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"Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from

"Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The question is whether the author is correct or not. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it didn't, it's not a problem."[1] [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

tptacek 14y ago
First: That is not what I asserted. What I said was subtly but importantly different: that her piece was full of platitudes and thus her prescriptions rely on her authority, which is worth examining. My point was substantive. Second: There is no less compelling argument to make on HN than a citation to that post, particularly when the argument involves the word "ad hominem", which for some reason seems to be a particularly difficult concept for message board nerds like us to grok.
- chacham15 14y ago
  >Shelley Prevost has never been a startup operator. Her background is in psychological counseling, and she serves that role (in what looks like a team-coach or leadership-coach kind of role) at an incubator. > That doesn't disqualify her from having opinions about how women should handle gender-based bias, team dynamic, and motivational challenges in startups. But it doesn't automatically qualify her, either. These two paragraphs do exactly that. The third paragraph could have stood on its own. I was not arguing against you, I was simply pointing out that most of what you wrote was to dismiss what the author wrote without reason. If your point was indeed not so, then why not leave out the first two paragraphs? What do they add?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I feel like I'm repeating myself. My point was that she wrote a piece that effectively relies on the authority of the author, and that authority was dubious. Think of it this way: if she was a reporter or science writer writing a sourced, reported piece --- or even if she was an essayist constructing a series of arguments for why women shouldn't be talking about their challenges publicly or attending symposia --- her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds. But this piece is neither of those two things.
    - chacham15 14y ago
      >her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds. This is exactly the question, why does her authority matter at all?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - nollidge 14y ago
        The point is that, in tptacek's estimation, she provides no evidence for her assertions, relying on us, the audience, to trust in her purported experience and authority. Another way to look at it is that she's committing an appeal to (her own) authority fallacy. Pointing out fallacies is not ad hominem.
jacalata 14y ago
Oh look, an appeal to authority.
Mz 14y ago
Thomas did no such thing. You are way out of line. I appreciated his observation because the piece in question gave me the impression "I can say this authoritatively because I am a very successful female founder." I mostly don't agree with the piece and was relieved to have it pointed out that she isn't any such thing.
dspeyer 14y ago
Here's the key line from the article: > Here's the profile of a female entrepreneur that I want to work with Note the use of the word "I". When the author brings herself into the article like this, discussing the author is entirely relevant.

tptacek 14y ago

First: That is not what I asserted. What I said was subtly but importantly different: that her piece was full of platitudes and thus her prescriptions rely on her authority, which is worth examining. My point was substantive. Second: There is no less compelling argument to make on HN than a citation to that post, particularly when the argument involves the word "ad hominem", which for some reason seems to be a particularly difficult concept for message board nerds like us to grok.

chacham15 14y ago
>Shelley Prevost has never been a startup operator. Her background is in psychological counseling, and she serves that role (in what looks like a team-coach or leadership-coach kind of role) at an incubator. > That doesn't disqualify her from having opinions about how women should handle gender-based bias, team dynamic, and motivational challenges in startups. But it doesn't automatically qualify her, either. These two paragraphs do exactly that. The third paragraph could have stood on its own. I was not arguing against you, I was simply pointing out that most of what you wrote was to dismiss what the author wrote without reason. If your point was indeed not so, then why not leave out the first two paragraphs? What do they add?
- tptacek 14y ago
  I feel like I'm repeating myself. My point was that she wrote a piece that effectively relies on the authority of the author, and that authority was dubious. Think of it this way: if she was a reporter or science writer writing a sourced, reported piece --- or even if she was an essayist constructing a series of arguments for why women shouldn't be talking about their challenges publicly or attending symposia --- her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds. But this piece is neither of those two things.
  - chacham15 14y ago
    >her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds. This is exactly the question, why does her authority matter at all?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - nollidge 14y ago
      The point is that, in tptacek's estimation, she provides no evidence for her assertions, relying on us, the audience, to trust in her purported experience and authority. Another way to look at it is that she's committing an appeal to (her own) authority fallacy. Pointing out fallacies is not ad hominem.

jacalata 14y ago

Oh look, an appeal to authority.

Mz 14y ago

Thomas did no such thing. You are way out of line. I appreciated his observation because the piece in question gave me the impression "I can say this authoritatively because I am a very successful female founder." I mostly don't agree with the piece and was relieved to have it pointed out that she isn't any such thing.

dspeyer 14y ago

Here's the key line from the article: > Here's the profile of a female entrepreneur that I want to work with Note the use of the word "I". When the author brings herself into the article like this, discussing the author is entirely relevant.