7 ms·

No and no. Note: I am not rate-limited, but will not reply in any manner whatsoever. No replies from my end will reference anything at all, because they won’t

No and no. Note: I am not rate-limited, but will not reply in any manner whatsoever. No replies from my end will reference anything at all, because they won’t exist. Feel free to misunderstand whatever you please about this comment.

mistermann 3y ago
> No and no. Do you present these as beliefs/predictions, or facts? If facts, please present your proofs. Alternatively, you can also engage in highly predictable rhetorical behavior, not unlike that of a LLM when prompted with certain ideas. I've presented these two ideas to thousands of human minds, I am interested in whether there is any(!) novelty in yours in this scenario. > Note: I am not rate-limited, but will not reply in any manner whatsoever. No replies from my end will reference anything at all, because they won’t exist. Feel free to misunderstand whatever you please about this comment. Off to a not surprising start.
- PeterWhittaker 3y ago
  > > No and no > present facts That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. In the former case, we have only appeal to authority (some book says) and to personal belief, neither of which are facts. In the latter case, we have a proven medical fraud committed by a person with financial interest in rival treatments, said person having lost their medical license as a result of said fraud. Your serve.
  - karpierz 3y ago
    > That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. What? Why? If this were true, you could: 1. Take the claim you want to assert 2. Claim the negation of the claim is false (the "no"). 3. If anyone asks for facts, just say the burden of proof is on them to show the negation is true.
    - CodeMage 3y ago
      You misunderstood what the comment you replied to was saying, and you also seem to either misunderstand or simply not know about the burden of proof. For my part, I find the original "no and no" reply perfectly adequate for the smug "I'm only asking questions" assertion-in-disguise that prompted it. Life is too short to debate trolls.
      - vacuity 3y ago
        I agree that parent seems to be trolling, but I don't agree on your assessment about the burden-of-proof point. Where is the misunderstanding? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36661671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36661671 (Other reply I made just now on the burden-of-proof thing)
        mistermann 3y ago
        > I agree that parent seems to be trolling You seem like an actually reasonable person (and thanks for the support)....do you think it's possible that there might be more to what it is I'm doing than "trolling"? A way to think about it: do you think it's possible that framing/perceiving those who are interested in accuracy as being "trolls" (as opposed to realizing that they are correct, and may actually have an important point) might cause long term harm to a culture? Another way to think about it: mocking Trump supporters and religious fundamentalists is both easy and fun, and therefore popular - but how much value is there in it? Now, contrast this to finding questions that ~everyone will fail on, including highly educated and genuinely smart people. How much value might there be in this (keeping in mind the numerous seemingly intractable problems we have going on on this shitshow of a planet)? I'm asking you rather than the other guy because I think you can likely actually consider the question. An interesting followup question maybe: what do you think about people (particularly smart people) who are not able to consider certain things, but seem to be trapped in a cycle of only being able heuristically process certain ideas. I am very suspicious that this is not a 100% naturally emergent aspect of our culture - I speculate that people have been made this way. And if they've been made this way (or even if not), perhaps they can be improved.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    The burden of proof is on the person who provides an answer. Whether that is "yes", "no", "yes in this case and no everywhere else", that is an answer that should be backed by some evidence and reasoning. If the questions and answers had been perfectly flipped, would you have said that the burden of proof is on those who say "no"?
  - mistermann 3y ago
    > That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. Can you cite any authoritative source on this, or are you able to only claim that it is correct (and perhaps, expect me to disprove)? > In the former case, we have only appeal to authority (some book says) You are incorrect - we also have epistemology, logic, ontology, neuroscience/psychology/anthropology and various other fields which contain discoveries that are relevant to the psychological phenomenon (~"reality") you are currently experiencing. > and to personal belief, neither of which are facts. If you and your epistemology-ignorant and denying crew can treat your beliefs as facts (as is regularly done in these conversations), why can religious people not do the same? I mean come on man, double standards are bad, no? > In the latter case, we have a proven medical fraud committed by a person with financial interest in rival treatments, said person having lost their medical license as a result of said fraud. Which proves nothing. I am genuinely curious: do you believe that Wakefield being discovered to be a fraud PROVES there is ZERO causal association between vaccines and autism? Because there sure are a lot of people who believe that, including a lot of people right here on HN.
