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>>Indeed, I spend my days combating those things on HN and my evenings writing code to combat them on HN. >>Something else that's real on the internet, and pois

>>Indeed, I spend my days combating those things on HN and my evenings writing code to combat them on HN. >>Something else that's real on the internet, and poisonous, is commenters groundlessly accusing each other of those things, or insinuating them. But you haven't demonstrated why engi_nerd is not gaslighting and astroturfing. No one is denying that he has experience that's relevant to the topic. What people have an issue with is that he has repeatedly defended major shortcomings in the design of the craft with shoddy reasoning such as "oh, guns won't come into play in most combat scenarios, so it's OK for the guns on the F-35 to not work." If that's the type of low-quality discourse you want on HN, fine. We'll stop pointing it out. But accusing us of unreasonably calling him out is pretty shitty.

dang 11y ago
> But you haven't demonstrated why engi_nerd is not gaslighting and astroturfing. That's not where the burden of proof lies. You can't accuse someone of these things on HN without evidence. An opposing opinion is not evidence. It's true that working on something professionally biases one. But (a) we're all subject to that, and (b) distance from a situation has biases too. It's a foul to invoke these things as personal weapons, and we intervene when people do it because it tears the fabric of the community. If what someone says is wrong, refute it. If you're right, you should be able to demonstrate it civilly.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>If what someone says is wrong, refute it. If you're right, you should be able to demonstrate it civilly. That's what I'm saying: it's not about being right or wrong. Engi_nerd has responded to every criticism thrown at the F-35 by using shoddy reasoning and hand-waving, such as "The F-35 is a complex answer to a complex question, and it cannot be so simply understood." I mean, seriously? That sounds like something a politician would say. Or a company spokesperson. So of course everyone got the impression that he has an ulterior motive. Anyway, I'm going to stop here, but I want to say that I'm disappointed in the way you handled this. I hope you understand. Have a nice day.
  - dang 11y ago
    There might be a misunderstanding here. I'm not endorsing engi_nerd's arguments. I haven't properly read them. They may be just as you say. But even if they're that and worse, you can't commit the foul of accusing someone without evidence. This is a narrow, procedural point. It has nothing to do with anyone's shoddy arguments, let alone anyone's trillion-dollar fighter plane, but only with the HN community, which we all have to take care of. Making wrong and evasive arguments is bad, but destroying civil discourse (which such accusations do) is, to use a good military-industrial phrase, an existential threat. That's why we intervene when we see it.
    - engi_nerd 11y ago
      If my arguments are bad, then people here are free to offer counter arguments. If I am unclear, ask me for clarification, and I'll try to clarify. If I am making an evasive argument, call me on it, and I'll either attempt to refine it to be more substantial or, if I cannot, then I will admit my error and move on. I think that kind of discussion is what you are trying to preserve here on HN, and I'm all for it. I really do love this site.
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    ...It's the answer of a guy who is familiar with the hairy reality of engineering systems because he has years of engineering experience and wrestles with those systems every day. A few days ago someone was talking about John Gall and his classic work, "Systemantics". The principles described there closely relate to what I'm talking about. 1) Everything is a system. 2) Everything is part of a larger system (ex. the military industrial complex) 3) All systems are infinitely complex. The F-35 is an infinitely complex system of systems operating in a system of systems (the MIC) that, to pull an analogy from Cantor, is a higher order of infinite complexity. I didn't elaborate enough on that original point for you. You could have asked me for clarification and I would have been happy to try, as I have done here (look at my interactions with nickpsecurity -- I don't think I'm such a bad guy as you are portraying).
engi_nerd 11y ago
Well, if you really want to go there, the gun itself works, as I pointed out. It fires in the aircraft, on the ground, as I posted a video of. And as others said and I do not argue with, the software for full integration of the gun isn't implemented yet. I did say that the program -- rightly or wrongly -- chose to work on the gun after making sure lots of other weapons work first. Clearly this is a choice that you disagree with. That's fine. Ideally everything would be working and things would go smoothly. While I may not be the most fuzzy warm or eloquent guy in the room, I try to stick to facts. I am more or less successful, as humans tend to be. I deeply resent my discourse being called "low-quality" and would hope to correct that impression in the future.
nostrademons 11y ago
http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith
- swah 11y ago
  I like this - is it similar to c2.com?
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Yeah, Meatball was/is another one of the pre-Wikipedia forks of C2, focusing on the dynamics of online communities and social forces. It was a fair bit more touchy-feely than C2, because instead of the technical aspects it includes a lot of applied psychology and sociology and observances on how groups behave.

