Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

A reminder that your society will be judged not on how the most fortunate lived but how the least fortunate lived. Context still matters but there's a meaningful difference between "Anne Brontë died of Consumption (Tuberculosis), at that time there was no cure" and "Dave died of TB, he couldn't afford the cure at current market prices".


What is a mote in such a society to do though? Dave couldn't afford the cure, but neither can I. What do you suggest I do to make it affordable for both of us?



Sure. Which is your society though?


Unless you are one of the rare unintegrated humans†, in which case you wouldn't read HN because you don't have any of the necessary technology, there is only a single human society. Given that, we should be uncomfortable about how we're doing on that "least fortunate" thing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples


So why is it not our society? Are you an unintegrated human, hence why you have the external view on things?


No need to nitpick. Being one among many in an X, one can perfectly use "our X", "my X" and "your X" to denote the same X, there is no logical error in that.

Now, the connotation is different: saying "our X will be judged by.." spreads the responsibility among everyone and makes it too easy to shift the blame onto the next guy, while saying "your X will be judged by.." stresses on your personal contribution to the X, making it not that easy to shy away.


I think the personal pronoun you use is very interesting.

In your case, you seemed to be representing the common idea of a different culture, ie 'my society thought your society was this or that', eg 'Muslims think western societies to be greedy and unkind'.

Do you really think of yourself as one of many? If so, which type do you identify as? And then, do you think you are personally responsible for the actions of others of your type?

I personally think the general usage of a general collective pronouns to be inevitably misleading, but has the benefit of allowing one's preferred poor and unsubstantiated beliefs to be stated as indisputable fact.


This is our manifesto. We are creative people. Here is our strategy for advancing creative work and supporting the people who do it.

We upvote comments that completely miss the point of how this algorithm works. We upvote comments that claim the algorithm does nothing at all. We downvote comments about how the creator of the original drum break died destitute.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: