Here's a town, Cambria, where building a pipeline to the ocean was stopped by environmental nazi's.
How do you expect to get taken seriously when you use such hateful terms against your opponents? The problem here seems to be bureaucratic inflexibility that's unresponsive to unique local conditions (even though the general principle might be a sound one), not jackbooted thugs brutalizing anyone who suggests desalination might be more sustainable than well-digging.
The problem here is the unresponsive nature of governance when there are jurisdictional conflicts. Why do you feel the need to treat it as a personal moral conflict when there's no evidence that that's what's going on? It doesn't seem to me that you're interested in addressing the actual problem, just in using it as a means to demonize other people with whom you disagree.
My family lives in a N. California suburban town with major fire dangers and large trees. The town council is responsive with applied effort. The family and neighbors had to have a neighbor's fallen tree into their own unoccupied house cleaned up, in addition to the overgrowth of weeds removed. They city eventually did it and billed the property owner. Problem solved. If it happens again, I might prosecute adverse possession and I think the neighbors and town would be okay with it.
The messenger has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the message.
As I said in my comment to the other poster, we have accepted having become a neutered society where the ideological extremists (from all angles) win because you, I and the next guy are socially neutered.
We don't fight for anything and accept such nonsense as "bureaucratic inflexibility that's unresponsive to unique local conditions". NO, that's bullshit that ought not be tolerated. And that's precisely the attitude that lands us in these kinds of problems.
What you wrote is wonderful and sounds like it ought be be read sipping ice tea while reading Plato's Republic on a green lawn on a nice Sunday afternoon in a gentle breeze. In other words, neutered intellectualism.
And, while we do that, HALF THE TREES in a forest are DEAD.
So, yes, maybe it's time we stop tolerating and rationalizing billion dollar websites and killing half the trees in a forest, get a little angry, sound a little less erudite and fix the problem.
Look, I view these issues not with my eyes but rather with my kid's futures in mind. We have reached the peak of the ridiculous in this country. We can't get anything done. We can build anything, we can't grow anything and we are at a point where people actually get angry at a guy calling an agency "nazi's" in a figurative sense when, the real issue is that HALF A FOREST was destroyed and a town stands to also be destroyed in the process.
So, what should we focus on? The language and semantic choices or the real problems? Do we vote for politicians who sound, well, political and neutered, or do we want people with fire in their eyes who are going to plow through the nonsense and fix problems. I have to tell you, my conversation with my Mom and Dad last night, life long Dems, was an eye opener. They've lost all trust in the political class. All of them.
You can hate me. That's fine. Now go focus on half a forest being killed due to either the lack of an ability to make sensible decisions or, possibly worst, decisions driven by ideology regardless of the consequences they might bring. Focus on that. Please.
Dramatic language typically looses attention and respect of most people. Presenting content in less "colorful" terms is more persuasive and more civilized. It's also emotional bullsh!t and laziness to demand the impossible of many other people to not feel a certain way after-the-fact, contrary to the tone of one's presentation. In such situations: an author should have thought about their tone before botching the conversation, because there is no unsaying certain things.
Well, you lost me when you couldn't bring yourself to fully spell-out "bullshit". What did you say again?
C'mon.
“Never use a big word when a little filthy one will do.”
― Johnny Carson
It's OK, I get it. In today's society it is better to come of in alignment with the cult and neutered than to actually have a pulse.
I'm not 20 years old any more. I don't need to impress anyone. I'll leave carefully written prose to business emails, letters and contracts. If my post offended you, well, I am truly sorry. Sorry because you are choosing to focus on the messenger and not on the issues.
This thread has become unmoored not only from its original topic but from any topic. It's clear that you feel strongly about some things, and that's understandable, but it appears to be distorting your interactions with others. HN is for thoughtful discussion, not antagonism, so we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't post like this here.
I don't know who "we" might be. Do you work for ycombinator? Are you an official moderator? Otherwise not sure why you would say "we". Just wondering.
That said, if we are talking about antagonism and HN, well, when it comes to topics outside of tech it is almost a sport to down-vote or berate anyone who does not align with a certain ideology.
