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Is that the flagged comment? I didn't see that comment, but I was very nearly called a denialist, and was downvoted into oblivion for pointing out that we'd nee

Is that the flagged comment? I didn't see that comment, but I was very nearly called a denialist, and was downvoted into oblivion for pointing out that we'd need to make sacrifices to stop climate change. Clanan was basically called a denialist for quoting the article and calling out the name-calling. Someone else was warned about posting "denialist-type stuff" because they asked what caused CO2 levels to drop after the Pliocene epoch. The level of discourse in this thread is as low as I've seen it on Hacker News.

mikeash 10y ago
"Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist. The responses you got in this thread look pretty reasonable to me. The downvotes don't seem very justified, but the discourse looks fine. Clanan took a part of the article discussing Antarctica and discussed it as if it applied to the Arctic as well. The trend in the Arctic has been decreasing sea ice for decades, with a speed that overwhelms the slow increase in the Antarctic. The climate change caution is only for the Antarctic. The article doesn't say either way, but my understanding is that the changes in the Arctic are very much believed to be linked to climate change. And despite that highly misleading cherrypicking from the article, Clanan got pretty reasonable responses, even though shrill criticism would be pretty well justified for this.
- leereeves 10y ago
  > "Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist. "Synthetic" was the word used. What does that refer to if not an agent of someone being paid to distribute (denialist) propaganda? Also "naive". And were you calling this a reasonable response to Clanan: "a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit" Name-calling with sophisticated insults is still name-calling. If this is what you mean by "shrill criticism", I don't see how that's intended to do anything but control the discourse by driving people away.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    "a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit" This quote was used to describe the flagged comment, in which the person said that the article was misleading because if sea ice were really decreasing then sea levels would be rising. That seems completely accurate and justified to me.
    - leereeves 10y ago
      > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." The comment to which you're referring could be shortened to "sea levels are rising".
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Calling out extremely bad arguments as extremely bad seems reasonable to me. That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. It would be like a comment on a math article saying that if multiplication were real then 2+2 would equal 5. Keep in mind that this is not just an area where there are some ignorant people. There's a ton of money and powerful political organizations (one of which happens to be running most of the US federal government right now) trying very hard to convince people that climate change is a fraud, and using tactics just like this to do it.
        leereeves 10y ago
        > That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. Your misunderstanding of the knowledge of an average person is either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. See how unproductive such comments are? But seriously, how many people do you think actually understand buoyancy? A simple explanation that floating ice displaces an equal amount (mass, not volume) of water would be both more civil and more productive.

mikeash 10y ago

"Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist. The responses you got in this thread look pretty reasonable to me. The downvotes don't seem very justified, but the discourse looks fine. Clanan took a part of the article discussing Antarctica and discussed it as if it applied to the Arctic as well. The trend in the Arctic has been decreasing sea ice for decades, with a speed that overwhelms the slow increase in the Antarctic. The climate change caution is only for the Antarctic. The article doesn't say either way, but my understanding is that the changes in the Arctic are very much believed to be linked to climate change. And despite that highly misleading cherrypicking from the article, Clanan got pretty reasonable responses, even though shrill criticism would be pretty well justified for this.

leereeves 10y ago
> "Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist. "Synthetic" was the word used. What does that refer to if not an agent of someone being paid to distribute (denialist) propaganda? Also "naive". And were you calling this a reasonable response to Clanan: "a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit" Name-calling with sophisticated insults is still name-calling. If this is what you mean by "shrill criticism", I don't see how that's intended to do anything but control the discourse by driving people away.
- mikeash 10y ago
  "a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit" This quote was used to describe the flagged comment, in which the person said that the article was misleading because if sea ice were really decreasing then sea levels would be rising. That seems completely accurate and justified to me.
  - leereeves 10y ago
    > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." The comment to which you're referring could be shortened to "sea levels are rising".
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Calling out extremely bad arguments as extremely bad seems reasonable to me. That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. It would be like a comment on a math article saying that if multiplication were real then 2+2 would equal 5. Keep in mind that this is not just an area where there are some ignorant people. There's a ton of money and powerful political organizations (one of which happens to be running most of the US federal government right now) trying very hard to convince people that climate change is a fraud, and using tactics just like this to do it.
      - leereeves 10y ago
        > That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. Your misunderstanding of the knowledge of an average person is either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. See how unproductive such comments are? But seriously, how many people do you think actually understand buoyancy? A simple explanation that floating ice displaces an equal amount (mass, not volume) of water would be both more civil and more productive.