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Oh, my intent wasn't to avoid political implications (but maybe that wasn't meant for me, at some point in HN comments I get lost), but rather to try to dig dee

Oh, my intent wasn't to avoid political implications (but maybe that wasn't meant for me, at some point in HN comments I get lost), but rather to try to dig deeper into them. In looking at the HN guidelines, I think the closest point related to this would be: >Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for. I hope HN can be a place where we discuss political and ideological perspectives without engaging in battle, and leveraging curiosity to bring us closer together. I think the challenge is that most of the examples of political conversation we see is more political debate and less political dialogue—competition vs cooperation. So far, I've been learning in this comments section and am grateful for those who are contributing :-)

rectang 6y ago
The problem lies here: > "Assuming that's the reason (and not election interference), Not being allowed to explore the possibility of bad faith omits a crucial aspect of the topic. The result is a Potemkin Village imitation of intellectual exchange. There are important reasons to "assume good faith" per the HN Guidelines (and to forbid accusations of bad faith), but that means certain topics just cannot be reasonably examined.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  Admittedly, I don't have a deep grasp of what Potemkin Villages are, so my comments below may reinforce what you said, I'm not sure. I'm not saying that conversation about election interference shouldn't happen, I guess I'm trying to test the strength and legitimacy of one stated claim, that of privatization, before maybe moving to others. I also think that even when discussing voter suppression, gutting the institution from the inside as that's easier than legislating it out, or even trying to capitalize on the sale of public assets, one can assume that people want those behaviors not of bad faith, but because they believe they will help the most people, or at least their people.
  - emodendroket 6y ago
    Let's get rid of the Potemkin village; the point is that the offered rationales are just meant to be a maze everybody wastes their time arguing in when what's going on is obvious. Kind of like a Gish gallop for the media, if you will (if you're not familiar with the term, Wikipedia explains it this way: "During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the 'Gish galloper' takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place").
    - jimkleiber 6y ago
      Ah, I had never heard of that term Gish gallop, but I've definitely heard people using that strategy, so thanks for the highlight on that. It actually reminds me of a goal of disinformation and even differential privacy—make it more expensive (e.g., time, money, energy) to investigate the truth. I'd like to think that this conversation on HN hasn't been that way—at times I felt lost in the weeds and yet I feel pretty confident in how I see it now. That there are two main questions: 1) Should the USPS be significantly changed (e.g., privatized, more efficient, restructured, etc.)? 2) Should the USPS be significantly changed now? After these comments, I'm much more concerned with the second question, because I can imagine there will be a lot of people who want it drastically changed but still can't explain why now is the time to do it, as I haven't seen many arguments here that convince me that the change is urgent and unrelated to the election.
      - rectang 6y ago
        It's like we're standing in line at a convenience store when some guy jumps the counter, bludgeons the cashier, empties the register into his backpack, and you're all, "Excuse me, do you work here?" We cannot have a good faith debate about changing the USPS right now — the only sane response is to resist this attempt to sabotage our electoral machinery with all our strength. Engaging in farcical "debate" on the subject lends legitimacy to the sabotage and contributes to the harm. (But you can't say stuff like that on Hacker News. The forum is fragile; it can't hold such conversations without fracturing.)

rectang 6y ago

The problem lies here: > "Assuming that's the reason (and not election interference), Not being allowed to explore the possibility of bad faith omits a crucial aspect of the topic. The result is a Potemkin Village imitation of intellectual exchange. There are important reasons to "assume good faith" per the HN Guidelines (and to forbid accusations of bad faith), but that means certain topics just cannot be reasonably examined.

jimkleiber 6y ago
Admittedly, I don't have a deep grasp of what Potemkin Villages are, so my comments below may reinforce what you said, I'm not sure. I'm not saying that conversation about election interference shouldn't happen, I guess I'm trying to test the strength and legitimacy of one stated claim, that of privatization, before maybe moving to others. I also think that even when discussing voter suppression, gutting the institution from the inside as that's easier than legislating it out, or even trying to capitalize on the sale of public assets, one can assume that people want those behaviors not of bad faith, but because they believe they will help the most people, or at least their people.
- emodendroket 6y ago
  Let's get rid of the Potemkin village; the point is that the offered rationales are just meant to be a maze everybody wastes their time arguing in when what's going on is obvious. Kind of like a Gish gallop for the media, if you will (if you're not familiar with the term, Wikipedia explains it this way: "During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the 'Gish galloper' takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place").
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    Ah, I had never heard of that term Gish gallop, but I've definitely heard people using that strategy, so thanks for the highlight on that. It actually reminds me of a goal of disinformation and even differential privacy—make it more expensive (e.g., time, money, energy) to investigate the truth. I'd like to think that this conversation on HN hasn't been that way—at times I felt lost in the weeds and yet I feel pretty confident in how I see it now. That there are two main questions: 1) Should the USPS be significantly changed (e.g., privatized, more efficient, restructured, etc.)? 2) Should the USPS be significantly changed now? After these comments, I'm much more concerned with the second question, because I can imagine there will be a lot of people who want it drastically changed but still can't explain why now is the time to do it, as I haven't seen many arguments here that convince me that the change is urgent and unrelated to the election.
    - rectang 6y ago
      It's like we're standing in line at a convenience store when some guy jumps the counter, bludgeons the cashier, empties the register into his backpack, and you're all, "Excuse me, do you work here?" We cannot have a good faith debate about changing the USPS right now — the only sane response is to resist this attempt to sabotage our electoral machinery with all our strength. Engaging in farcical "debate" on the subject lends legitimacy to the sabotage and contributes to the harm. (But you can't say stuff like that on Hacker News. The forum is fragile; it can't hold such conversations without fracturing.)