Explaining my downvote: I'm thoroughly annoyed at all of the versions of this comment on HN lately. It adds nothing to the discussion, and derails the conversation we were having to talk about some vague injustice where People These Days don't let you say Stuff Like This.

Can you point to something you've said that's resulted in the problem you've described?

Are you literally not looking around at all these days? Your filter bubble must be very, very small and selective indeed to somehow have missed Cancel Culture.

I've seen people get offended by celebrities with insensitive takes, but I've never seen anyone on HN get cancelled because of a comment. The worst I've seen is "this is wrong and here's why" or "I don't want to talk to you".

Generally I've seen people reach for "cancel culture" when:

1. Fear-mongering the left over perceived injustice.

2. Defending bad takes by tone-policing any disagreement.

Can you point to a comment by john_moscow where they've been 'cancelled'? Or maybe a comment by you?

Does it have to be something parent specifically said? If not look around the news?

Sorry, based on your comment history I don't think I'd like to discuss anything with you. Cheers.

So because someone has a counter opinion from yours to refuse debate but stand on a public forum without desire to be challenged? Wow.

I'm happy to have discussions with people I disagree with, but generally once you're down the "poverty is good, actually" [0] rabbit hole I think a discussion would be a waste of both of our time.

I think you should be embarrassed at edgelord takes like "I don’t see the value an impoverished set of humans can provide" [1], and I don't have any interest in talking with far-right extremists. Bye.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23591648

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23599938

Read the rest of the comment, which is the point you’re failing to realize. You’re judging without understanding the complete picture. So again read that comment again and read it from a logical standpoint instead of emotional. It literally says the next sentence they have value in some situation and your failure to understand that some poor bread maker can’t have anything valid to say when writing software or building a rocket. That’s my opinion, change it if you want with facts. Not everybody that disagrees with you is a right wing extremist. Some of us are capable of discussing actual facts and values. And you also pointed to a comment made after your comment so how this can be influential in your first comment suggests you have some ability to travel through time.

To further explain my position, I actually don't disagree that help should be given if possible. But right now I don't see why given we have uneducated and poor people still within the US we should help another country. IFF we have this problem resolved, AND we have surplus resources (money, goods, etc), then clearly why not provide as much help as possible? But when we have yet to solve the problem here it's an ask to divert resources. So then the value proposition question comes up. If I must divert resources then this must somehow create more value for me to justify it, so that I can then in turn help those in need in my country that these resources could be going to help instead.

I don't see anything in the parent comment that's even remotely controversial. Almost everyone across the political spectrum agrees that we should spend more on education, at least in the abstract. There's plenty of disagreement on the details, but I don't see anything in the comment that stakes out a strong position on any of the major issues. Perhaps I'm missing something.

You’re not missing something. But that’s the point. You read the whole comment and interpreted it in good faith. What the comment you are replying to is saying, is that it is easy to cherry pick statements out of nuanced comments that do not hold up well on their own. So unfortunately many people are afraid of making nuanced points online, and stick to banal platitudes that can’t be easily misinterpreted in bad faith.

Here's the problem: you cannot guarantee equal outcomes across intersectional groups. Period. Not going to happen. A hundred years of psychometric research backs this up; there are simply differences that cannot be papered over by adjusting metrics and applying equalizing coefficients.

A highly effective education system that really gets the best out of every person involved is also going to be selective, it is going to group people into different classes based on ability, and the resulting output is going to be highly offensive to the militant people who right now are literally doing their best to take over American cities.

So no, we can't fix this problem. We can spend more on it, but ultimately all of that money is just IOUs against a decaying system that demands everyone be equal, even if that lowest common denominator means all but the super-rich end up living in a favela within a few decades.

In short, you're claiming that some races or genders are inherently more capable than others, independent of all 'nurture' factors? If so, you're wrong, but feel free to clarify what "hundred years of psychometric research" you're referring to.

No we are claiming that we need $4309582309239 extra spending on the Governor's wife's tennis partners' baker's niece's program to totally-not-put-all-those-dollars-back-into-the-governors-electoral-budget.

That will fix it.

What I mean to say is that 99.9% of those programs are just abusing the system (even if 10% of them started out with honest intentions).

How about you show me an IQ study with a big cohort that shows otherwise? You're the one asserting something that doesn't line up with anyone's experience with zero proof.

I was actually arguing that we should spend differently, not necessarily more, in our education system.

I'm not sure this comment contributes to the discussion at hand at all. Other than to try to derail the convo into some dialog about "censorship".