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by jseip 184 days ago
"please verify that you're feeling something different—quite different—from anger and a desire to fight this war."

Um, why is it inappropriate to be outraged that international humanitarian lwas are actively being violated by Israel, in Gaza?
2 comments
SpitSalute 184 days ago
I don't think they're saying it's inappropriate. It seems like they're saying this isn't the place to share your outrage.
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TimorousBestie 184 days ago
Inappropriate and “this isn’t the place” are synonyms.
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tomhow 184 days ago
That's not really true. The point is that there's a difference between how you feel about a topic and how you express it. People will have different feelings and different intensities of feelings about a topic like this. That's normal, understandable and valid.

As dang has said elsewhere in this thread and in other comparable threads, before you comment about a topic like this, there needs to be some processing or metabolizing of those feelings. HN is a place for learning, not venting or battling. And there is much to learn about these topics by discussing them curiously. I certainly do, and I see others doing that too. That's a significant reason why I think it's important for us to make space for these discussions here. But if the threads are overwhelmed by people expressing extreme emotions, there's less to learn, other than that people on both sides are angry about this issue, which we already knew.

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SpitSalute 184 days ago
This might help. Appropriate = your outrage(not shared here) in general. Inappropriate = sharing your outrage here.
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dang 184 days ago
It's not inappropriate to be outraged. What's inappropriate is to post comments to Hacker News that vent aggression at other commenters and/or those on the other side of the conflict. Doing that is against both HN's rules and, more importantly, the intended spirit of this community (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). A certain amount of processing or, if you like, metabolization needs to happen between those two steps.

As I say in many contexts, you may not owe the other side better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

Here's an analogy which may (or not) be helpful. Even in the middle of a war, it sometimes happens that enemies meet and discuss things. Such discussions won't help anything or anyone if they just consist of yelling at each other.

p.s. I appreciate your question and apologize that you had to reply here instead of to my comment itself (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221528). We have to turn off replies on pinned comments, but I hate giving the impression that we don't want to hear responses or objections.

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