    - XorNot 3y ago
      > Can you cite any authoritative source on this, or are you able to only claim that it is correct (and perhaps, expect me to disprove)? What if the number of pirates in the world is in fact linked to the increase in mean global temperature? Can you present any evidence it isn't?
      - vacuity 3y ago
        Parent and GP were talking about where the burden of proof lies. That's a matter of opinion, but one that should generally be considered settled on Hacker News. Apparently it isn't. Anyways, while parent made a somewhat snarky reply, yours isn't better. If parent was shown discussing "actual" points (for example, the vaccine question) with an absurdly high bar for proof from the other side, your reply would be relevant. As it is, there doesn't seem to be anything egregiously wrong about parent's reply about the vaccine question. Perhaps the evidence or reasoning is wrong, but you didn't address that.
      - 3y ago
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    // That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. I used to think this way but lately recognize this isn't intellectually honest. Even w/o religion we have to acknowledge that our ability to perceive and understand is very limited compared to what must be the totality of truths in the universe. This seems obvious - eg if you believe in evolution, you recognize that you evolved to be fit in your environment (eat and avoid being eaten) - why would you expect this process to grant you machinery to understand fundamental universal truths? Once I recognized this limitation, I recognized the intellectual dishonestly of what I previously considered rigor: "I can't see/understand it so it doesn't exist" is as ridiculous an assertion as anything.
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      Insisting on fixing burden of proof according to reasonable and customary rules is how we bring information from honest and forthright discussion partners into scope where their thoughts can be fully considered and guard our time from unserious, dishonest, or ridiculous individuals who sap our time and will by insisting that unreasonable meritless ideas spun with a minimum of effort demand profound effort on our part to disprove what they never bothered to prove in the first place. If you tell me the moon is made of cheese my rebuttal isn't going to be to launch a manned mission I'm going to tightly flip it on you. This isn't intellectually dishonest. The fact for instance that our ability to understand the underlying reality if any may be limited doesn't mean that every proposition is equally valid. You entire life has been built on picking the most likely explanation for a set of inputs received. It's how your ancestors didn't get eaten by animals. If you are wandering around an orchard and find what looks like a smelly pile of dung do feel free not to put it in your mouth to find out if it's actually an apple.
      - mistermann 3y ago
        You clearly know your rhetoric, watch out for this though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
      - xyzelement 3y ago
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  What is introduced without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. The singular proof of a link between vaccines and autism is a study we now know was a fraud. More generally since no vaccination was undertaken worldwide in a day the correlation would be evident and spoiler alert it is not. Please don't respond with a YouTube video "proving" your case.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    > What is introduced without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. We do indeed seem to have substantial freedom of choice in the environment we all find ourselves in - place your bets, and Mother Nature will reward you according to the quality of your thinking, measured on an absolute scale. > Please don't respond with a YouTube video "proving" your case. Hopefully this is more to your liking: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns
wfme 3y ago
This comment is a direct violation of the comment guidelines [0]. Flag and move on. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mistermann 3y ago
  Hiding from the fundamental problems our system is composed of may be polite and pleasant, but it may also ultimately be very harmful. And that goes for the downvoters of the original question as well: you may not be interested in epistemology, but epistemology might be interested in you. Best of luck on all the problems in your system, let's hope they all somehow magically resolve themselves to a good outcome!
  - wfme 3y ago
    My comment was directed at Uehreka's comment, not yours. I think yours is at least the start of a discussion, whereas Uehreka's was an attempt to dismiss it entirely.
netfortius 3y ago
Can we let the "flagged" stamp go, and make the parent comment visible to the community? This specific thread sparked some interesting follow ups, and not making it available feels like an Elon reaction.
- hef19898 3y ago
  You can set show dead in your profile, useful feat to see what kinds of dead comments there are.
- mistermann 3y ago
  As far as I'm concerned I'm fine with it remaining flagged/dead - if it minimizes the chances that any wisdom contained within can be used the next time you guys find yourself in the middle of yet another crisis you've mismanaged yourself into it may be best from a karma perspective.

