Comment by ok123456
3 years ago
He did less damage than a Harvard grad who went on to run a hedge fund, or went on to work in private equity, or work for McKinsey, or become a lobbyist.
Where's the detailed list of victims of globalization and finance?
For the sake of argument, 100% agreed.
However, that's still irrelevant and does nothing to alleviate the fact that he killed many innocent people.
Two wrongs don't make a right, as they say.
Who says that? Parent's talking to toddlers?
Surely no one making decisions of consequence in our world. They certainly prefer tit for tat.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
I personally say that to myself as I make decisions in our world. My path-of-least-resistance monkey brain certainly prefers tit-for-tat also, but I don't think that's a good way to be. I fail at this often though of course
Or invading another country and killing somewhere on the order of 100K-1M innocent civilians.
If we're going to make a rank order list of genocidal maniacs, Ted Kaczynski isn't anywhere near the top.
Kill ten people and you're a serial killer. Kill ten million and you're a politician.
Kill em all... YOU'RE A GOD!
(Megadeth - Captive Honour, by way of Jean Rostand)
that's some rich whataboutism
In the context of "having a harvard degree implies a certain amount of skill and capability of to improve the world", I think its fair to honestly look at who he's being held up to in comparison. There a lot people in the world who, if you asked them who was the most dangerous person to graduate from Harvard, they'd pick George W. Bush over some guy who killed 3 and injured not quite 2 dozen.
Getting into or graduating from Harvard as an undergrad doesn't mean much. Granted, Kaczynski didn't buy his way in, but the comment as written doesn't differentiate between some rich kid buying their way in and some genius earning their way in.
I am not defending Bush (a Yale grad, but that's beside the point) and the like. Unabomber was a psychopath who purposefully murdered people.
"he did less damage" - "then a lobbyist or McKinsey" is a wild statement. He was a purposeful murderer. Trying to lump McKinsey consultants and politicians (horrible people, most of them, I am sure) with a serial killer is normalizing murder. Murder is a line that, I imagine, is drawn in concrete for any person who expects to be welcome in the modern society.
I will take my chances in being the subject to damage done by any randomly picked lobbyist vs Unabomber. Won't you?
What is going on with HN if this is the kind of discourse that's getting upvoted and approved.
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The introduction of the SAT kept Jeb from going there.
It's not "whataboutism." It's proportionality and universality.
Whataboutism is slang for not having a coherent argument.
You can always tell weak thinkers when they need to throw out pre-labeled idea placeholders instead of making their point