5 ms·

I respect people with well formed and rationally expounded opinions more, whether or not they align with mine. I do not respect people with opinions held out o

by madaxe 13y ago

I respect people with well formed and rationally expounded opinions more, whether or not they align with mine. I do not respect people with opinions held out of dogma, with an unwillingness to explore other viewpoints. Then again, my personal proclivities cannot possibly be taken as representative of the entirety of HN, so I take your point.

tptacek 13y ago
No you don't. You participate almost exclusively in political discussions on HN, and when you do, you routinely attack the people you're talking to, for instance when you told this commenter to "use their brain instead of their TV for once": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062466 ... or you deliberately reduce arguments to inflammatory absurdities to try to win them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6064531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6064531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6006933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6006933 ... or you just get mad and yell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062497 In ~75 days of comments I didn't see you once acknowledge a point anyone else here made, even one that agreed with you. It appears that in the past ~quarter or so, you haven't observed a single argument that you managed to simultaneously disagree with and "respect". We should be able to presume that you know your own comments better than I could know them in 5 minutes of skimming, so I invite you to prove me wrong and show me the place in the last 2 months where you demonstrated this appreciation of well-formed comments you disagree with.
- madaxe 13y ago
  OK - I respect you. I find myself not infrequently disagreeing with your positions, but you more often than not argue them cogently and with objective evidence - as above. Actually, I take your point, in its entirety. I can be quite the little shrike when it comes to political discussions, and I often manage to undermine my own point with my approach - although I think you have just managed a pretty great "the worst of" collection! That said, just to provide you one recent little counterexample - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6180222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6180222 - looks, there's me responding to your actually also reductio ad absurdum comment (it's an acronym so he's scared of it), in a balanced fashion! But more often than not I don't feel the need to go "let's agree to disagree", in part because I loathe the phrase, and in part because even if I get and appreciate someone's counterargument, if I don't agree with them I'm unlikely to laud it. But... I think you're right about the last few months. The Snowden affair has bought out the raving pareidoliac in me, and I've slewed from largely discussing engineering and science to, as you say, almost purely politics. https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=HnDzLnVwDzevzYJN1zt8QU https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=HnDzLnVwDzevzYJN1zt8QU - different dude, although I'm still a cranky old man. Either way - thanks for providing an adjustment to my outlook, as it was evidently needed.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I didn't say you were scared of the acronym. I said people were scared of the acronym. That should be a non-controversial observation. In fact, the attempt to distill a simple observation into a pointed personal attack is a good illustration of the kinds of bullshit arguments that happen on political threads here. I don't feel good about singling you out and do appreciate the calm response to what was certainly an aggressive comment upthread. Please understand, I don't know you or really anything about you; it's not personal. My problem is with politics on HN.
    - madaxe 13y ago
      No, I know you didn't - but it could have been taken that way, just chose not too. "People" falls under "weasel words" and is a handy debate tactic for framing your opponent's argument without overtly doing so. Anyway - I see your point. I too worry that we're a) septembering and b) potentially balkanising on lines that this community shouldn't be balkanised upon. I just try to take the optimistic view that HN'ers are collectively wise and mature enough to not get put out by internet bar fights, and to see them for what they are, without losing the signal.

by madaxe 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

No you don't. You participate almost exclusively in political discussions on HN, and when you do, you routinely attack the people you're talking to, for instance when you told this commenter to "use their brain instead of their TV for once": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062466 ... or you deliberately reduce arguments to inflammatory absurdities to try to win them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6064531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6064531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6006933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6006933 ... or you just get mad and yell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062497 In ~75 days of comments I didn't see you once acknowledge a point anyone else here made, even one that agreed with you. It appears that in the past ~quarter or so, you haven't observed a single argument that you managed to simultaneously disagree with and "respect". We should be able to presume that you know your own comments better than I could know them in 5 minutes of skimming, so I invite you to prove me wrong and show me the place in the last 2 months where you demonstrated this appreciation of well-formed comments you disagree with.

madaxe 13y ago
OK - I respect you. I find myself not infrequently disagreeing with your positions, but you more often than not argue them cogently and with objective evidence - as above. Actually, I take your point, in its entirety. I can be quite the little shrike when it comes to political discussions, and I often manage to undermine my own point with my approach - although I think you have just managed a pretty great "the worst of" collection! That said, just to provide you one recent little counterexample - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6180222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6180222 - looks, there's me responding to your actually also reductio ad absurdum comment (it's an acronym so he's scared of it), in a balanced fashion! But more often than not I don't feel the need to go "let's agree to disagree", in part because I loathe the phrase, and in part because even if I get and appreciate someone's counterargument, if I don't agree with them I'm unlikely to laud it. But... I think you're right about the last few months. The Snowden affair has bought out the raving pareidoliac in me, and I've slewed from largely discussing engineering and science to, as you say, almost purely politics. https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=HnDzLnVwDzevzYJN1zt8QU https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=HnDzLnVwDzevzYJN1zt8QU - different dude, although I'm still a cranky old man. Either way - thanks for providing an adjustment to my outlook, as it was evidently needed.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I didn't say you were scared of the acronym. I said people were scared of the acronym. That should be a non-controversial observation. In fact, the attempt to distill a simple observation into a pointed personal attack is a good illustration of the kinds of bullshit arguments that happen on political threads here. I don't feel good about singling you out and do appreciate the calm response to what was certainly an aggressive comment upthread. Please understand, I don't know you or really anything about you; it's not personal. My problem is with politics on HN.
  - madaxe 13y ago
    No, I know you didn't - but it could have been taken that way, just chose not too. "People" falls under "weasel words" and is a handy debate tactic for framing your opponent's argument without overtly doing so. Anyway - I see your point. I too worry that we're a) septembering and b) potentially balkanising on lines that this community shouldn't be balkanised upon. I just try to take the optimistic view that HN'ers are collectively wise and mature enough to not get put out by internet bar fights, and to see them for what they are, without losing the signal.