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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Again, I'll point out that you've cherry picked an idiosyncratic point on the FICO scale (600, vs. the 620 cutoff used by industry for subprime loans), and cherry picked the cohorts you're comparing (Asians being least likely in general to default), both of which has the effect of maximizing the delta you're citing as evidence for your argument.

It would be a nit, except we had a long thread about this previously wherein I perceived you to have conceded these points, so I'm surprised to see you repeating them here.

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I'm confused what you are arguing. What specific claim did you dispute (as I recall none), and what do you believe I conceded?

In that thread I concluded you had no substantive disagreement and were merely looking for excuses to call me racist. (Why you enjoy that so much I don't know, but I don't mind so enjoy.)

As far as the argument I make here, what do you believe this refutes?

> In that thread I concluded you had no substantive disagreement and were merely looking for excuses to call me racist. (Why you enjoy that so much I don't know, but I don't mind so enjoy.)

I haven't read all of your and tptacek's recent exchanges, but in the ones I have, he has been meticulously respectful to a fault, so this seems like an unfortunate lapse. Since I know you care about the principle of charity, I'm sure you won't mind my asking you not to do this again.

I would agree with Dang here.

I am a big fan of you and Thomas. And I love reading your discussions on a topic and have read most of them. I tend to agree with your arguments more but I must say that Thomas is very respectful while disagreeing and I haven't seen him call you a racist. Feel free to link to his comment where he does and I will stand corrected.

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13184555

Context here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13173952

The remainder of the thread had no substantive disagreement, just questioning my motives for discussing a factual claim.

For the argument you're trying to make, this is such a weird cite. The thing I was "wrong" about was that you weren't a white supremacist, and my wrongness was due to the immediately preceding comment in which you stated directly that white supremacists were "mostly factually correct".

I still don't believe you. You're right: the comment you cited was a moment of incivility (specifically: I was sarcastically dismissing you). I don't believe that you think white supremacists are mostly factually correct. I think you get a rise out of zapping this particular raw nerve, and feel like you're so gifted at rationalizing message board comments that nobody will pin you down on that.

The parent asked whether you really did call me a racist, I provided a case where you did (and you just agreed that you called me a white supremacist). That's all.

I don't mind the attack, I just wish it were easier to tell when you were interested in intellectual discussion. Intellectual disagreement is fun, but threads like the one I linked to feel like getting rickrolled. Less fun.

Would you mind pointing me to that thread? Would love to read it.

He has helpfully linked to it.

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