3 ms·

And you actually could be wrong. Have you defined the term “two”? You didn’t here. “But everybody knows what ‘two’ is! You’re being facetious.” No, not rea

And you actually could be wrong. Have you defined the term “two”? You didn’t here. “But everybody knows what ‘two’ is! You’re being facetious.” No, not really. Most of the ranting here comes from 1. not precisely defining, and agreeing to, the terms that are being used in discussion, or 2. misinterpreting, intentionally or not, how others are using a term (so easy because the term was not defined properly by the poster in the first place)... This provides the opportunity to reincarnate a long-neglected topic of study, closely connected to San Francisco, known as General Semantics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics If this “discussion” occurred among US intellectuals 70 years ago, someone would have already made my observation about defining terms. A basic tenet: If nobody is defining and gaining an acceptance by others of the terms used in a discussion, you will get intellectually nowhere in your discussion and you will come to no agreement...or...each of you will think an agreement means something different. Dead waste of photons... Soviet communists hated the idea at the time. “How can you rile up the masses if they objectively and rationally discussed things” seemed to be the concern. Ironic, because if the German people had used the basic techniques in the Nazi 1930s, there would have been 50% more young Russian men alive in the 1950s. Which is why it was so popular among the young intellectuals in the US after WWII who really didn’t want another war. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42573948?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/42573948?seq=1 It is particularly appropriate for a Bay Area group since one of the leading proponents was S.I. Hayakawa who was President of San Francisco State University and former US Senator for California. His book, Language in Thought and Action, was a popular explanation of General Semantics for normal people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_in_Thought_and_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_in_Thought_and_Action It was a Book-of-the-Month club selection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Month Sold a million copies and was his ticket to politics. An easy and pleasant read even today. If you pursue General Semantics further, skip the esoterica by the founder Korzybski. It is sort of Eselen-culty without any nudity, so, what’s the point? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esalen_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esalen_Institute

caconym_ 6y ago
My experience with internet interlocutors has been that the ones who have the most “trouble” understanding what others have said are also the most resistant to having the discussion about definitions. It’s pretty obvious that this is a common problem, but when so many people are arguing in bad faith the solution isn’t obvious since they will actively resist finding common ground upon which they might finally be pinned down. Simply making an “observation” might have been good enough “among US intellectuals 70 years ago”, but it’s certainly not going to be good enough today in these Hacker News comments. In some contexts, I might love to talk for hours about what ‘2’ really is, but in this particular context the absurdity of following that rabbit hole is kind of the whole point: you can surely dissemble for hours if I press you on the ‘2’ issue, but what that amounts to here is you (the general you) retreating into intellectual masturbation to avoid admitting that there’s a difference between a truth and a lie (or directly arguing otherwise, though I think the same pitfalls apply there). I write comments like the one you replied to because I like to test what level of mental gymnastics these people are willing to resort to to avoid admitting that we can make any sort of factual statement about the world. Often, as in this case, I don’t hear back.

caconym_ 6y ago

My experience with internet interlocutors has been that the ones who have the most “trouble” understanding what others have said are also the most resistant to having the discussion about definitions. It’s pretty obvious that this is a common problem, but when so many people are arguing in bad faith the solution isn’t obvious since they will actively resist finding common ground upon which they might finally be pinned down. Simply making an “observation” might have been good enough “among US intellectuals 70 years ago”, but it’s certainly not going to be good enough today in these Hacker News comments. In some contexts, I might love to talk for hours about what ‘2’ really is, but in this particular context the absurdity of following that rabbit hole is kind of the whole point: you can surely dissemble for hours if I press you on the ‘2’ issue, but what that amounts to here is you (the general you) retreating into intellectual masturbation to avoid admitting that there’s a difference between a truth and a lie (or directly arguing otherwise, though I think the same pitfalls apply there). I write comments like the one you replied to because I like to test what level of mental gymnastics these people are willing to resort to to avoid admitting that we can make any sort of factual statement about the world. Often, as in this case, I don’t hear back.