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For someone with such low karma you sure are the expert on all things HN. In my humble opinion, only a mindless NPC would think my comparing the erroneous plati

by pnf 4y ago

For someone with such low karma you sure are the expert on all things HN. In my humble opinion, only a mindless NPC would think my comparing the erroneous platitudes and baseless claims of the above to an LLM was not appropriate to the spirit of HN. Those guidelines, btw, absolute shit, I'm sorry to say. They degrade the quality of conversation around here by devaluing passionate debate. They explicitly eschew many rhetorical tools of persuasive speech that require art to use effectively, such as sarcasm and irony, in favor of a watered down "niceness" that has no defences against outrageous cultural land grabs. They elevate and give cover to humorless scolds. And, they're written as if the people on here were in 3rd grade. So don't wave that banner at me like it's some kind of win for you. It's not. It's just more hall monitoring. Go tell the teacher or just vote me down and save the sermon for someone who thinks it's bad to say something sarcastic and true.

jolmg 4y ago
> For someone with such low karma [...] You have 129. What are you doing criticizing the karma of others? Karma doesn't matter, they're still right: "Please don't post shallow dismissals" > Those guidelines, btw, absolute shit, I'm sorry to say. They degrade the quality of conversation around here by devaluing passionate debate. No, shallow dismissals like what you did are what devalue debate.
- pnf 4y ago
  The difference is that I'm not claiming to speak for HN and censor voices I don't agree with. That's your job, apparently. In any case, glib dismissals of shallow, condescending arguments are the appropriate response. In point of fact, my response wasn't shallow at all, if you think about it. There's a lot to unpack in considering whether someone's opinions are indistinguishable from something chatGPT might output. Either way, such replies, admittedly short and pithy, show others that it's OK to treat those types of argument with disdain and not to waste one's time taking them seriously. In case you didn't notice before you leapt to the rescue, the tone of the parent post was extremely patronizing. If you can't see that it says something about you, not me. So, in this world of "valuable" debate which you advocate, uncivil condescension and mild corrective scolding are A-OK, but singling such things out for ridicule so others aren't fooled by them is not. I see. You're clearly on the side of valuable, deep debate.
  - hezralig 4y ago
    It sounds more so that this community has a set of standards and that you are not a culture fit. Have you considered using reddit for your sort of 'passionate debate' ?
    - pnf 4y ago
      This is going to sound harsh, but I mean it in the most sincere way possible and I hope you'll take it with that in mind. This community's standards are old and evolving and contested. There was no vote or debate on the guidelines you cited. They are just the same boilerplate you'd expect from any watered down open community. If you believe the members should have a say in the standards of the community then you should object to the diktat of these guidelines as much as I do. I've been here in various guises for well over a decade and I can tell you the standards have changed from something that was closer to Reddit or Digg for programmers into something that is trying to be as corporate and anodyne and bloodless as possible. The worst part is it isn't even the official mods doing it, it's the school marms in the comments. So, for you to come in and suggest that I'm out of order with my style of comment only suggests to me you are some arriviste with no sense of the cultural history of the place. The changes around here already look like a form of digital colonialism and then here you come acting as some kind of warrant chief disciplining the discourse. You change the culture and then tell the natives they aren't a 'culture fit'? That's pretty offensive. Anyway, it's not your particular fault exclusively but, without cultural memory, someone arguing forcefully or rhetorically on HN may seem like a dangerous new precedent when it's really just an obsolete local tradition that some of us quixotically try to protect. I don't know if you've noticed but there is a deficit of diverse political opinions around here. I'm old enough to remember when that wasn't the case. Allowing wannabe mods to enforce the new rules is a form of giving up on the fight over the culture of the place. Civility is not a universal standard. Go to any subculture and query the standards of civility and I bet you'll get some surprising answers. No, civility is the rule of the people who get to decide what's acceptable. This is contested space. I find comments like the parent's to be quite offensive and can give deep reasons for my opinion. In short, I found it uncivil. You may not like my style of participation, but at least understand why. I post my comments not to fight or offend but for the silent lurkers to see other possibilities and to be of good cheer in the knowledge that they are not alone in their sense of alienation from official tech culture.

by pnf 4y ago

jolmg 4y ago

> For someone with such low karma [...] You have 129. What are you doing criticizing the karma of others? Karma doesn't matter, they're still right: "Please don't post shallow dismissals" > Those guidelines, btw, absolute shit, I'm sorry to say. They degrade the quality of conversation around here by devaluing passionate debate. No, shallow dismissals like what you did are what devalue debate.

pnf 4y ago
The difference is that I'm not claiming to speak for HN and censor voices I don't agree with. That's your job, apparently. In any case, glib dismissals of shallow, condescending arguments are the appropriate response. In point of fact, my response wasn't shallow at all, if you think about it. There's a lot to unpack in considering whether someone's opinions are indistinguishable from something chatGPT might output. Either way, such replies, admittedly short and pithy, show others that it's OK to treat those types of argument with disdain and not to waste one's time taking them seriously. In case you didn't notice before you leapt to the rescue, the tone of the parent post was extremely patronizing. If you can't see that it says something about you, not me. So, in this world of "valuable" debate which you advocate, uncivil condescension and mild corrective scolding are A-OK, but singling such things out for ridicule so others aren't fooled by them is not. I see. You're clearly on the side of valuable, deep debate.
- hezralig 4y ago
  It sounds more so that this community has a set of standards and that you are not a culture fit. Have you considered using reddit for your sort of 'passionate debate' ?
  - pnf 4y ago
    This is going to sound harsh, but I mean it in the most sincere way possible and I hope you'll take it with that in mind. This community's standards are old and evolving and contested. There was no vote or debate on the guidelines you cited. They are just the same boilerplate you'd expect from any watered down open community. If you believe the members should have a say in the standards of the community then you should object to the diktat of these guidelines as much as I do. I've been here in various guises for well over a decade and I can tell you the standards have changed from something that was closer to Reddit or Digg for programmers into something that is trying to be as corporate and anodyne and bloodless as possible. The worst part is it isn't even the official mods doing it, it's the school marms in the comments. So, for you to come in and suggest that I'm out of order with my style of comment only suggests to me you are some arriviste with no sense of the cultural history of the place. The changes around here already look like a form of digital colonialism and then here you come acting as some kind of warrant chief disciplining the discourse. You change the culture and then tell the natives they aren't a 'culture fit'? That's pretty offensive. Anyway, it's not your particular fault exclusively but, without cultural memory, someone arguing forcefully or rhetorically on HN may seem like a dangerous new precedent when it's really just an obsolete local tradition that some of us quixotically try to protect. I don't know if you've noticed but there is a deficit of diverse political opinions around here. I'm old enough to remember when that wasn't the case. Allowing wannabe mods to enforce the new rules is a form of giving up on the fight over the culture of the place. Civility is not a universal standard. Go to any subculture and query the standards of civility and I bet you'll get some surprising answers. No, civility is the rule of the people who get to decide what's acceptable. This is contested space. I find comments like the parent's to be quite offensive and can give deep reasons for my opinion. In short, I found it uncivil. You may not like my style of participation, but at least understand why. I post my comments not to fight or offend but for the silent lurkers to see other possibilities and to be of good cheer in the knowledge that they are not alone in their sense of alienation from official tech culture.