mistermann 3y ago

> No and no. Do you present these as beliefs/predictions, or facts? If facts, please present your proofs. Alternatively, you can also engage in highly predictable rhetorical behavior, not unlike that of a LLM when prompted with certain ideas. I've presented these two ideas to thousands of human minds, I am interested in whether there is any(!) novelty in yours in this scenario. > Note: I am not rate-limited, but will not reply in any manner whatsoever. No replies from my end will reference anything at all, because they won’t exist. Feel free to misunderstand whatever you please about this comment. Off to a not surprising start.

PeterWhittaker 3y ago
> > No and no > present facts That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. In the former case, we have only appeal to authority (some book says) and to personal belief, neither of which are facts. In the latter case, we have a proven medical fraud committed by a person with financial interest in rival treatments, said person having lost their medical license as a result of said fraud. Your serve.
- karpierz 3y ago
  > That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. What? Why? If this were true, you could: 1. Take the claim you want to assert 2. Claim the negation of the claim is false (the "no"). 3. If anyone asks for facts, just say the burden of proof is on them to show the negation is true.
  - CodeMage 3y ago
    You misunderstood what the comment you replied to was saying, and you also seem to either misunderstand or simply not know about the burden of proof. For my part, I find the original "no and no" reply perfectly adequate for the smug "I'm only asking questions" assertion-in-disguise that prompted it. Life is too short to debate trolls.
    - vacuity 3y ago
      I agree that parent seems to be trolling, but I don't agree on your assessment about the burden-of-proof point. Where is the misunderstanding? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36661671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36661671 (Other reply I made just now on the burden-of-proof thing)
      - mistermann 3y ago
        > I agree that parent seems to be trolling You seem like an actually reasonable person (and thanks for the support)....do you think it's possible that there might be more to what it is I'm doing than "trolling"? A way to think about it: do you think it's possible that framing/perceiving those who are interested in accuracy as being "trolls" (as opposed to realizing that they are correct, and may actually have an important point) might cause long term harm to a culture? Another way to think about it: mocking Trump supporters and religious fundamentalists is both easy and fun, and therefore popular - but how much value is there in it? Now, contrast this to finding questions that ~everyone will fail on, including highly educated and genuinely smart people. How much value might there be in this (keeping in mind the numerous seemingly intractable problems we have going on on this shitshow of a planet)? I'm asking you rather than the other guy because I think you can likely actually consider the question. An interesting followup question maybe: what do you think about people (particularly smart people) who are not able to consider certain things, but seem to be trapped in a cycle of only being able heuristically process certain ideas. I am very suspicious that this is not a 100% naturally emergent aspect of our culture - I speculate that people have been made this way. And if they've been made this way (or even if not), perhaps they can be improved.
- vacuity 3y ago
  The burden of proof is on the person who provides an answer. Whether that is "yes", "no", "yes in this case and no everywhere else", that is an answer that should be backed by some evidence and reasoning. If the questions and answers had been perfectly flipped, would you have said that the burden of proof is on those who say "no"?
- mistermann 3y ago
  > That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. Can you cite any authoritative source on this, or are you able to only claim that it is correct (and perhaps, expect me to disprove)? > In the former case, we have only appeal to authority (some book says) You are incorrect - we also have epistemology, logic, ontology, neuroscience/psychology/anthropology and various other fields which contain discoveries that are relevant to the psychological phenomenon (~"reality") you are currently experiencing. > and to personal belief, neither of which are facts. If you and your epistemology-ignorant and denying crew can treat your beliefs as facts (as is regularly done in these conversations), why can religious people not do the same? I mean come on man, double standards are bad, no? > In the latter case, we have a proven medical fraud committed by a person with financial interest in rival treatments, said person having lost their medical license as a result of said fraud. Which proves nothing. I am genuinely curious: do you believe that Wakefield being discovered to be a fraud PROVES there is ZERO causal association between vaccines and autism? Because there sure are a lot of people who believe that, including a lot of people right here on HN.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    > Can you cite any authoritative source on this, or are you able to only claim that it is correct (and perhaps, expect me to disprove)? What if the number of pirates in the world is in fact linked to the increase in mean global temperature? Can you present any evidence it isn't?
