[sdoering]

Just as a side note. The link to this post was flagged after being submitted to HN yesterday within a very short time frame.

You might want to consider your karma points and preemptively remove it and pay your dues to the community by apologizing for not adhering to group speak.

I very much stand on the left side of the political spectrum, while the linked blogpost clearly comes from the liberal to right spectrum. But I still think that the old Rosa Luxemburg quote should apply:

> Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter (Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden)

I valued the posting yesterday as it provided differing views that made me think, evaluate and understand my own position better afterwards.

Edit:

Please excuse my sarcasm in the first paragraphs, but I was troubled yesterday that the link was flagged to death and that not a civil discussion was able to arise. I was only used to this way of dealing with dissenting opinions on other forums until then.

[pessimizer]

> You might want to consider your karma points

Karma points are worth less than skee-ball tickets.

[sdoering]

I wholeheartedly agree. That's the reason I used the term in the sarcastic part.

[skrebbel]

I think you're mistaking groupthink for people who are simply tired of seeing the same old culture war debate on HN repeated over and over again.

Plenty HN discussions about exactly this subject in the past have shown that:

1. Unlike some subjects, HN commenters have widely differing opinions here. The free speech hardliners and the anti disinformation/bigotry/*ism hardliners are both well represented, and many on both sides are capable of intelligent debate.

2. Nevertheless, the discussion never really gets anywhere. Nobody adds new information and nobody convinces anybody.

I might be projecting, but i can imagine that many people flagged it with a "here we go again" sigh and not with the "must suppress anti woke sentiments!!" thought you. I bet comparably inflammatory articles from the woke side of the debate are flagged equally much.

[sdoering]

While I completely understand the need for why underrepresented groups should be given preference in certain application and hiring processes, I still carry a desire that this would not be necessary.

I do not judge people I interact with based on their gender, skin color, race, or such irrelevancies. I judge them by how they behave toward me. In the process, many stereotypical "old white men" come off very badly. Although I am almost an old white man myself. I wish for a world where it doesn't matter what gender someone identifies by or what that person is doing in bed, on the couch, at the kitchen table, or anywhere else with anyone else.

And of course I know that this argument is misused to sweep systematic discrimination of social groups under the carpet. That's why I'm not in favor of judging members of such groups only on the basis of performance criteria that favor people who were born and raised in a privileged situation by a lucky coincidence.

Nevertheless, I find it important to deal with the argument that, in a better world, we should not judge anyone by such criteria. It should not play a role in an ideal world.

And I believe that with our ever increasing diversification we are playing into the hands of those who want a divided, disunited society/opposition.

Divide et impera has always been a very successful strategy and it has always been successful to play individual sub-groups off against each other, even though they have much more in common than what divides them.

So I personally consider it a gain to deal with dissenting opinions. And be it in the worst case only to sharpen and polish my own arguments.

[syshum]

On #2,

I dont engage with others really to change the mind of the person I am engaging with. That is much to hard and a high bar.

No, I engage to ensure there is a dissenting view point read by observers to the debate, those people I can sway with my arguments, the people that simply read HN never commenting themselves. That is my target.

I want to ensure HN is not just an echo chamber of one political ideological take on a political topic

>>I bet comparably inflammatory articles from the woke side of the debate are flagged equally much.

That has not been my observation. HN is less Echo chambery than say Reddits political subs but there is still a clear political bent here