5 ms·

You're missing the point. It's not about whether or not the facts he's spamming people with are right or wrong, it's the fact that he's doing it in the first p

You're missing the point. It's not about whether or not the facts he's spamming people with are right or wrong, it's the fact that he's doing it in the first place.

FlemishBeeCycle 16y ago
I didn't mean to imply that I was condoning the author's actions. Perhaps I misinterpreted, but I was responding to the parent comment's decrying of the author's actions due to the perception that the author justified their actions through the belief that their opinion was superior (specifically parent's remark about requiring omniscience to justify the action)? It does raise the question of whether the means justify the end. As people in this thread have noted ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867043 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867043, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867162 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867162), that this technique may be more effective than a more neutral route. But again, I'm not condoning anything.
techbio 16y ago
It is impolite, and therefore unbalanced, to never agree to disagree. Then again, if half of your conversation can be replaced by [fill in the blank] your questions may be imprecise.
cabalamat 16y ago
> It's not about whether or not the facts he's spamming people with are right or wrong, it's the fact that he's doing it in the first place. I wouldn't characterise it as spamming. He's sending the messages on one of his own twitter accounts. If he was auto-replying on other people's blogs, he might more accurately be accused of spamming.
- mattmanser 16y ago
  Go look at the account: http://twitter.com/ai_agw http://twitter.com/ai_agw It's not one of his accounts, it's a spam bot. A tongue in cheek, funny pictures, really obvious to computer scientist 'hey I'm a bot' account, but it's still a twitter spam bot. And the bot is auto replying to random people's tweets. It clearly says so in the article.
  - cabalamat 16y ago
    > It's not one of his accounts, it's a spam bot. It is a twitter account. He has the password to it, and presumerably no one else does. That makes it his twitter account.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - Zuider 16y ago
      Email spammers don't have the passwords to their spamming accounts?
      - Dylan16807 16y ago
        Email is sent to other accounts. These are tweets on his own account.

You're missing the point. It's not about whether or not the facts he's spamming people with are right or wrong, it's the fact that he's doing it in the first place.

FlemishBeeCycle 16y ago

I didn't mean to imply that I was condoning the author's actions. Perhaps I misinterpreted, but I was responding to the parent comment's decrying of the author's actions due to the perception that the author justified their actions through the belief that their opinion was superior (specifically parent's remark about requiring omniscience to justify the action)? It does raise the question of whether the means justify the end. As people in this thread have noted ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867043 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867043, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867162 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867162), that this technique may be more effective than a more neutral route. But again, I'm not condoning anything.

techbio 16y ago

It is impolite, and therefore unbalanced, to never agree to disagree. Then again, if half of your conversation can be replaced by [fill in the blank] your questions may be imprecise.

cabalamat 16y ago

> It's not about whether or not the facts he's spamming people with are right or wrong, it's the fact that he's doing it in the first place. I wouldn't characterise it as spamming. He's sending the messages on one of his own twitter accounts. If he was auto-replying on other people's blogs, he might more accurately be accused of spamming.

mattmanser 16y ago
Go look at the account: http://twitter.com/ai_agw http://twitter.com/ai_agw It's not one of his accounts, it's a spam bot. A tongue in cheek, funny pictures, really obvious to computer scientist 'hey I'm a bot' account, but it's still a twitter spam bot. And the bot is auto replying to random people's tweets. It clearly says so in the article.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  > It's not one of his accounts, it's a spam bot. It is a twitter account. He has the password to it, and presumerably no one else does. That makes it his twitter account.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - Zuider 16y ago
    Email spammers don't have the passwords to their spamming accounts?
    - Dylan16807 16y ago
      Email is sent to other accounts. These are tweets on his own account.