4 ms·

But it IS a blatant lie. If the OP can provide any evidence of a student's caste listed on a notice board in a college, I'll eat my hat.

macintux 6y ago
“I’m very skeptical of this, other than <short list of exceptions>. Do you have any citations for this in any other context?” That would be an interesting discussion I’d like to see, but you derailed it immediately through accusations of bad faith.
emiliobumachar 6y ago
I don't have a dog in this fight, but, consider the possibility that it's rare, maybe even unique, but real. If that's the case, you've never seen it because it's rare.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
I know what it's like to see something on HN where you 100% doubt the story someone is telling. The problem is that hostile skepticism and cynicism are devoid of content, at best. If you want to clarify to other readers that you find something very uncharacteristic or unlikely, then just keep it conversational and assume they are telling the truth. What would you say if a crystal ball revealed that their story did happened? "Whoa, I'm from India and I've never heard of anything like that, it's hard to believe. Which college/region was that?" would make the same point yet possibly provoke more info from other people/OP. And people are unlikely to downvote an earnest inquiry.
dang 6y ago
macintux is correct. Here's why. The word "lie" implies more than saying something false—it implies intent to deceive. That's against the HN guidelines, which ask you to assume good faith. When people assume bad faith, the odds are much higher that the thread will degenerate into flamewar, and we don't want that here. Also, none of us has a mind reader, and it's almost impossible to read someone else's intent just from the small bits of information that internet comments provide. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Here's what to do instead: when encountering incorrect information, respond respectfully with correct information. If the person was honestly mistaken, then they learn something; if they disagree, they can say why, also respectfully, and we can hear out the different views. This way, we can all learn something, regardless of whether the other commenter is persuaded or not. Best of all, you don't discredit your own views by attacking the other person unnecessarily. If you're in the right, that's especially important, because you don't want to discredit the truth. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

macintux 6y ago

“I’m very skeptical of this, other than <short list of exceptions>. Do you have any citations for this in any other context?” That would be an interesting discussion I’d like to see, but you derailed it immediately through accusations of bad faith.

emiliobumachar 6y ago

I don't have a dog in this fight, but, consider the possibility that it's rare, maybe even unique, but real. If that's the case, you've never seen it because it's rare.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

I know what it's like to see something on HN where you 100% doubt the story someone is telling. The problem is that hostile skepticism and cynicism are devoid of content, at best. If you want to clarify to other readers that you find something very uncharacteristic or unlikely, then just keep it conversational and assume they are telling the truth. What would you say if a crystal ball revealed that their story did happened? "Whoa, I'm from India and I've never heard of anything like that, it's hard to believe. Which college/region was that?" would make the same point yet possibly provoke more info from other people/OP. And people are unlikely to downvote an earnest inquiry.

dang 6y ago

macintux is correct. Here's why. The word "lie" implies more than saying something false—it implies intent to deceive. That's against the HN guidelines, which ask you to assume good faith. When people assume bad faith, the odds are much higher that the thread will degenerate into flamewar, and we don't want that here. Also, none of us has a mind reader, and it's almost impossible to read someone else's intent just from the small bits of information that internet comments provide. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Here's what to do instead: when encountering incorrect information, respond respectfully with correct information. If the person was honestly mistaken, then they learn something; if they disagree, they can say why, also respectfully, and we can hear out the different views. This way, we can all learn something, regardless of whether the other commenter is persuaded or not. Best of all, you don't discredit your own views by attacking the other person unnecessarily. If you're in the right, that's especially important, because you don't want to discredit the truth. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...