

Nerds Are Taking Your Lunch Money - magic_haze
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/nerds_are_taking_your_lunch_money/

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mynewwork
I do find it fascinating that every time someone tries to use historical
evidence to show the dangers of a current trend, they are inevitably accused
of making light of the historical event and people ignore their actual
statements. We seem to be actively hostile to learning from the past as a
society and just operate on faith that the injustices and atrocities of our
collective past will never happen again.

Obviously anything to do with Nazis or the Holocaust triggers this reaction
faster and more severely, but it can happen with any subject. Every argument
of "Currently A is happening. When A happened in {time/place} it led to B and
then C, and we all agree B and C are really bad" will be met with "How dare
you compare yourself to {time/place}! B and C aren't happening now and will
never happen again" (with no explanation for what will prevent B and C from
happening).

~~~
magic_haze
I think it's the equivalent of the middlebrow dismissal we so often see here
in HN, rather than any faith in humanity. As you mentioned, it is just too
easy to come up with a generic "how dare you" response, which is guaranteed to
draw in existing prejudices and pitchforks. I don't think the intent is to
drown out rational debate of the original statement -- it just happens to be
the victim in the race for clickcounts.

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pkulak
So because I think the rich don't pay nearly enough taxes, I'm part of some
idiot mob? I don't know anyone who actively hates rich people. The whole thing
seemed like a giant straw man to me.

~~~
magic_haze
I agree about the tax issue as well, but I thought this post was particularly
articulate about analyzing an issue from a perspective that was unusual to me.
I didn't have a good enough counterpoint to his argument, so I submitted the
link here to get some discussion going. I don't think the intention here was
advocacy or judgement.

You and I may be moderates, but you have to agree, there definitely are more
than enough people who would support mob justice (to take a mild example, the
attacks on Google's buses recently... the entire situation seems like a powder
keg)

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usingpond
Guys, it's just a HUGE COINCIDENCE that the Dilbert guy is a big fat
conservative who already believes that the rich are literally persecuted.

