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Please don’t post snarky or low-substance comments on HN. As another commenter has pointed out, Vint Cerf himself credits Gore as playing a significant role in
by tomhow 3mo ago
Please don’t post snarky or low-substance comments on HN.
As another commenter has pointed out, Vint Cerf himself credits Gore as playing a significant role in enabling the Internet’s emergence. He didn’t claim to have “invented” it.
- djtriptych 3mo agoI took it as a... joke... Can we post jokes?? Everyone knows Al Gore didn't sit around in an SV garage inventing the internet.
- jibal 3mo agoIt's not so much a joke as a smear. Gore was attacked for claiming to be the inventor of the Internet, but he never said that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...
- tomhow 3mo agoTo me it counts as a trope and the guidelines ask as to avoid posting Internet tropes, for the very reason that they’re more likely to elicit a groan than a laugh. We’d love to see good jokes on HN, but they’re a precious rarity. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289.) I guess this one stings because I hate that HN is a place where our idea of a joke is mocking the work of a politician who really is credited by the pioneering technologists of the field to to have played a crucial role in enabling our industry to develop.
- djtriptych 3mo agoYeah fair enough and tbh I didn't even know there was a no tropes guideline.
- tosti 3mo agoYou can just hide things you don't like, or y'know, live and let live.
- kelnos 3mo ago(The person you are replying to is one of HN's mods.)
- locknitpicker 3mo ago> You can just hide things you don't like, or y'know, live and let live. The same goes for you. Calling out bullshit and disinformation benefits the whole community,unlike nonsensical remarks. So if you don't appreciate efforts to counter nonsense by bringing facts to the discussion, just sit this one out.
- tosti 3mo agoAn uphill battle. IMHO it's okay to assume users have brains and they can figure out the difference between facts and jokes just fine.
- tomhow 3mo agoIt’s dispiriting when someone has to chime in with the predictable/lame comment on any topic. We want HN to be better than that.
- Vaslo 3mo ago[flagged]
- throwawaysoxjje 3mo agoFor reference the quote is “ During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
- jibal 3mo agoHe did not say that. What he did say was true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...
- Vaslo 3mo agoHe said he created it - not sure what hair you’re trying to split here.
- tomhow 3mo ago“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” That is not a claim that he “created the Internet”. He, of anybody, knows that sponsoring legislation to enable the creation of a thing is not synonymous with personally creating the thing. If he got anything wrong it was to be clumsy with words in a live interview. Who among us has not occasionally been clumsy with words in live conversation? That doesn’t license people to keep insisting we said a thing we didn’t actually say.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- defrost 3mo agoGore's actual words were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President." ~ peer linked wikipedia article. Emphasis on actual words, with an obligatory side dish of context.