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The culture here is fascinating. I comment (sincerely, and thoughtfully) in one topic criticising naive interpretations of AI -- heavily downvoted. OK, we're AI

The culture here is fascinating. I comment (sincerely, and thoughtfully) in one topic criticising naive interpretations of AI -- heavily downvoted. OK, we're AI fanatics here: programmers are gods. Intelligence is just a program we're yet to write. So in this thread I comment to defend how demanding programming is on the intellect. Again, many downvotes. I have no idea what this community is.

slingnow 5y ago
It's a community of people with thoughts that sometimes differ from yours. It doesn't seem that confusing.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Indeed: isn't that precisely a good reason to reply rather than downvote? I have maybe downvoted a handful of times in a decade of being on this site: only for spam or grossly misleading comments. Increasingly I see seas of downvoted comments as-if this were reddit. I think that might just be it: the community has grown so large, it has attracted enough of those types who vote-their-emotions.
  - slingnow 5y ago
    I think I agree with you in general, and to be fair I didn't downvote your original comment. My takeaway was that you were taking the unpopular opinion (programming is uniquely hard/creative/etc) and attempting to reinforce it by unfairly reducing the creative act of painting to no more than paint on a canvas. That's my best guess.
loopz 5y ago
You'll fare much better trying for constructive and introspective perspectives. Often you'll receive downvotes immediately anyway, but the tide might turn as other people might recognize something in what you write over time. This is a startup/founder-centric forum, and creative people usually have less time for criticism and negative viewpoints, that then need to be translated into something worthwhile.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Useful advice; I'm somewhat put-off by "translation into worthwhile". It is already worthwhile, since it is aiming at the truth: a comment is an invitation to revise your/my view. It seems we're saying here that the community, generically, does not find that worthwhile. Rather we take as fixed a commenter's private interests, and commenting is merely an instrument for furthering those. I understand that reasoning in selecting/voting posts; I dont have much sympathy with it in commenting.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Of course you'll feel good about venting your frustrations. But everyone around you will feel bad.
    - mjburgess 5y ago
      I take my initial comment as a bit of a vent. I don't really take my others as being -- unless I'm mistaken. If it is venting, then I have more sympathy with the downvote.
      - loopz 5y ago
        It doesn't matter so much wether you were venting or not, but how others perceive your output. Some people are great at that, while many of us are not. It's not about good or bad, skills, or anything like that. It's just, to get better results from communication, it requires anticipation how something will be received. There's often a gap between what others hear, and what someone else said. Many disagreements are just that. Often, just by replacing a word, something will be received differently. Though it's more about empathy and anticipation, being there for others and not expecting much. It's easy to be liked saying what other people want to hear. When you have things to say that people generally don't want to hear, this needs refinement how to go about it. The best way is to make people realize it for themselves, even if you don't get credit. How others hear you, matters.
        5y ago
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Its because you assume programmers are special in some way.
hackinthebochs 5y ago
Disagreement motivates downvotes more than agreement motivates upvotes. Given the two topics, you will have a sizable group that feels strongly against the conventional wisdom.
beckingz 5y ago
Is this in reference to your comments the other day about Chess AI not actually "playing" chess?
layer8 5y ago
The "community" isn’t homogenous. Different topics will attract different people who comment. Time of day also affects the distribution of visitors from different time zones (and possibly age groups), changing the distribution of opinions.

slingnow 5y ago

It's a community of people with thoughts that sometimes differ from yours. It doesn't seem that confusing.

mjburgess 5y ago
Indeed: isn't that precisely a good reason to reply rather than downvote? I have maybe downvoted a handful of times in a decade of being on this site: only for spam or grossly misleading comments. Increasingly I see seas of downvoted comments as-if this were reddit. I think that might just be it: the community has grown so large, it has attracted enough of those types who vote-their-emotions.
- slingnow 5y ago
  I think I agree with you in general, and to be fair I didn't downvote your original comment. My takeaway was that you were taking the unpopular opinion (programming is uniquely hard/creative/etc) and attempting to reinforce it by unfairly reducing the creative act of painting to no more than paint on a canvas. That's my best guess.

loopz 5y ago

You'll fare much better trying for constructive and introspective perspectives. Often you'll receive downvotes immediately anyway, but the tide might turn as other people might recognize something in what you write over time. This is a startup/founder-centric forum, and creative people usually have less time for criticism and negative viewpoints, that then need to be translated into something worthwhile.

mjburgess 5y ago
Useful advice; I'm somewhat put-off by "translation into worthwhile". It is already worthwhile, since it is aiming at the truth: a comment is an invitation to revise your/my view. It seems we're saying here that the community, generically, does not find that worthwhile. Rather we take as fixed a commenter's private interests, and commenting is merely an instrument for furthering those. I understand that reasoning in selecting/voting posts; I dont have much sympathy with it in commenting.
- loopz 5y ago
  Of course you'll feel good about venting your frustrations. But everyone around you will feel bad.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    I take my initial comment as a bit of a vent. I don't really take my others as being -- unless I'm mistaken. If it is venting, then I have more sympathy with the downvote.
    - loopz 5y ago
      It doesn't matter so much wether you were venting or not, but how others perceive your output. Some people are great at that, while many of us are not. It's not about good or bad, skills, or anything like that. It's just, to get better results from communication, it requires anticipation how something will be received. There's often a gap between what others hear, and what someone else said. Many disagreements are just that. Often, just by replacing a word, something will be received differently. Though it's more about empathy and anticipation, being there for others and not expecting much. It's easy to be liked saying what other people want to hear. When you have things to say that people generally don't want to hear, this needs refinement how to go about it. The best way is to make people realize it for themselves, even if you don't get credit. How others hear you, matters.
      - 5y ago

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

Its because you assume programmers are special in some way.

hackinthebochs 5y ago

Disagreement motivates downvotes more than agreement motivates upvotes. Given the two topics, you will have a sizable group that feels strongly against the conventional wisdom.

beckingz 5y ago

Is this in reference to your comments the other day about Chess AI not actually "playing" chess?

layer8 5y ago

The "community" isn’t homogenous. Different topics will attract different people who comment. Time of day also affects the distribution of visitors from different time zones (and possibly age groups), changing the distribution of opinions.