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Answer "I disagree" is one thing, answer "you are wrong" - is fine also. Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. It's offensive and I see nothing w

• dang 10y ago
  You appear to have missed the key word in what I posted, which is "escalate". For example: > Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. That's literally what it's not doing. Equating these two things is escalating, i.e. substituting one utterance for a more provocative one and replying to that instead. You may feel that the train of logic inevitably takes you there down a one-way deductive track. But there are many opportunities to get off that train, and good manners and civility demand that we do. If we don't, all disagreement ends in conflict, which is tedious (for everyone else) and destructive. I wonder if there may be a crossed cultural channel here, because the gap between "you are wrong" and "it's not true" strikes me as tiny—not the chasm that you describe—and if anything, "you are wrong" sounds slightly less polite since it's more personal. This is the kind of thing that people with different cultural and language backgrounds routinely hear differently, and the presence of many different backgrounds on HN is one reason why we all need to be charitable in our interpretations. p.s. I've fixed the typo for you.