[TheAmazingIdiot]

Why not discuss topics of ethics like "women are inferior"?

If these conclusions are oh so horribly wrong, then bringing them out 'in the sun' should make them self evident they are not true. And beyond that, people who make claims such as that usually have false premises in which that and other statements of fact are also just as incorrect.

The statement about people who baselessly insult (Mac-fag and ilk) we can do without in a community.

[chc]

> Why not discuss topics of ethics like "women are inferior"?

> If these conclusions are oh so horribly wrong, then bringing them out 'in the sun' should make them self evident they are not true.

You might think that, but in practice they're just shouting matches that accomplish nothing but offense. Those discussions will not convince people who are committed to their views (who are the ones most likely to start a "women are inferior"-type thread), but they will drag down the quality of conversation and lead to (for example) more overall sexist speech on Hacker News. Even if you did convince someone (which you won't 99% of the time), there's an endless supply of other jerks to keep dragging the conversation down if you let them.

There are places to talk about absolutely anything that's on your mind in whatever manner you feel like. This isn't one of them. Hacker News has standards. Not every place has to be a perfect bastion of unfettered free speech. You'll also not get to stay in my apartment very long if you call my girlfriend a prostitute, even though that is also easily disproven.

[TheAmazingIdiot]

Perhaps you're right. There are some topics best left for others to 'discuss'. For example, common topics like Nazis, Jews, Islam, abortion, inferior women, blacks.

However, these were not topics I had in mind for ethics or such. We deal with in this community the ethics and morality of business and commerce. Along side, we deal with programmers who can do great good or great harm. These are more controversial topics I think about.

  DRM
  (RI/MP)AA
  governments (US and others)
  Immigration 
  piracy
  filesharing technology
  bitcoin
  laws intersecting commerce (AirBNB, UBER)

I think you're right. In cases of people acting like a 'shitcock', doing _something_ seems rational to keep the community in check. But stopping people who only want to interrupt the community is much different than those that take hard stances elsewhere.

As an example, I use GNU extensively and am a communist (used in sense of economic policy). I also have no issue in using pirated anything. That right there probably goes against 99% of the companies present.

[JabavuAdams]

It's a question of venue and audience. I don't want to have to discuss whether or not black are inferior every time I go to my local hangout to get a coffee.

I may choose to, and have chosen to debate whether or not blacks are inferior, but it's stressful and annoying. It's something better reserved for a certain frame of mind and known venue.

So, I assume that given some threshold of are-women-inferior discussions, many interesting women just stop showing up at your party. It's natural that certain topics are more sensitive (especially to people placed on the defensive), and that you don't just drop them like bombs in an unrelated conversation / venue.