5 ms·

I think I'd rather see short, strident statements of opinion than multi-paragraphed 'reasoned' arguments that are essentially the same thing but with different

by akozak 4y ago

I think I'd rather see short, strident statements of opinion than multi-paragraphed 'reasoned' arguments that are essentially the same thing but with different aesthetics. Much quicker to process!

Semiapies 4y ago
I've seen a lot of walls of text lately by people that look copied-and-pasted from their blogs/forum rants/whatever.
armchairhacker 4y ago
Issues are - When the statement is obvious, you mine as well not say it at all. On a lot of Reddit threads every upvoted comment is basically some variation of “This”, “Yep”, “I agree” (sometimes literally those). It’s absurd, there’s no discussion and the entire point of the comments section is wasted. (Honestly, a lot of Reddit is just the same posts and arguments over and over) - When the opinion actually deserves nuance. When people throw around phrases like “the US is a third-world country”, “Google is an awful company only focused on greed”, “never trust your employer”. No, these statements aren’t 100% true, Google is a greedy company but it really isn’t just a money-making machine, it provides a search engine and mail and office software and video platform that you probably use. Additionally, when the statements are political and derogatory (“all X group is bad”), you start to criticize people who don’t deserve the criticism.
- akozak 4y ago
  That's fair. It's definitely fashionable to be hyperbolic. But it might also be wrong to interpret those statements literally or at face-value. See Emotivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    > That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway. It's not always about changing your mind. Nuanced opinions help people understand issues better. If you write a long post talking about value driven at scale at Google vs a predatory advertising market, you can help folks understand, say, what a Google competitor would need to harness to compete effectively. But when you just say "Google is a scourge to this planet", nobody comes away from the conversation better informed and the poster gets tons of HN karma for posting the median view.
    - akozak 4y ago
      Totally - not all nuanced arguments are emotive at root. I think HN is at it's best when the discussion is evidence-oriented.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
I agree. But I don't think most HN posts are particularly longer than most Tweets. Many can be fit in 2 tweets in fact. If you're going to make strident, blanket posts (like the ones armchairhacker talks about), Twitter is probably a better medium.

by akozak 4y ago

I think I'd rather see short, strident statements of opinion than multi-paragraphed 'reasoned' arguments that are essentially the same thing but with different aesthetics. Much quicker to process!

Semiapies 4y ago

I've seen a lot of walls of text lately by people that look copied-and-pasted from their blogs/forum rants/whatever.

armchairhacker 4y ago

Issues are - When the statement is obvious, you mine as well not say it at all. On a lot of Reddit threads every upvoted comment is basically some variation of “This”, “Yep”, “I agree” (sometimes literally those). It’s absurd, there’s no discussion and the entire point of the comments section is wasted. (Honestly, a lot of Reddit is just the same posts and arguments over and over) - When the opinion actually deserves nuance. When people throw around phrases like “the US is a third-world country”, “Google is an awful company only focused on greed”, “never trust your employer”. No, these statements aren’t 100% true, Google is a greedy company but it really isn’t just a money-making machine, it provides a search engine and mail and office software and video platform that you probably use. Additionally, when the statements are political and derogatory (“all X group is bad”), you start to criticize people who don’t deserve the criticism.

akozak 4y ago
That's fair. It's definitely fashionable to be hyperbolic. But it might also be wrong to interpret those statements literally or at face-value. See Emotivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  > That is to say, a lot of "nuanced" arguments are just as morally emotive as short punchy ones. The latter might be less persuasive, but I'm not sure many people are changing their minds on moral or ethical debates these days anyway. It's not always about changing your mind. Nuanced opinions help people understand issues better. If you write a long post talking about value driven at scale at Google vs a predatory advertising market, you can help folks understand, say, what a Google competitor would need to harness to compete effectively. But when you just say "Google is a scourge to this planet", nobody comes away from the conversation better informed and the poster gets tons of HN karma for posting the median view.
  - akozak 4y ago
    Totally - not all nuanced arguments are emotive at root. I think HN is at it's best when the discussion is evidence-oriented.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago

I agree. But I don't think most HN posts are particularly longer than most Tweets. Many can be fit in 2 tweets in fact. If you're going to make strident, blanket posts (like the ones armchairhacker talks about), Twitter is probably a better medium.