeat]

Removing something from a recommendation list is about as far from censorship as I can possibly imagine.

[moduspol]

Nobody claimed otherwise.

[Udik]

True, it's a private, spontaneous witch burning. So much more civilised than places where the witch burning is done by the state.

[legutierr]

“Witch burning”?

Doesn’t this phrase imply that someone is being harmed? Who is being harmed in this case?

The estate that controls the publication rights is deciding not to publish these books, and eBay is deciding not to list the books on its own platform. No one is being penalized or punished, and these entities are acting fully within their rights.

[therealjumbo]

Preventing transactions between two third parties (i.e. ebay) is economically similar to refusing to do business with another party. Except that if your in position to do the latter, you're obviously a platform for others, and thus you have a lot more unilateral power to prevent transactions between arbitrary third parties. Which is probably a lot more economic transactions than the number of transactions you engage in yourself. It's like leverage.

So the harm seems proportional to the harm done by refusing to bake that wedding cake for the gay couple.

[millstone]

Yes, this, in earnest. On Beyond Zebra! was a joy of mine growing up. EBay's 'witch burning' have surely breathed new life into these books. Go read it, it's great, its PDF can be found in a few seconds on google.

Market economies allow for stupid mistakes. It really is civilized when the blast radius of such mistakes is "people who get all their books from ebay" instead of "everyone in the country."

[pineaux]

Haven't seen a burned witch. I have seen people who have killed minorities because these minorities "might start burning witches and thereby destroy western free speech and civilisation".

[illirik]

What information in these children's books is undermining dictatorial governments? The government isn't censoring e.g. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States or Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago - these are literally just picture books with racist caricatures in them. You have no right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater, and you have no right to denigrate your fellow man.

[Veen]

> you have no right to denigrate your fellow man

Of course you do. Can you imagine what the world would be like if the government gave itself the power and created the bureaucratic machinery to stop people denigrating their fellow man? It would be a dystopian nightmare.

[hansbo]

Defamation is illegal in plenty of non-dystopian countries.

[manigandham]

There's a difference between defamation and denigration.

You're allowed to criticize anything, but if you knowingly publish lies, especially maliciously, then it crosses the line.

[hansbo]

There is a difference, but there are countries where it is illegal despite it being true. Sweden is an example of this.

[pineaux]

I don't see a government censoring this book. Is it illegal to have this book? Should I now force barnes and noble to sell my radical insurrectionist anarchist zines? They are gagging my right to free speech!

[Veen]

You seem to have responded to the wrong comment. Either that or you decided my comment was a good opportunity to spew some irrelevant gibberish.

[base698]

Would be?

[illirik]

There's a difference between "you shouldn't do hate speech" and some sort of 1984/V-for-Vendetta mechanism to ensure that nobody ever does hate speech. Laws and ethics are not the same thing.

[throwawayfrauds]

You’re actually wrong about rights in the United States. You have every right to do all of the things you claim you don’t: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

[illirik]

The laws in the United States are pretty convoluted, and I don't think they align with human rights all that well, especially given the treatment of imprisoned folks or asylum seekers. However, I do think that causing mass hysteria for kicks (shouting fire...) is wrong and you should not do it.

I'm curious: do you believe that there is anything that one does not have the right to say?

[throwawayfrauds]

Nope. And every other country in the world is available for someone to move to if they don’t like the US free speech laws.

[illirik]

So you believe that there is absolutely no form of speech whatsoever that should be protected as free speech?

[manigandham]

> "You have no right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater"

This is completely false. It's nothing more than a mis-quoted opinion of a justice in a very old case which was eventually overturned and allowed exactly this kind of speech.

Please inform yourself of the laws you're claiming exist before you try to make arguments about them.

[numeromancer]

In particular, this was an analogy used by Oliver Wendell Holmes in Schenck vs United States. The act which he compared to "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" was passing out leaflets opposing the draft, ie the government's power to force people to go to a war by which the American people were not threatened.

[bryanrasmussen]

I mean if a message goes across a distributed network and all the different nodes of the network independently decide to change their operation then there is no centralized power structure saying do this, even though it is effectively the same.

[captainredbeard]

In the gospel of wokeness, there must be an oppressing power structure