4 ms·

Sure you can try to have a proper discussion online, but too many people want to DESTROY people with FACTS and LOGIC. Or in practice ad hominems, false equivale

Sure you can try to have a proper discussion online, but too many people want to DESTROY people with FACTS and LOGIC. Or in practice ad hominems, false equivalencies, and just about every other fallacy in the book. If a topic is remotely controversial it's just about impossible to have a discussion that would make any sense at all. HN is really the only place I even bother to write a comment, on the whole people seem to be at least have a somewhat charitable interpretation of other people's comments.

notapenny 6y ago
That last sentence is what's critical to having decent conversation with people in general. You may think their opinion/point is wrong or they might just completely misunderstand a topic, but give them the benefit of the doubt. If you're just stating your opinion versus giving your point of view and asking other to give/clarify theirs, you're probably doing it wrong. Anytime I'm in an argument I just treat it as a way to get a different point of view, even if I don't subscribe to it. HN is great for this.