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I agree with your first statement. In fact, the conversations -- especially the arguments -- may exceed the value of the stories themselves. They often do for m

I agree with your first statement. In fact, the conversations -- especially the arguments -- may exceed the value of the stories themselves. They often do for me. However, the topic of climate change seems to be a lightning rod for bad arguments. Ones that devolve into comment trees that provide good examples of bad arguments that PG can use in a follow up to "How to Disagree." Good arguments on climate change have occurred on this site. There has been a lot of good debates over the limits of science in the face of complexity, the politicization of science, etc. However, as you put it, there are diminishing returns on this story. The good arguments have been exhausted, and now it is becoming a political gotcha style story. Again, I don't know why I was bothered by this post, but it may be because it was the third or fourth thread on this topic, just with a new small piece of information. (P.S. I do not mean to sound like the arbiter of "Good Arguments.")

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Here's the thing (from an admittedly biased observer): The big version of the climate story is about politicization and over-reaching. Assuming for a moment that professional scientists make a course correction and come out with some sort of ethical guidelines about social activism, public standards of proof, open data, and letting some sunlight in the publishing process? These things are going to take a long time, probably several years. All the while there will be little spikes in the story here or there. The main theme, however, may take a decade or more to play out. That means that the story isn't going away as a serious science (by science I mean the practice-of-science) story. It's just going to simmer. I happen to agree that sometimes this particular story leads to long threads of he-said, she-said, but at the same time I think it's a legitimate story about something we're all somewhat interested in. You could make the same observation about functional programming, or Apple products -- lots of things tend towards pointless conversation. Lots of things appear on TV news. It's just a guideline. And for the record I don't think long threads are necessarily a bad thing. The assumption is that they have limited returns for readers, but if a discussion is a conversation and not a debate I think it's usually helpful to all involved.
- chasingsparks 17y ago
  I agree with everything you have said. My comment may have been a manifestation of my fear that HN is becoming increasing politicized with dynamics that favor arguments over conversations. However, you may be -- and I believe you are -- correct regarding the utility of story. Each time this topic is explored, it tends to move to a slightly different region of the conversational search space: new data, new movements, new ideas. My comment was not without merit; however, it was misplaced. (The weak irony is that, as someone who thinks the IPCC does "bad science" (TM), I found this story self-gratifying.)
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I agree. I think HN is moving towards people talking past each other and pointless posturing, A lot of it, no doubt, is people consuming political material from other media and then sort of regurgitating it here. That's great if you can barf up more than just an arguing talking head. It's not so cool if you all have is rancor and mindless talking points. I find that I have to be the most careful about the stories I agree with. That's when the critical thinking shields are down and bad stuff slips through. As a defense to the HN-is-going-to-heck problem? I just don't read HN comments that much any more. I use my aggregation site to view all major tech sites and browse stories from there (shameless plug: http://project-management-methodologies.net/ http://project-management-methodologies.net/) HN is still a great place to hang out with like-minded technical guys working on startups. It's just moved from a small coffee house to a large stadium, and the crowd has changed from people wanting to make things people like to a smorgasbord of folks in all kinds of situations. It's a lot noisier and the chit-chat isn't as focused as it used to be. I still like it, but I find the downside of engaging in idle non-focused chatter to be bigger than the upside of learning something that can make a difference in the world. Didn't used to be that way, sadly
    - chasingsparks 17y ago
      The provided shameless plug is not working for me. I'm getting an HTTP 200 response with content length 0. It's just moved from a small coffee house to a large stadium, and the crowd has changed from people wanting to make things people like to a smorgasbord of folks in all kinds of situations. Well put.
gaius 17y ago
"However, the topic of climate change seems to be a lightning rod for bad arguments." I'd say these stories are more about scientific rigor (or the lack thereof) than they are about climate change per se. There is only really one position on that here (I hope) and that's that science should be above that and where it's not that worth getting some attention.
- jbooth 17y ago
  But the scientists are faced with a conundrum, here. When they do proper science, "Evolution is a theory", they get attacked for it by bombastic blowhards - "It's just a THEORY!". So they've been forced into adopting some marketing principles simply to get their voices heard. Meanwhile, it seems that everybody's lost their mind about the whole purity factor. If you give them, say, a 50% chance of being right, when "right" means trillions of dollars of damage, common sense says we should be doing something. Yet we're spending all our time arguing over whether they have a 100% chance of being right or not. That's because the people on the other side of the argument are not arguing in good faith - many of them have a direct financial or ideological stake in the matter and science is the furthest thing from their minds.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Here's the thing (from an admittedly biased observer): The big version of the climate story is about politicization and over-reaching. Assuming for a moment that professional scientists make a course correction and come out with some sort of ethical guidelines about social activism, public standards of proof, open data, and letting some sunlight in the publishing process? These things are going to take a long time, probably several years. All the while there will be little spikes in the story here or there. The main theme, however, may take a decade or more to play out. That means that the story isn't going away as a serious science (by science I mean the practice-of-science) story. It's just going to simmer. I happen to agree that sometimes this particular story leads to long threads of he-said, she-said, but at the same time I think it's a legitimate story about something we're all somewhat interested in. You could make the same observation about functional programming, or Apple products -- lots of things tend towards pointless conversation. Lots of things appear on TV news. It's just a guideline. And for the record I don't think long threads are necessarily a bad thing. The assumption is that they have limited returns for readers, but if a discussion is a conversation and not a debate I think it's usually helpful to all involved.

