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Comment by minimaxir | Hacker News Reader

> 2) Complaining about your analysis being 'insulted' comes off as petty. Ideas/analysis aren't sacred and they should be insulted if someone disagrees with them.

I have zero problem with criticizing my analysis with contradicting information, but the manner it comes across is relevant.

You can say something is wrong without calling it "a key mistake."

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It is pretty strange to me you see that as an insult. Maybe this is a language thing? Claiming someone make a key mistake is nowhere near an insult in my understanding of english.

I was also put off by that part of your article, even though I agree that he should've credited you. But I could not discover any insult in any of your citations.

I said this upthread, but I honestly don't read "a key mistake" as insulting. It just means a mistake that materially changed the conclusion. I can easily imagine reading that in an academic paper about prior work.

(I'm not claiming wether or not there was a key mistake, just whether or not it is insulting.)

An analysis isn't a human being. It doesn't have emotions or feelings or any expectation or respect. By definition, it can't be "insulted". It can only be criticized (even if the criticism is over the top or flat out wrong).

Hi Max,

I can definitely now see why you would interpret what I wrote as being malicious or mocking. I'd just like to let you know that it definitely wasn't meant to be, and that I'm incredibly sorry that it came off that way. I did not intend to offend you; I was just trying to explain why I made the choices I made.

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