4 ms·

I know it is a little déclassé or something to talk about downvotes, but that above post seems to be racking up about 1 every 5 min for that past 40 minutes. S

• MaulingMonkey 11y ago
  > So as I think I pretty civilly and clearly laid out my reasoning for why I think it is an important topic to discuss, and so many of you feel strongly enough about it to downvote, maybe one or two of you wouldn't mind to put your thoughts into words? I think dang already laid out reason enough already. But hell, I'll add more fuel to the fire... > [...] I did position myself pretty far to one side of an interpretive spectrum, as I find that is often a good way to elicit a response You elicited a response alright. But not a good one, and not one conductive to constructive discussion. The well has been poisoned, so to speak. Why? Well, there's playing devil's advocate, and then there's playing the devil - your initial posts look more like a xenophobic version of the latter, to me, than the former. No offense...? I assume this is why your first post ended up flagged. Even if we assumed this was on topic such discussion is unlikely to be productive at the moment as a result. Rather than let sleeping dogs lie, you made a second post, defending the subject as on topic. Dang pointed out that it wasn't. Your reply, which we now discuss, admits you knew that it was "a bit of a stretch" (a bit of an understatement) - and still, yet again, attempts to force the topic, in explicit response to being asked not to. And you're wondering why it's attracting downvotes? At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if the entire topic tree is eating down-votes - nobody wants to see any of this negative wasted opportunity for discussion. That includes this reply - if HN supported PMs, this is where I'd cut and paste this reply into one, to spare the other posters. As stands, I'll just have to take my licks as they come, if they come (I've found HN rather lenient in handing them out.) (edit: fixed some awkward sentence flow.)
  • cb18 11y ago
    "You elicited a response alright. But not a good one" There was actually a marked reverse in the downvotes after posting the post to which you responded, I appreciate your response by the way. 'admits you knew that it was "a bit of a stretch"' That post was a bit of a stream of consciousness, if you read to the end you might have noticed that I made the point that this is actually a hugely relevant matter to any discussion of the future Eurozone economy. 'Well, there's playing devil's advocate,' If you care to look into the scope and details of the matter you'll see that the original characterization was not particularly far off. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/closing-european-harbors/395321/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/closing-... http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9560982/the-invasion-of-italy/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9560982/the-invasion-of-... I don't buy the "poisoned well" argument, or see how this is a "negative wasted opportunity for discussion." We are adults and should be able to have a rational conversation on important matters even if the initial statements are not in sync with our own views, instead of dismissing it out of hand and characterizing it with boogeyman words, "xenophobia," "xenophobic," literally describing it as fully on one side of the good/bad dichotomy in the christian belief system. "Dang pointed out that it wasn't." Yes, on the content of his reply it appeared people were missing the main point, how this is clearly tied to people wanting to defend their nation and economy(nationalism,) because it was necessary to touch on some of the obscene aspects of what is occurring to make the point. I sought to clarify.