dang 11y ago

> But you haven't demonstrated why engi_nerd is not gaslighting and astroturfing. That's not where the burden of proof lies. You can't accuse someone of these things on HN without evidence. An opposing opinion is not evidence. It's true that working on something professionally biases one. But (a) we're all subject to that, and (b) distance from a situation has biases too. It's a foul to invoke these things as personal weapons, and we intervene when people do it because it tears the fabric of the community. If what someone says is wrong, refute it. If you're right, you should be able to demonstrate it civilly.

enraged_camel 11y ago
>>If what someone says is wrong, refute it. If you're right, you should be able to demonstrate it civilly. That's what I'm saying: it's not about being right or wrong. Engi_nerd has responded to every criticism thrown at the F-35 by using shoddy reasoning and hand-waving, such as "The F-35 is a complex answer to a complex question, and it cannot be so simply understood." I mean, seriously? That sounds like something a politician would say. Or a company spokesperson. So of course everyone got the impression that he has an ulterior motive. Anyway, I'm going to stop here, but I want to say that I'm disappointed in the way you handled this. I hope you understand. Have a nice day.
- dang 11y ago
  There might be a misunderstanding here. I'm not endorsing engi_nerd's arguments. I haven't properly read them. They may be just as you say. But even if they're that and worse, you can't commit the foul of accusing someone without evidence. This is a narrow, procedural point. It has nothing to do with anyone's shoddy arguments, let alone anyone's trillion-dollar fighter plane, but only with the HN community, which we all have to take care of. Making wrong and evasive arguments is bad, but destroying civil discourse (which such accusations do) is, to use a good military-industrial phrase, an existential threat. That's why we intervene when we see it.
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    If my arguments are bad, then people here are free to offer counter arguments. If I am unclear, ask me for clarification, and I'll try to clarify. If I am making an evasive argument, call me on it, and I'll either attempt to refine it to be more substantial or, if I cannot, then I will admit my error and move on. I think that kind of discussion is what you are trying to preserve here on HN, and I'm all for it. I really do love this site.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  ...It's the answer of a guy who is familiar with the hairy reality of engineering systems because he has years of engineering experience and wrestles with those systems every day. A few days ago someone was talking about John Gall and his classic work, "Systemantics". The principles described there closely relate to what I'm talking about. 1) Everything is a system. 2) Everything is part of a larger system (ex. the military industrial complex) 3) All systems are infinitely complex. The F-35 is an infinitely complex system of systems operating in a system of systems (the MIC) that, to pull an analogy from Cantor, is a higher order of infinite complexity. I didn't elaborate enough on that original point for you. You could have asked me for clarification and I would have been happy to try, as I have done here (look at my interactions with nickpsecurity -- I don't think I'm such a bad guy as you are portraying).

engi_nerd 11y ago

Well, if you really want to go there, the gun itself works, as I pointed out. It fires in the aircraft, on the ground, as I posted a video of. And as others said and I do not argue with, the software for full integration of the gun isn't implemented yet. I did say that the program -- rightly or wrongly -- chose to work on the gun after making sure lots of other weapons work first. Clearly this is a choice that you disagree with. That's fine. Ideally everything would be working and things would go smoothly. While I may not be the most fuzzy warm or eloquent guy in the room, I try to stick to facts. I am more or less successful, as humans tend to be. I deeply resent my discourse being called "low-quality" and would hope to correct that impression in the future.

nostrademons 11y ago

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith

swah 11y ago
I like this - is it similar to c2.com?
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Yeah, Meatball was/is another one of the pre-Wikipedia forks of C2, focusing on the dynamics of online communities and social forces. It was a fair bit more touchy-feely than C2, because instead of the technical aspects it includes a lot of applied psychology and sociology and observances on how groups behave.