[dang]

The people you're opposed to think it's them we're biased against, and that we let your side dominate. One of the weird things one learns in this job is how symmetrical these dynamics are; not just about this topic, but every polarized topic.

Many HN commenters deplore what Israel is doing in Gaza. Their views are certainly not suppressed. But your account is the first I saw calling for striking an entire population. That's shocking, and banning is not a borderline call.

The mystery is why/how it's so easy to turn into the thing one deplores. I'm not just talking about you, but a lot of people, and maybe all of us.

[licebmi__at__]

I would say dang, that is getting really hard to take this justifications seriously, specially in threads like this where the interlocutor is fishing for reactions. Calling for the whole population to be struck is bad, like really bad; but it's not coming out of nowhere where the other guy is pretty much (politely) celebrating the actual annihilation that is happening right now.

[dang]

It seems to me that you're repeating the dynamic I just described, which is that you feel like your side is getting treated worse and the opposing side is getting favored. I don't agree that that's the case—not at all. It's just how this cognitive bias works, and it's a powerful one - maybe the most powerful.

I think the way out of this is to agree that a comment like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45019132 is unacceptable regardless of who the commenter wants to see killed. When you add a "but", you undermine that. There shouldn't be a "but" here.

Exactly the same standard applies to the symmetrical situation. If you (or anyone) see other comments which are that egregious, you're welcome to send us links so we can take a look.