3 ms·

I understand the point you're trying to make (e.g. making a hyperbolic claim and leaving the onus on the accused to disprove it), but I think if you wanted to a

I understand the point you're trying to make (e.g. making a hyperbolic claim and leaving the onus on the accused to disprove it), but I think if you wanted to avoid downvotes while making the same point, you might have better luck saying something like: > How would you feel if I said "<username> is a pedophile! What are you going to do to fight this? Maybe it's just not something worth pursuing?" And then spend a bit of time explaining why this reasoning doesn't make sense to you. I'm a relative veteran of HN and even I had to do a double-take because I thought you were genuinely accusing the person of being a pedophile.

FDSGSG 5y ago
Honestly, I really hope that I don't need to explain the logic behind my comment. It should be obvious to anyone willing to spend more than a couple of seconds thinking about it. I would hope that on HN we'd actually try to read and understand the comment we're voting on. Of course I'm being overly optimistic, but I'd prefer to be naive and wrong than cynical and right.
- tombert 5y ago
  Sure, and as someone who grew up on Something Awful and 4chan I'm not familiar with the concept of hyperbole and sarcasm, but keep in mind that a lot of people on HN speak English as a second language, or just have more trouble picking up on sarcasm in general, and as such it might come off as a legitimate accusation. I'm not trying to be the tone police, I don't really care, I was just explaining why you might have been downvoted. Take my statements with as large of a grain of salt as you would like.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    English is a third language for me, I would expect that regardless of language everyone can understand the concepts of sarcasm and irony if they're willing to spend any time thinking about what they are reading. There's literally zero context to suggest that I might be serious in accusing another poster of being a pedophile, even if they were it wouldn't make sense for me to randomly drop that.
    - tphyahoo2 5y ago
      I think it's common for non-neurotypical folks to struggle with sarcasm and irony. Even for neurotypicals, it can go over your head because it's hard to tell tone from a text.
      - notTheAuth 5y ago
        Leon Cooperman was quoted today as saying if people don’t follow along with billionaires they’ll deviate into unnatural behavior. If that guy and anyone who believes the masses kowtowing to politically insulated old men LARPing Alexander the Great is natural, we’re doomed. This is what we are now; low effort taxonomists, defending syntactic hierarchy when we know there is no center of reality. Maybe the neuro-typicals are the real problem? The ones who have hierarchical visuals put in front of them their whole lives, who can then only repeat “this is the way”. Seems like a sure fire way to improve the probability taxes won’t go up, which exactly why Cooperman was interviewed; reiterating the hierarchy. I really want to play Lemmings for some reason. Borrowing from Greer’s “code the perimeter, not the area” we need a new political perimeter. Humans know the value of technology now. We don’t need old geezers to confirm what we can all see and touch for ourselves.
    - tombert 5y ago
      > There's literally zero context to suggest that I might be serious in accusing another poster of being a pedophile, even if they were it wouldn't make sense for me to randomly drop that. Sure, but I think you're overestimating the integrity of the internet if you think that people don't just drop random pedophile accusations for folks that they disagree with. I'm not saying it's "fair", because I get that you were just trying to make a rhetorical point, but I'm saying that people on the internet are often douchebags, ruining a lot of the fun for us. I love edgy humor and sarcasm, between my wife and I we make a ton of off-color jokes, but I usually keep those offline because I don't want to group in with the awful people who misuse them.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The default interpretation of written language is direct rather than ironic or sarcastic. With “there’s literally zero context to suggest…”, it’s not unreasonable for some to conclude that you were being serious (particularly in light of the general decline of “comments online always make sense in context, so if it doesn’t, you should read deeper”)

FDSGSG 5y ago

Honestly, I really hope that I don't need to explain the logic behind my comment. It should be obvious to anyone willing to spend more than a couple of seconds thinking about it. I would hope that on HN we'd actually try to read and understand the comment we're voting on. Of course I'm being overly optimistic, but I'd prefer to be naive and wrong than cynical and right.

tombert 5y ago
Sure, and as someone who grew up on Something Awful and 4chan I'm not familiar with the concept of hyperbole and sarcasm, but keep in mind that a lot of people on HN speak English as a second language, or just have more trouble picking up on sarcasm in general, and as such it might come off as a legitimate accusation. I'm not trying to be the tone police, I don't really care, I was just explaining why you might have been downvoted. Take my statements with as large of a grain of salt as you would like.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  English is a third language for me, I would expect that regardless of language everyone can understand the concepts of sarcasm and irony if they're willing to spend any time thinking about what they are reading. There's literally zero context to suggest that I might be serious in accusing another poster of being a pedophile, even if they were it wouldn't make sense for me to randomly drop that.
  - tphyahoo2 5y ago
    I think it's common for non-neurotypical folks to struggle with sarcasm and irony. Even for neurotypicals, it can go over your head because it's hard to tell tone from a text.
    - notTheAuth 5y ago
      Leon Cooperman was quoted today as saying if people don’t follow along with billionaires they’ll deviate into unnatural behavior. If that guy and anyone who believes the masses kowtowing to politically insulated old men LARPing Alexander the Great is natural, we’re doomed. This is what we are now; low effort taxonomists, defending syntactic hierarchy when we know there is no center of reality. Maybe the neuro-typicals are the real problem? The ones who have hierarchical visuals put in front of them their whole lives, who can then only repeat “this is the way”. Seems like a sure fire way to improve the probability taxes won’t go up, which exactly why Cooperman was interviewed; reiterating the hierarchy. I really want to play Lemmings for some reason. Borrowing from Greer’s “code the perimeter, not the area” we need a new political perimeter. Humans know the value of technology now. We don’t need old geezers to confirm what we can all see and touch for ourselves.
  - tombert 5y ago
    > There's literally zero context to suggest that I might be serious in accusing another poster of being a pedophile, even if they were it wouldn't make sense for me to randomly drop that. Sure, but I think you're overestimating the integrity of the internet if you think that people don't just drop random pedophile accusations for folks that they disagree with. I'm not saying it's "fair", because I get that you were just trying to make a rhetorical point, but I'm saying that people on the internet are often douchebags, ruining a lot of the fun for us. I love edgy humor and sarcasm, between my wife and I we make a ton of off-color jokes, but I usually keep those offline because I don't want to group in with the awful people who misuse them.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The default interpretation of written language is direct rather than ironic or sarcastic. With “there’s literally zero context to suggest…”, it’s not unreasonable for some to conclude that you were being serious (particularly in light of the general decline of “comments online always make sense in context, so if it doesn’t, you should read deeper”)