"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Thanks dang, I understand and appreciate you pointing this out. However, I would say the original flamebait and a tangent was mention and praise of a person who has committed well documented genocide. So I don't see why my comment is the only one being flagged for pointing this out.
Partly it's a judgment call. I would say that bringing Churchill into a thread about English writing style (which was already off topic, but not a flamewar) does not count as flamebait, while bringing in genocide does. I can see how someone would argue it the other way.
Mostly, though, it's a matter of the effect on the thread. The value of a comment is the expected value of the subthread it spawns [1]. In this particular community a "Churchill+genocide" comment is pretty well guaranteed to spawn a flamewar, which was not true of the subthread one level up. So it's relative to the community you're participating in.
It's just tedious virtue signalling, rather than a contribution to the thread. We all know he did things that are considered abhorrent when viewed against the current, moral zeitgeist.
Sure, let's just starve your family to death and then laugh about it and see if you only consider it "abhorrent when viewed against the current, moral zeitgeist". It's amazing how people will not only downvote, but flag the posts here that go even a teensy bit against their propped up beliefs. And I thought the hn crowd was supposed to be discerning.
What does literary ability have to do with anything else a person has done? Would Macbeth or Pride and Prejudice have been worse books if they were written by Hitler for example?
Even though you yourself can judge a book only by its contents, when discussing it you will inevitably run into people who will bring the merits of the author into the discussion. It's called "The death of the author", and I invite you to look up the excellent videos covering the topic on YouTube.
>It's called "The death of the author", and I invite you to look up the excellent videos covering the topic on YouTube
I'd rather invite them to read the original Roland Barthe's essay (1967), which has that same title. Additionally, one can read New Criticism's authors on what they called the "intentional fallacy".
I personally wouldn't spend my time skimming through clickbait-y YouTube videos in hopes that I find one that is actually informative instead of a half-assed presentation made to maximize monetization.
