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Careening at 90 miles per hour through a school zone crosswalk as kids dive out of the way: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."




Yawn. If that were truly analogous to the current topic, rather than a gross exaggeration, the analogy would be unnecessary.

Replace "Careening at 90 miles per hour through a school zone crosswalk as kids dive out of the way" with the actual topic of "Spending your money on legal things without government tracking and control".

Your point is understood that you personally prefer one thing to another, compared to another person preferring the opposite.


And if you were truly able to attack my position on its merits you wouldn't need to keep stripping out all specifics to build a straw man, but here we are!

(Also, the analogy would only be necessary if it were… not analogous to the topic at hand? That makes no sense.)


Why would I attack your position? Your position is totally reasonable given a particular set of pretty common preferences ("this" over "that"). Besides, you never asked me to try to change your mind, so why would I assume you wanted me to spend my time & effort doing that work?

What's more, your "position" (opinion) is no more or less defensible than the opposite opinion held by a different person, or any opinion in general, and other people are no more obliged to "attack" yours than you are theirs (is "attacking" really a good conversation anyways?)

I'm just a third party elucidating that this is 2 people disagreeing based on their own personal preferences, which are based on their own personal opinions, and doesn't need to be a referendum on either person.


You know, I really don't appreciate this coy "I'm not attacking your position, I'm just simplifying it to a tradeoff between liberty and safety and what's that quote about liberty vs. safety again? Ah well, the reader can draw their own conclusions." Your whole "all opinions are valid, who can truly say which is more defensible?" schtick is the last refuge of people who are unable to defend their views.

It's pretty obvious what you're trying to say here, man. Don't piss on my leg and tell me that it's raining.


I'm sorry that you don't appreciate my "position" of "not arguing with your opinion, because you never asked anyone to help you change your opinion, and because you don't seem interested in changing it anyways if someone tried".

It sounds like you just want to fight rather than understand why different people have different views. Even after someone politely tells you that your opinions are common and your conclusions are reasonable given those opinions, you're still trying to find something to fight them on.

I'm more interested in the latter (understanding) than the former (fighting), so I'll pass, but luckily you'll have no trouble finding someone else on the internet who just wants to fight and doesn't seek understanding.


Yeah, this is definitely the conduct of someone who's "just trying to understand": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44582005

I'm leaving this conversation. Go sealion [1] someone else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning


> Yeah, this is definitely the conduct of someone who's [interested in more understanding over more fighting]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44582005

Yep, I agree with you that it is! Note that I fixed your "translation" of my quote here, which I'm sure was just an honest mistake on your part.

You see, I realize that you have different opinions than me and others, but that's no reason for you to be rude and disrespectful to others on HN. Your link there is a good example of how to behave instead.

That said, I already told you I'm not interested in a fight about opinions with someone who isn't interested in changing theirs, so if you're leaving because I didn't provide you with such a fight... bye?




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