He did not attack specific people or clearly identifiable subgroups or minorities. He attacked a broad category of people for holding certain views. I think that is well within what is acceptable in online debate.
If you are going to attack this argument, then you might as well say it is unacceptable to call people who favor cutting off hands of thieves for barbaric. Sure you characterize people with a mean word "barbaric", but it you are not singling out particular people only those holding such views.
> well within what is acceptable in online debate.
I don't know about 'online debate', but "People like you disgust me" is not acceptable on HN. Indeed it's well below the minimum acceptable, so this ought to be obvious.
You can't comment like this on HN, regardless of how right you are and how strongly you feel. Personal attacks in particular are not ok.
Comments need to get more civil as the topic grows more contentious, or else our hope of substantive discussion goes up in flames.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12911145 and marked it off-topic.