Are you seriously stating that insulting/offending people is equal in moral gravity to punching them?

I read the manifesto and thought it was stupid in most of its claims. But it's not hard to feel like thoughtcrime has become a real thing nowadays.

Writing some manifesto can be at most offensive, but is nowhere near "abuse". And it's under no circumstance as grave as physical assault.

Try your tough guy act in real life and you'll have a very serious discussion with the police.

That's insane.

All of human moral progress can be briefly summarized as "talking, not hitting."

No. All of human moral progress can be briefly summarized as "not hurting other people". Solving disagreements through discussion is better than solving them through violence, but you don't solve disagreements via discussion if you attack them verbally.

Comment 1: > It's not great, but the idea that attacking people verbally is somehow "better" than attacking them physically is wrong.

Comment 2: > Solving disagreements through discussion is better than solving them through violence

lol, always amusing when I assume both intelligence and good faith when discussing things on the internet.

You think I'd learn.

Wait, are you actually equating discussions, with verbally attacking someone? And then you have the gall to accuse me of acting in bad faith?

Would you please not do the flamewar thing on HN? It's tediously off topic and damages the site.

Absolutely: I am accusing you of either that, clouded thinking, or both.

In fact, this discussion is a demonstration of my point. We are both attacking one another's intellectual and moral reasoning abilities via speech. This is better than than us having a fist fight over the matter.

Right, and because it's hard to have discussions that may not be easy to resolve, it far easier to re-label those disagreements as "attack them verbally." Hence, the new thoughtcrime.

So tell me why you labeled "people disagree with me" as "thoughtcrime"

One is a crime and the other isn't. That's for a good reason.