The HN community takes a rather strict approach when moderating comments that contribute noise to the conversation. "Nice article!" comments are routinely downvoted. As is sarcasm, witticisms, memes, references and other styles of comments that occur frequently but do not contribute to the discussion. It's a knowingly doomed attempt to hold back the flood of noise that covers Reddit.
This comes about because nerds are cowards by default. We're entirely too unwilling to really bother to get the message about this sort of thing out to the layperson, and we're even more unmotivated to actually do something about it. I love to lambast the baby boomers as much as the next neckbeard, but at least some of them actually had the chutzpah to do something.
This OP works on the front lines at the EFF. Most nerds are smart enough to be disillusioned by the plutocracy we live in. If by "do something" you mean sit-ins, marches, protests, and whatnot, you have only to look at the Occupy movement. I don't think people, or "nerds" specifically, are as passive as you think.
We just know the fight, who it's against, and the apathy of the general public that constitutes the fight before the fight.
I wouldn't call being mass-pepper-sprayed while sitting down at an Occupy movement that much different from being hosed down during the Civil Rights movement. Different cause, different day - same fortitude.
Writing articles like this counts as "get the message about this sort of thing out to the layperson". You complain that he is not doing what he just did.
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
Referring to someone's past actions using their preferred pronouns at the time of those actions is bigotry? Gosh, better inform all those contemporary news articles that they're retroactively disrespectful.
