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I know you're busy, so I don't expect you to do this, but if you're interested I'd like to talk 1:1 with you. I kinda agree with you on this one, but I don't a

I know you're busy, so I don't expect you to do this, but if you're interested I'd like to talk 1:1 with you. I kinda agree with you on this one, but I don't agree with you on the thread re: diabetes. Some sentiments are harming people, right now, and not being allowed to call them out seems wrong to do. If this was also about the name of the person, I just picked the name that they had on their HN profile. Either way. Apologies to you for creating more mod-work-load. I'll keep this in mind and I'd like not to get banned either.

dang 5y ago
I appreciate the kind reply! There isn't really a tradeoff here, because even when people are so wrong about something that harm could result from believing them, the best way to respond is to patiently provide good arguments and correct information. If you slip into the flamewar style and/or the online callout-shaming culture, you won't reduce harm. You'll only provoke and reinforce the people who disagree, and the resulting conflagration won't help undecided people decide. Worse, you run the risk of discrediting your own position, and if your position happens to be a correct one, that actually causes harm in its own right, because it somehow ends up discrediting the truth (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So happily, I would say, the cause of not having flamewars, of sticking to the site guidelines, and of giving the truth the best possible advocacy, more or less coincide. That doesn't make it easy. It's far from easy, but that's because it's hard to handle the emotional torque it places on you when someone else is saying something that is (or that you feel is) totally wrong on a topic. Where by "you" I don't mean you personally, of course—I mean all of us.

dang 5y ago

I appreciate the kind reply! There isn't really a tradeoff here, because even when people are so wrong about something that harm could result from believing them, the best way to respond is to patiently provide good arguments and correct information. If you slip into the flamewar style and/or the online callout-shaming culture, you won't reduce harm. You'll only provoke and reinforce the people who disagree, and the resulting conflagration won't help undecided people decide. Worse, you run the risk of discrediting your own position, and if your position happens to be a correct one, that actually causes harm in its own right, because it somehow ends up discrediting the truth (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So happily, I would say, the cause of not having flamewars, of sticking to the site guidelines, and of giving the truth the best possible advocacy, more or less coincide. That doesn't make it easy. It's far from easy, but that's because it's hard to handle the emotional torque it places on you when someone else is saying something that is (or that you feel is) totally wrong on a topic. Where by "you" I don't mean you personally, of course—I mean all of us.