Your belief that the root of an flawed argument can be thoroughly discredited without referring to the specific points of the argument rings false. How do you

Your belief that the root of an flawed argument can be thoroughly discredited without referring to the specific points of the argument rings false. How do you know if you have “thoroughly discredited” the position if you haven’t addressed the salient points in the argument? In fact, how do you demonstrate that you have “thoroughly discredited” it at all? Internet points? It seems a rather expansive claim. There’s not a professor or manager on the planet who hasn’t marked up a memo or a thesis. And that marking up is identifying individual points of difference or clarification over the course of an argument or proposal. Rarely a wholesale rejection. But I might have been working at a different level than you. I can count the fingers of two hands the number of times in my professional life that I found a substantive argument that could be “throughly discredited”. Got awards for it too. But those were in the highly constrained world of mathematics. I agree that a proof that even numbers aren’t prime shouldn’t involve enumerating a lot of them and proving they’re composite. But that sort of intellectual masterstroke rarely happens in real life, except in the fantasy life of some. If it happens on the Internet a lot, it probably means that corner of the Internet doesn’t map well into reality. So, unless it’s beautiful or heartwarming, it can just be flushed. Many times differences are based on differing life experiences, or personal values of risk, mortality and the like, or personal agendas for money, fame and the like. Unearthing those differences involves a bit more analysis and nuance, and rarely lead to a simple denouement. Can you give an example of where you “thoroughly discredited” an argument on HN without systematically referring to the specific items of content of the argument? Imagine you are presenting this to an emeritus professor at an Ivy League school. So, no nonsense...