In the over six years or so I've been reading HN I have yet to see any "we" coming down to say "We'd appreciate it if you wouldn't post like this here" in any of those cases in defense of being accepting of alternative points of view.
I go back to USENET days. HN is definitely better than any of that, by far, however, there's an underlying accepted ideology that is promoted here and everything else is rejected and attacked in various overt and and not-so-overt ways. That aspect is not very different from the kinds of things that could happen on USENET. Granted, public discussion boards are horrendously difficult to run. I get that part.
Discussions on HN are thoughtful when it comes to matters of technology. Outside of that HN is very intolerant of alternative points of view. People can find themselves defending from personal attacks instead of engaging in discussing the issues. Something like this:
HN is the person with the nail on her head. She is happy for the split second the guy comes in to alignment with her point of view. Outside of that, when an alternative point of view is offered, not happy at all.
Before anyone says anything --because I KNOW someone will jump on the keyboard and attack the choice of videos-- no, this has nothing to do with women. It's just a convenient illustration that came to mind.
> I don't know who "we" might be. Do you work for ycombinator? Are you an official moderator? Otherwise not sure why you would say "we". Just wondering.
Then please take the time to moderate both sides and allow for tolerance of alternative points of view. And, in particular, "we" should not tolerate personal attacks.
To be absolutely clear, I responded, but I'm not an employee of HN, a moderator, nor dang (just in case there was some assumption I was speaking for myself previously).
P.S. I'm curious, what personal attacks are you referencing?
In my experience, people with fire in their eyes are the problem, because such people don't listen well, won't consider any other point of view besides their own, and so end up getting in the way. Super-ideological environmentalists have fire in their eyes too, but being passionate doesn't mean that they're necessarily right - as you yourself have observed.
There's a real problem here, which is often studied under the name 'public choice theory.' I appreciate that you feel frustrated by the web of sociopolitical constraints that you feel trapped in, as do I. But where I disagree with you is in thinking that the problem exists because people are not emotional enough.
It's not about being emotional. It's about the opposite of passive compliance.
I do not, by any stretch, want to compare this to the Holocaust. But there's a lesson there that I learned from watching a video by this Arab author who is Islamic yet quite vocal about fighting islamic terrorism. I wish I could remember her name.
She said something to the effect that moderate majorities never matter. And she used examples such as various genocides throughout history to demonstrate her point. In the case of what happened in Germany, she, quite correctly, said that while the vast majority of Germans did not agree with the Nazi's and were "moderate" their inaction, their lack of engagement, their passive compliance, their lack of "fire in their eyes" made them irrelevant. Moderates do not act and by not acting they serve no purpose when faced with something even as horrible as a genocide.
Again, not comparing this to a real genocide. I guess we don't have a comparable word for being responsible for the death of half a forest.
Yet the point is that a different attitude of active and passionate engagement against nonsense is badly needed. The moderates, the people who just sit idly by and let it happen. the people enough passion or "fire in their eyes" to oppose these forces quickly become irrelevant. And that pretty much describes every single professional politician. They've all been neutered by their need to survive by pandering for votes. And so, they do nothing and the extremists, just like the Nazi's, have free range to do as they wish.
This isn't a simple problem and, to be sure, we've created it or allowed it to be created for decades. And no, by "fire in the eyes" I don't mean Rambo. I mean passion to do the right thing. Which also means passion to demand responsible decisions while making common sense choices about issues in front of us. Killing half a forest is criminal.
How do you expect to get taken seriously when you use such hateful terms against your opponents? The problem here seems to be bureaucratic inflexibility that's unresponsive to unique local conditions (even though the general principle might be a sound one), not jackbooted thugs brutalizing anyone who suggests desalination might be more sustainable than well-digging.
The problem here is the unresponsive nature of governance when there are jurisdictional conflicts. Why do you feel the need to treat it as a personal moral conflict when there's no evidence that that's what's going on? It doesn't seem to me that you're interested in addressing the actual problem, just in using it as a means to demonize other people with whom you disagree.