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No; the question asks what things would have existed. This is a concept people use all the time in everyday life without provoking ontological crises. E.g. if

by pg 17y ago

No; the question asks what things would have existed. This is a concept people use all the time in everyday life without provoking ontological crises. E.g. if you say "he would have scored a touchdown if that last defender hadn't tackled him," everyone knows exactly what you mean. You can never be 100% certain about things that would have happened, so you qualify your conclusions, but it's not the case that you can't reasonably talk about such things. I can't believe I just had to write that. This is why forums are such a time sink. If you were watching a football game with your friends and someone said "he would have scored if that guy hadn't tackled him" and you replied "how can you talk about touchdowns that don't exist?" everyone else would just roll their eyes and not invite you over anymore. But here in the world of text these subtly graduated social cues don't exist; all you can do is reply with more text. I wonder if there is some kind of solution to that.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
> This is a concept people use all the time in everyday life without provoking ontological crises. +1 for common sense; however: > This is why forums are such a time sink. I doubt that you can realize the benefits of an open forum without paying what we might call the free speech tax - the inevitable disruptions of pedantry and/or trolling, which under the right circumstances are insightful and even revelatory.
- projectileboy 17y ago
  Sadly, you're probably right. What's depressing is that HN wasn't like that for a very long time (2 or 3 years, maybe?), but it seems to be descending into a Reddit-like cesspool of crazy very rapidly. Having said that, this is still by far the best non-trivial online community that I know of. EDIT: Wow... downvoted in 4 minutes, for a mostly harmless comment. I guess we've become closer to Reddit than I thought. I normally hate elitist groups, but there's a part of me that would like to see every account newer than, say, 200 days just get nuked. <sigh>... I really loved this site.
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    Please note that I'm not saying HN is turning into reddit - I don't believe my score is high enough for me to be allowed to make that claim. (I do believe HN would benefit from a measure of reddit-style levity: right now it's all Serious Business, all the time.) What I'm saying is that real constructive critical debate requires strong-willed, pedantic, even curmudgeonly debaters. The marketplace of ideas doesn't work without the push and pull of challenges, refutations and even meta-refutations ('You're asking the wrong question'). If Paul Graham wants good answers to his question, the price he has to pay is an allotment of bad answers - answers that are revealed as such on the marketplace of ideas. You can't get the good stuff without also allowing the bad stuff (and having reasonable filters to distinguish them). P.S. Not sure why I was downvoted for my comment above.
dpcan 17y ago
First things first, Brett Favre should not have thrown that pass last night. Vikings would have won. Second, I'm taking this from the perspective that we have a college professor (most likely) being asked by a student to cite examples of cases where software patents have stifled innovation. So, does this professor just want his student to start making up random ideas that infringe on patents and argue that those random ideas don't exist because of patents? Seems unlikely. I'm arguing the question itself because I am trying to help this poor student who may be faced with more of a paradox than a fair assignment.
deleted 17y ago
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rooshdi 17y ago
Solution = Emoticon with rolling eyes = &_&
ntoshev 17y ago
The tone might have been better, but it's a valid argument that I have heard in conversations in person. Unlike football physics, society is a much more complex system and it's really hard to play what-if scenarios with any confidence about it. In society usually there are many forces acting in opposing directions and the outcome depends on how strong they are, which is a quantitative difference we currently have no way of estimating.

by pg 17y ago

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

> This is a concept people use all the time in everyday life without provoking ontological crises. +1 for common sense; however: > This is why forums are such a time sink. I doubt that you can realize the benefits of an open forum without paying what we might call the free speech tax - the inevitable disruptions of pedantry and/or trolling, which under the right circumstances are insightful and even revelatory.

projectileboy 17y ago
Sadly, you're probably right. What's depressing is that HN wasn't like that for a very long time (2 or 3 years, maybe?), but it seems to be descending into a Reddit-like cesspool of crazy very rapidly. Having said that, this is still by far the best non-trivial online community that I know of. EDIT: Wow... downvoted in 4 minutes, for a mostly harmless comment. I guess we've become closer to Reddit than I thought. I normally hate elitist groups, but there's a part of me that would like to see every account newer than, say, 200 days just get nuked. <sigh>... I really loved this site.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  Please note that I'm not saying HN is turning into reddit - I don't believe my score is high enough for me to be allowed to make that claim. (I do believe HN would benefit from a measure of reddit-style levity: right now it's all Serious Business, all the time.) What I'm saying is that real constructive critical debate requires strong-willed, pedantic, even curmudgeonly debaters. The marketplace of ideas doesn't work without the push and pull of challenges, refutations and even meta-refutations ('You're asking the wrong question'). If Paul Graham wants good answers to his question, the price he has to pay is an allotment of bad answers - answers that are revealed as such on the marketplace of ideas. You can't get the good stuff without also allowing the bad stuff (and having reasonable filters to distinguish them). P.S. Not sure why I was downvoted for my comment above.

dpcan 17y ago

First things first, Brett Favre should not have thrown that pass last night. Vikings would have won. Second, I'm taking this from the perspective that we have a college professor (most likely) being asked by a student to cite examples of cases where software patents have stifled innovation. So, does this professor just want his student to start making up random ideas that infringe on patents and argue that those random ideas don't exist because of patents? Seems unlikely. I'm arguing the question itself because I am trying to help this poor student who may be faced with more of a paradox than a fair assignment.

deleted 17y ago

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rooshdi 17y ago

Solution = Emoticon with rolling eyes = &_&

ntoshev 17y ago

The tone might have been better, but it's a valid argument that I have heard in conversations in person. Unlike football physics, society is a much more complex system and it's really hard to play what-if scenarios with any confidence about it. In society usually there are many forces acting in opposing directions and the outcome depends on how strong they are, which is a quantitative difference we currently have no way of estimating.