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Tech lifestyle options and programming languages are topics where plenty of objective truths can be established. I think you forgot "choice of programming edit

by neilk 16y ago

Tech lifestyle options and programming languages are topics where plenty of objective truths can be established. I think you forgot "choice of programming editor". I'm pretty sure we can establish some objective truths there. Just give it some time. Your model of discourse is too primitive. You assume that people who are interested in ambiguity are just fleeing from certainty. It may be that they are more interested in learning about how other people think and act than convincing them. You're thinking of discourse as a war where the most objective and evidence-based person wins. I agree it should work like that for critical decisions. But this is not the point of most conversation. For the most part, it's about mutual discovery. What your life is like and what your preferences and experiences are. If you fail to respect and engage with another person's experiences, you look like a bore, charging ahead with your own agenda and oblivious to others.

asdflkj 16y ago
Are you one of those people who are more interested in learning about how other people think? If so, it's odd that you're telling me how I think. If you scroll up a bit, you'll see that it's precisely to avoid "war" that I want to emphasize objectivity. If everyone comes into a conversation with the purpose of discovering truth, the focus is on truth, and not who wins. Finally, yeah, there is some objectively best way to edit code, and we'll get there eventually--or close enough to it that it would cease to be an issue. Why does this idea bother you?
- deleted 16y ago
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- _delirium 16y ago
  On the last point, the claim only bothers me because it's a false claim--- there is no objectively "best" way to edit code. There isn't, in general, an objectively "best" anything, since best is a subjective notion. There might be, say, a way to edit code that objectively maximizes some criterion, but the choice of that criterion as the one you want to maximize is a subjective decision.

by neilk 16y ago

asdflkj 16y ago

Are you one of those people who are more interested in learning about how other people think? If so, it's odd that you're telling me how I think. If you scroll up a bit, you'll see that it's precisely to avoid "war" that I want to emphasize objectivity. If everyone comes into a conversation with the purpose of discovering truth, the focus is on truth, and not who wins. Finally, yeah, there is some objectively best way to edit code, and we'll get there eventually--or close enough to it that it would cease to be an issue. Why does this idea bother you?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 16y ago
On the last point, the claim only bothers me because it's a false claim--- there is no objectively "best" way to edit code. There isn't, in general, an objectively "best" anything, since best is a subjective notion. There might be, say, a way to edit code that objectively maximizes some criterion, but the choice of that criterion as the one you want to maximize is a subjective decision.