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There is indeed a balance. If one of my two word comments results in 50 upvotes, I feel the need to balance it out with some trite anti-HN-hero comment that'll
by seiji 16y ago
There is indeed a balance. If one of my two word comments results in 50 upvotes, I feel the need to balance it out with some trite anti-HN-hero comment that'll restore order.
The Internet: You aren't interacting with people. You're interacting with a model of the average personality on sites you frequent. People end up falling into manipulation bundles. "If I do X, bucket P will do Z. If I do K, bucket M will do A, ..."
Want to try it out? "DHH sucks!" -> bucket A: "Yeah, he kinda does." bucket B: "NO! He's our HERO!" bucket C: "Well, he's good at what he does, but he panders." bucket D: "What? It's nice outside. I wasn't paying attention."
- stevejohnson 16y agoHere's some more twisted internet reasoning for you: maybe if all of the comments on this article suck as much as the article itself does, it will fall off the front page like it deserves to. It's a meaningless story about a guy who, by his own admission, has written several books just for the attention. Then he meets, dates, and marries a girl in the space of a single paragraph, which somehow justifies the entire experience. Now here I am, reading it on Hacker News, just wishing it would go away. We can debate internet philosophy (interacting with a System vs a Community) all day, but I'll just go ahead and concede the entire battle to you right now, because you're right, it was a bad comment made for unsound reasons. However, I am not a rational agent and will not delete it.
- jaltucher 16y agofunny, for a guy who hates it you sure spent a lot of time on it.
- stevejohnson 16y agoOthers have said the same about Richard Dawkins, a man whose company I would be proud to be in. That's not to say that I think I come anywhere near him in terms of contributing to the discussion. This is the first time in a while I have seen an article I disliked so much get up so high on the front page, so I feel obligated to explain my position to others so that they will think more carefully about what they vote up.
- jaltucher 16y agoA) not sure what dawkins has to do with anything. B) i thought there's value in providing advances / sales numbers, etc. As a writer I can say there's nothing like that out there. It helps to understand the reality of the publishing business.
- il 16y agoI think the numbers are the best part of the article, refreshingly candid. When a startup posts its revenue/traffic numbers it is lauded for honesty. The same should apply to this post. It seems that books are like startups- unless you hit a huge home run, you really shouldn't be doing it for the money.
- stevejohnson 16y ago> A) not sure what dawkins has to do with anything. Simple, he hates religion but spends a lot of time on it.