[Kloversight2]

Then is it really a "totally different aspect"? You can't know the motivations behind why politics comes up in a conversation, and it's perfectly reasonable for someone who isn't the target of oppression to feel empathy for and advocate on behalf of the oppressed.

[dang]

Using multiple accounts to give the appearance of multiple voices in an argument is obviously abusive. We ban such accounts and I've banned these.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[boredemployee]

I'm also totally aware of that.

Again, I'm speaking about people (family/friends) that I know their background and I know that it is a huge waste of time trying to argue against their biased POV of "good old days of dictatorship". I'm talking about people that don't care about the oppressed.

[Kloversight2]

And I'm talking about the fact that those are the very people with whom you should be discussing these things the most, no?

[projectazorian]

It’s not worth trying to convince such people, the chance of success is very low and such discussions tend to get very uncomfortable very fast. Once you’ve established that someone supports authoritarian dictatorship, your engagement should be restricted to telling them such views are unacceptable in the space (if applicable) or correcting errors of fact for any onlookers.

But if you don’t already know the person’s views, it seems unwise to assume that “old person = supports the old regime,” since this will result in you missing opportunities to connect with potential allies.

[Kloversight2]

> Once you’ve established that someone supports authoritarian dictatorship, your engagement should be restricted to telling them such views are unacceptable in the space (if applicable) or correcting errors of fact for any onlookers.

Even as they metaphorically step on the throats of the people you care about?