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It's the #1 reason I am boycotting all Facebook products. Zuckerberg is a very bad man.

by dayon 11y ago

scrollaway 11y ago
Ignoring hanlon's razor (and its variations) and immediately assuming malice everywhere will prevent you from understanding the problem. You can't fix a problem you do not understand. So please don't just go around throwing "x is a very bad man" unless you have tangible proof, it serves no purpose.
- xorcist 11y ago
  "Bad" doesn't necessarily equate with malice. In Internet discourse it's uncommon that "evil" carries very specific meaning: centralized, separate access to signalling from data, specifications closed or under NDA, gatekeepers for services, potentially rent-seeking. In short, everything that the new TCP/IP landscape brought and many geeks loved at first sight. It's a very silly word, but it's useful, because you can't start every conversation by debating the value of decentralization. That way you can signal that you are not interested in the never ending conversation about emergency services and quality of service, and instead want to focus on what kind of service innovation a network of peers could bring.
- dayon 11y ago
  Which razor is the one where you automatically presume I think the person is intentionally malicious? The black guy in Terminator 2 wasn't being malicious, but he was a very bad man in regards to what he was bringing to the human race. Also, it's impossible to provide tangible proof for any opinion. My opinion is that Zuckerberg is a very bad person, and that is not a personal attack. A personal attack is never an opinion. Rather, personal attacks are when people have the intent of attacking to insult, to hurt, to throw wrenches into arguments, and so on. Hacker News might disagree and appeal to their arbitrary rules about what's right and wrong, but to call my comment that "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" an assumption of malice, an unproven claim, or a personal attack is more of all three against myself than anything.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    I accept your retort, and you're quite right my comment ironically ignored hanlon's razor itself. I'll pay more attention to it in the future.
dang 11y ago
This comment is both unsubstantive and (because it contains a personal attack) uncivil. Please read the site guidelines and don't post comments like this to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- dayon 11y ago
  1. My post is not unsubstantive because I am providing my #1 reason for why I'm boycotting Facebook. My post isn't anything like "Facebook is retarded" or "Fuck Facebook". 2. The guidelines essentially define uncivil as something you wouldn't say to someone's face. I would tell Zuckerberg to his face that I'm boycotting Facebook products over Internet.org and that he is a very bad man. That you consider my comment to be a personal attack - which I also disagree with - clashes with the definition stated in the guidelines. I disagree emphatically with your claims and consider it a slight personal attack to suggest that I haven't read the guidelines.
  - dang 11y ago
    That's an inaccurate interpretation of the guidelines, which make no attempt to exhaustively define civility. Exhaustive definitions are the worst thing to try to come up with, because then people will claim that if something isn't listed it must be fine. Your statement "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" is both unsubstantive (because it's cartoonishly simplistic) and uncivil (because it's an absolute denunciation). It contains no information besides that you don't like Zuckerberg—which is very little information—and squanders it with vehemence. The rules of civility don't suspend themselves when you're talking to or about someone whom you suspect of being bad. On the contrary, it's precisely for such situations that the rules exist. If you like someone and think they're good, you'll be nice naturally. It's when you dislike someone and think they're bad that you need the discipline to conduct yourself civilly, because like everyone else you owe that to the civic order. Civility exists to prevent things like people jumping up with a knife at a medieval feast table. On HN the guidelines exist to prevent the internet forum equivalents.

It's the #1 reason I am boycotting all Facebook products. Zuckerberg is a very bad man.

by dayon 11y ago

It's the #1 reason I am boycotting all Facebook products. Zuckerberg is a very bad man.

Ignoring hanlon's razor (and its variations) and immediately assuming malice everywhere will prevent you from understanding the problem. You can't fix a problem you do not understand. So please don't just go around throwing "x is a very bad man" unless you have tangible proof, it serves no purpose.

xorcist 11y ago
"Bad" doesn't necessarily equate with malice. In Internet discourse it's uncommon that "evil" carries very specific meaning: centralized, separate access to signalling from data, specifications closed or under NDA, gatekeepers for services, potentially rent-seeking. In short, everything that the new TCP/IP landscape brought and many geeks loved at first sight. It's a very silly word, but it's useful, because you can't start every conversation by debating the value of decentralization. That way you can signal that you are not interested in the never ending conversation about emergency services and quality of service, and instead want to focus on what kind of service innovation a network of peers could bring.
dayon 11y ago
Which razor is the one where you automatically presume I think the person is intentionally malicious? The black guy in Terminator 2 wasn't being malicious, but he was a very bad man in regards to what he was bringing to the human race. Also, it's impossible to provide tangible proof for any opinion. My opinion is that Zuckerberg is a very bad person, and that is not a personal attack. A personal attack is never an opinion. Rather, personal attacks are when people have the intent of attacking to insult, to hurt, to throw wrenches into arguments, and so on. Hacker News might disagree and appeal to their arbitrary rules about what's right and wrong, but to call my comment that "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" an assumption of malice, an unproven claim, or a personal attack is more of all three against myself than anything.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  I accept your retort, and you're quite right my comment ironically ignored hanlon's razor itself. I'll pay more attention to it in the future.

dang 11y ago

This comment is both unsubstantive and (because it contains a personal attack) uncivil. Please read the site guidelines and don't post comments like this to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

dayon 11y ago
1. My post is not unsubstantive because I am providing my #1 reason for why I'm boycotting Facebook. My post isn't anything like "Facebook is retarded" or "Fuck Facebook". 2. The guidelines essentially define uncivil as something you wouldn't say to someone's face. I would tell Zuckerberg to his face that I'm boycotting Facebook products over Internet.org and that he is a very bad man. That you consider my comment to be a personal attack - which I also disagree with - clashes with the definition stated in the guidelines. I disagree emphatically with your claims and consider it a slight personal attack to suggest that I haven't read the guidelines.
- dang 11y ago
  That's an inaccurate interpretation of the guidelines, which make no attempt to exhaustively define civility. Exhaustive definitions are the worst thing to try to come up with, because then people will claim that if something isn't listed it must be fine. Your statement "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" is both unsubstantive (because it's cartoonishly simplistic) and uncivil (because it's an absolute denunciation). It contains no information besides that you don't like Zuckerberg—which is very little information—and squanders it with vehemence. The rules of civility don't suspend themselves when you're talking to or about someone whom you suspect of being bad. On the contrary, it's precisely for such situations that the rules exist. If you like someone and think they're good, you'll be nice naturally. It's when you dislike someone and think they're bad that you need the discipline to conduct yourself civilly, because like everyone else you owe that to the civic order. Civility exists to prevent things like people jumping up with a knife at a medieval feast table. On HN the guidelines exist to prevent the internet forum equivalents.