chasingsparks 17y ago
I agree with everything you have said. My comment may have been a manifestation of my fear that HN is becoming increasing politicized with dynamics that favor arguments over conversations. However, you may be -- and I believe you are -- correct regarding the utility of story. Each time this topic is explored, it tends to move to a slightly different region of the conversational search space: new data, new movements, new ideas. My comment was not without merit; however, it was misplaced. (The weak irony is that, as someone who thinks the IPCC does "bad science" (TM), I found this story self-gratifying.)
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  I agree. I think HN is moving towards people talking past each other and pointless posturing, A lot of it, no doubt, is people consuming political material from other media and then sort of regurgitating it here. That's great if you can barf up more than just an arguing talking head. It's not so cool if you all have is rancor and mindless talking points. I find that I have to be the most careful about the stories I agree with. That's when the critical thinking shields are down and bad stuff slips through. As a defense to the HN-is-going-to-heck problem? I just don't read HN comments that much any more. I use my aggregation site to view all major tech sites and browse stories from there (shameless plug: http://project-management-methodologies.net/ http://project-management-methodologies.net/) HN is still a great place to hang out with like-minded technical guys working on startups. It's just moved from a small coffee house to a large stadium, and the crowd has changed from people wanting to make things people like to a smorgasbord of folks in all kinds of situations. It's a lot noisier and the chit-chat isn't as focused as it used to be. I still like it, but I find the downside of engaging in idle non-focused chatter to be bigger than the upside of learning something that can make a difference in the world. Didn't used to be that way, sadly
  - chasingsparks 17y ago
    The provided shameless plug is not working for me. I'm getting an HTTP 200 response with content length 0. It's just moved from a small coffee house to a large stadium, and the crowd has changed from people wanting to make things people like to a smorgasbord of folks in all kinds of situations. Well put.

gaius 17y ago

"However, the topic of climate change seems to be a lightning rod for bad arguments." I'd say these stories are more about scientific rigor (or the lack thereof) than they are about climate change per se. There is only really one position on that here (I hope) and that's that science should be above that and where it's not that worth getting some attention.

jbooth 17y ago
But the scientists are faced with a conundrum, here. When they do proper science, "Evolution is a theory", they get attacked for it by bombastic blowhards - "It's just a THEORY!". So they've been forced into adopting some marketing principles simply to get their voices heard. Meanwhile, it seems that everybody's lost their mind about the whole purity factor. If you give them, say, a 50% chance of being right, when "right" means trillions of dollars of damage, common sense says we should be doing something. Yet we're spending all our time arguing over whether they have a 100% chance of being right or not. That's because the people on the other side of the argument are not arguing in good faith - many of them have a direct financial or ideological stake in the matter and science is the furthest thing from their minds.