[dang]

"You're just biased" is the first retort of every troll. Actually my bias is closer to your view than to the opposite. That's not the issue here.

The issue is that you're coming in with guns blazing, lashing out and firing condemnations at the side you have a problem with. Not only is this not helpful, it does violence to the thread. You're coming in to a room (let's call it) of human beings who have dealt with, and are still dealing with, every side of this profound and painful issue. That calls for compassion, regardless of where you are on the opinion spectrum.

When you show up with intense judgments and condemnations ("genocide", "dystopian", etc.), you're destroying our chance at human understanding. It changes the nature of the thread as much as hitting someone in the face would change a dinner.

It's also the cheapest of internet moves, the easiest thing to produce online, because it feels so good and justified while you're doing it. We've all been there, of course. When it feels like people aren't listening to you, the only thing left to do is shoot rhetoric in the most concentrated form you can come up with. That'll show them.

In reality, what you're doing is poisoning the connections between people. That's not as bad as poisoning people literally, but it's a second-order version of the same thing.

[DanBC]

> The issue is that you're coming in with guns blazing, [...] it does violence to the thread.

It's frankly a bit weird that you think the claim that [we should eliminate people who we see as inferior] doesn't do this.

[C06aka]

Then be specific in your criticism. There is a very clear sugar coating of terminology that I think is worth pointing out. There are no guns blazing. I struggle to understand what you take issue with, if not my point.

[dang]

If you don't see how https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26591334 is coming into the thread with guns blazing (I mean rhetorically, of course), I'm not sure what else to say, other than please try to imagine yourself into the position of whoever you're condemning and ask yourself if that's likely to help or make things worse. When you do this, you're rating the venting of your own frustration higher than anything or anyone else in the discussion. That's a contradiction. The opinion content of your posts is about defending the vulnerable, but your action in the thread is to hurt people who are present and be selfish towards them.

One of my teachers was a wise man who, sadly for those who knew him, died recently. In the last conversation I got to have with him, he said something I found incredible: "The connection is more important than the content." I've been repeating that to myself for a few months now: The connection is more important than the content. The connection is more important than the content. If nothing else that I'm saying makes sense, maybe try pondering that.

[mlyle]

Just to augment or explain in a slightly different way: Coming in with the most abrasive terminology you can, and being aggressive convinces no one. People who disagree don't read what you say. And it can even upset people who agree with you. It just destroys communication.

I hate it when people do this. When I agree with them, I cringe, because it means my milder argument will not be heard. When I disagree, it has its intended effect and provokes me and leaves me angry.