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> Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas. That's nonsense. A right to opinions that don't "misr

> Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas. That's nonsense. A right to opinions that don't "misrepresent others' ideas" is essentially no right at all.

vonklaus 11y ago
i don't want to misrepresent the parent, but my take was: Don't cite my work in a narrow, out of contex way, that entirely misrepresents the body of thought I put together which ia almost entirely at odds with your message. sure, the people should be allowed to say whatever they want, but if you incorrectly attribute qoutes or ideology to someone, in my mind, you lose credibility. so sure you have a right to mistepresent others ideas but unless you have wholly original thought, if you do that, you call into question the validity of your process, all your sources, and ultimately all of your nessage that relies on non primary research/information
- chrisyeh 11y ago
  vonklaus, this is precisely how I feel. It's fine if Dan Lyons disagrees with me, but he shouldn't tell people that I'm saying something that I'm not.
  - shawn-butler 11y ago
    You think you have a right to interpret your own words? It's kind of a basic tenet of poststructuralism that a text can have multiple meanings, one of which might be intended, but none of which uniquely are compelled. If you don't want to subject your words to interpretation then don't publish. It would be one thing if author was plagiarizing or misattributing, but that doesn't really seem to be the case.
    - chrisyeh 11y ago
      Actually, what's happening is subtler. He quotes 6 words, and then makes a series of statements that could be interpreted as reflecting the ideas of our book. If he had simply said something along the lines of, "I believe that The Alliance calls for employees to show loyalty to companies, but for companies not to show loyalty to employees" (completely not true, by the way) it would be clear that he was providing his interpretation of our work. As it is, those who don't read the book will take away an impression that is exactly the opposite of what was originally intended. While words are always subject to interpretation by their audience, I object to my words by misinterpreted by another in a major publication.
mikekchar 11y ago
Consider the following situation: esbranson, in a post on HN, consoled the parent poster. "That's nonsense", he exclaimed, reinforcing the idea that Dan Lyons should not be misrepresenting other people's ideas. I have misrepresented your post in the same way Dan Lyons misrepresented the parent poster. I took a quote out of context and used it to espouse exactly the opposite intent of your message. I have to admit that I thought long and hard about even clicking on the article because I do not want to give Dan Lyons more credibility. His history for writing sensational stories which damage other people is rather legendary. Despite his famous apology, I have not seen him improve in any way what so ever. I honestly wish people would stop publishing his work. This is unfortunately unlikely given his talent for inciting outrage and convincing people to click on his articles (which I have once again done :-P ).
haberman 11y ago
Opinions are not the same as representations of others' ideas. If I say "I like capitalism," that is my opinion. If I say "Karl Marx likes capitalism," that is a misrepresentation of someone else's ideas. If I say "Karl Marx likes oppressive authoritarian regimes" because every country implementing communism has pretty much turned out that way, that's pretty much misrepresenting someone else's ideas too.
tikhonj 11y ago
It's not a matter of Lyons having an opinion, it's a matter of him misrepresenting the opinions of Yeh. You could sloppily quote a book to make the message seem like anything, and it feels like that could border on defamation. A malicious version of this would be lying about somebody to injure their reputation, which is not obviously something you have a right to do. This case isn't grave or clear-cut so it's not going to go to court or anything like that, but it's still a bit of a jerk move by Lyons.
- chrisyeh 11y ago
  In this case, I've concluded that the best response is to engage with people on this thread. I've always enjoyed Dan's work as a journalist (especially his Fake Steve Jobs project) and while I'm disappointed that he doesn't get what my book is about, I suspect he hasn't had a chance to actually read it. I'm sure there are many cases in which I've misinterpreted others' books. But I do think it makes sense to try to get my side of the story out to the audience.

vonklaus 11y ago

i don't want to misrepresent the parent, but my take was: Don't cite my work in a narrow, out of contex way, that entirely misrepresents the body of thought I put together which ia almost entirely at odds with your message. sure, the people should be allowed to say whatever they want, but if you incorrectly attribute qoutes or ideology to someone, in my mind, you lose credibility. so sure you have a right to mistepresent others ideas but unless you have wholly original thought, if you do that, you call into question the validity of your process, all your sources, and ultimately all of your nessage that relies on non primary research/information

chrisyeh 11y ago
vonklaus, this is precisely how I feel. It's fine if Dan Lyons disagrees with me, but he shouldn't tell people that I'm saying something that I'm not.
- shawn-butler 11y ago
  You think you have a right to interpret your own words? It's kind of a basic tenet of poststructuralism that a text can have multiple meanings, one of which might be intended, but none of which uniquely are compelled. If you don't want to subject your words to interpretation then don't publish. It would be one thing if author was plagiarizing or misattributing, but that doesn't really seem to be the case.
  - chrisyeh 11y ago
    Actually, what's happening is subtler. He quotes 6 words, and then makes a series of statements that could be interpreted as reflecting the ideas of our book. If he had simply said something along the lines of, "I believe that The Alliance calls for employees to show loyalty to companies, but for companies not to show loyalty to employees" (completely not true, by the way) it would be clear that he was providing his interpretation of our work. As it is, those who don't read the book will take away an impression that is exactly the opposite of what was originally intended. While words are always subject to interpretation by their audience, I object to my words by misinterpreted by another in a major publication.

mikekchar 11y ago

Consider the following situation: esbranson, in a post on HN, consoled the parent poster. "That's nonsense", he exclaimed, reinforcing the idea that Dan Lyons should not be misrepresenting other people's ideas. I have misrepresented your post in the same way Dan Lyons misrepresented the parent poster. I took a quote out of context and used it to espouse exactly the opposite intent of your message. I have to admit that I thought long and hard about even clicking on the article because I do not want to give Dan Lyons more credibility. His history for writing sensational stories which damage other people is rather legendary. Despite his famous apology, I have not seen him improve in any way what so ever. I honestly wish people would stop publishing his work. This is unfortunately unlikely given his talent for inciting outrage and convincing people to click on his articles (which I have once again done :-P ).

haberman 11y ago

Opinions are not the same as representations of others' ideas. If I say "I like capitalism," that is my opinion. If I say "Karl Marx likes capitalism," that is a misrepresentation of someone else's ideas. If I say "Karl Marx likes oppressive authoritarian regimes" because every country implementing communism has pretty much turned out that way, that's pretty much misrepresenting someone else's ideas too.

tikhonj 11y ago

It's not a matter of Lyons having an opinion, it's a matter of him misrepresenting the opinions of Yeh. You could sloppily quote a book to make the message seem like anything, and it feels like that could border on defamation. A malicious version of this would be lying about somebody to injure their reputation, which is not obviously something you have a right to do. This case isn't grave or clear-cut so it's not going to go to court or anything like that, but it's still a bit of a jerk move by Lyons.

chrisyeh 11y ago
In this case, I've concluded that the best response is to engage with people on this thread. I've always enjoyed Dan's work as a journalist (especially his Fake Steve Jobs project) and while I'm disappointed that he doesn't get what my book is about, I suspect he hasn't had a chance to actually read it. I'm sure there are many cases in which I've misinterpreted others' books. But I do think it makes sense to try to get my side of the story out to the audience.