They didn’t compare the reactions to the death of someone who led one of the world’s largest terrorist organizations for decades with that of someone mainly known for being good at debates. They compared the reactions to the death of someone who led one of the world’s largest terrorist organizations for decades with that of Charlie Kirk.
Does it really make any difference whether they compared the death of someone who led one of the world’s largest terrorist organisations for decades
- with someone who wasn’t good at debates,
- or with someone who was?
My point still stands: even if Charlie Kirk had been entirely unremarkable, it wouldn’t be right to compare him with someone responsible for thousands of civilian deaths?
You're seeing things that aren't there: me comparing reactions. What I was doing instead is looking at the stickied comment here
> By non-violent I mean not celebrating violence nor excusing it, but also more than that: I mean metabolizing the violence you feel in yourself, until you no longer have a need to express it aggressively.
> The feelings we all have about violence are strong and fully human and I'm not judging them. I believe it's our responsibility to each carry our own share of these feelings, rather than firing them at others, including in the petty forms that aggression takes on an internet forum.
Which is a philosophy based on the idea of "it doesn't matter who it is about, it's about the concept".
Dang hadn't even begun working on HN in 2011, even as pg's co-moderator (that only happened the following year). HN, and the world, were vastly different places then. Dang has now been doing the job in some form for over a decade, and I've been around for plenty of those years too. We've learned much about what is needed to keep discussions as healthy as possible (relatively speaking). These days it's not unusual for us to post a sticky comment at the top of a thread for a major controversial topic, to remind the community of the guidelines and the expected standard of discourse. In today's world, we would post that kind of top comment for any death of a major public figure that were likely to stir up strong reactions in the comments.
No, he was not comparing reactions. He went back to check the Bin Laden comment section to see if there were such comments to warrant a sticky from dang.
