This is why a lot of HNers flag articles about privilege, sexism, etc.

People without food allergies have privilege in that they don't have to constantly worry whether what they eat will kill them. The people with privilege often just don't have to think about or deal with stuff that those without do.

It could, in principle, be just a claim about the state of the world; in practice, its quite often an ad hominem to dismiss a position they've taken, and often its that with a side of implicit moral judgement that the position is not only invalid because of the claimed privilege, but also that it is maliciously offered as a defense of that privilege at the expense of the unprivileged.

That's not to say that privilege doesn't exist (it does), or that it doesn't at times blind people to others' experiences (it does), or that it doesn't at times lead to people, consciously or not, defending it at the expense of the unprivileged (it does that, too!)

But to pretend that claims of privilege are non-judgemental is ignoring how they are actually used in practice.

That is exactly the same argument that bigots use when they talk about {minorities, poor people, immigrants, LGBT people}. "That person fits into category X, and everyone in category X shares some characteristic Y because they're in that category. I'm just saying that because it's true!" It doesn't matter who that generalization is made about, whether they're the dominant group in society or not. It's still a terrible generalization and an intellectually lazy argument and in and of itself carries a judgement. If you grant that something like "white privilege" or "male privilege" exists (and most people that buy into the concept do) then by that logic a homeless, illiterate white man has more privilege than a black woman millionaire CEO.

>People without food allergies have privilege in that they don't have to constantly worry whether what they eat will kill them.

That's absolute nonsense as well. There exist people without food allergies that have other conditions where they constantly have to worry about what they eat, diabetes being an example. So check your cis-gylcemic privilege you fascist!/s Do you see how ridiculous and divisive that sounds?

To be sure (in the spirt of NY Times "to be sure" statements) [1] PG (who went to Harvard of course as everyone knows) and others always point out the obligatory risks but tend to do so in a way that I think most people perhaps ignore. More or less a "sure it's risky but" as opposed to "you'd be foolish however there's always a small small chance that..."

[1] That is where they (and others in the media) counter something they are saying with the other point of view typically buried 3 quarters down the page as a qualifier.

Like, back to first base, say?