I read an anecdote about the Swedish language today that's just too good to check[1]: Being fluent in both Swedish and English, I know there are certain concep

I read an anecdote about the Swedish language today that's just too good to check[1]: Being fluent in both Swedish and English, I know there are certain concepts, such as the difference between belief in an opinion and belief in a fact, where the Swedish language makes clear distinctions (tycka and tro) and English does not. English speakers spend ridiculous amounts of time arguing about these things, and Swedes simply don’t need to. It’s not that English speakers can’t conceptualize the difference between opinion and fact, but doing so is way more difficult in English, because the word “belief” in English is quite fuzzy, whereas in Swedish, the language makes it simply impossible to confuse the two. HN voting seems to suffer from an inability to make this distinction: I think it's terrific when comments are downvoted because they're factually inaccurate, no matter how well they're written. So much nonsense ends up at the top of some comment threads simply because it reinforces existing beliefs or loyalties. On the other hand, if you make a good case on one or another side of some live debate, I don't think it should matter whether I agree with you or not. The discussion is always enriched by quality arguments. [1] http://ken.arneson.name/2014/11/10-things-i-believe-about-baseball-without-evidence/ http://ken.arneson.name/2014/11/10-things-i-believe-about-ba...