    - vacuity 3y ago
      Parent and GP were talking about where the burden of proof lies. That's a matter of opinion, but one that should generally be considered settled on Hacker News. Apparently it isn't. Anyways, while parent made a somewhat snarky reply, yours isn't better. If parent was shown discussing "actual" points (for example, the vaccine question) with an absurdly high bar for proof from the other side, your reply would be relevant. As it is, there doesn't seem to be anything egregiously wrong about parent's reply about the vaccine question. Perhaps the evidence or reasoning is wrong, but you didn't address that.
    - 3y ago
- xyzelement 3y ago
  // That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. I used to think this way but lately recognize this isn't intellectually honest. Even w/o religion we have to acknowledge that our ability to perceive and understand is very limited compared to what must be the totality of truths in the universe. This seems obvious - eg if you believe in evolution, you recognize that you evolved to be fit in your environment (eat and avoid being eaten) - why would you expect this process to grant you machinery to understand fundamental universal truths? Once I recognized this limitation, I recognized the intellectual dishonestly of what I previously considered rigor: "I can't see/understand it so it doesn't exist" is as ridiculous an assertion as anything.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    Insisting on fixing burden of proof according to reasonable and customary rules is how we bring information from honest and forthright discussion partners into scope where their thoughts can be fully considered and guard our time from unserious, dishonest, or ridiculous individuals who sap our time and will by insisting that unreasonable meritless ideas spun with a minimum of effort demand profound effort on our part to disprove what they never bothered to prove in the first place. If you tell me the moon is made of cheese my rebuttal isn't going to be to launch a manned mission I'm going to tightly flip it on you. This isn't intellectually dishonest. The fact for instance that our ability to understand the underlying reality if any may be limited doesn't mean that every proposition is equally valid. You entire life has been built on picking the most likely explanation for a set of inputs received. It's how your ancestors didn't get eaten by animals. If you are wandering around an orchard and find what looks like a smelly pile of dung do feel free not to put it in your mouth to find out if it's actually an apple.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      You clearly know your rhetoric, watch out for this though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
    - xyzelement 3y ago
michaelmrose 3y ago
What is introduced without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. The singular proof of a link between vaccines and autism is a study we now know was a fraud. More generally since no vaccination was undertaken worldwide in a day the correlation would be evident and spoiler alert it is not. Please don't respond with a YouTube video "proving" your case.
- mistermann 3y ago
  > What is introduced without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. We do indeed seem to have substantial freedom of choice in the environment we all find ourselves in - place your bets, and Mother Nature will reward you according to the quality of your thinking, measured on an absolute scale. > Please don't respond with a YouTube video "proving" your case. Hopefully this is more to your liking: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns

wfme 3y ago

This comment is a direct violation of the comment guidelines [0]. Flag and move on. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mistermann 3y ago
Hiding from the fundamental problems our system is composed of may be polite and pleasant, but it may also ultimately be very harmful. And that goes for the downvoters of the original question as well: you may not be interested in epistemology, but epistemology might be interested in you. Best of luck on all the problems in your system, let's hope they all somehow magically resolve themselves to a good outcome!
- wfme 3y ago
  My comment was directed at Uehreka's comment, not yours. I think yours is at least the start of a discussion, whereas Uehreka's was an attempt to dismiss it entirely.

netfortius 3y ago

Can we let the "flagged" stamp go, and make the parent comment visible to the community? This specific thread sparked some interesting follow ups, and not making it available feels like an Elon reaction.

hef19898 3y ago
You can set show dead in your profile, useful feat to see what kinds of dead comments there are.
mistermann 3y ago
As far as I'm concerned I'm fine with it remaining flagged/dead - if it minimizes the chances that any wisdom contained within can be used the next time you guys find yourself in the middle of yet another crisis you've mismanaged yourself into it may be best from a karma perspective.