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Comment by grzm | Hacker News Reader

Okay. In that case I question what motivated your initial comment correcting your parent? I agree that it's not worth discussing further, so I'll sign off after this comment.

People who take the time to correct others (particularly when it's off-topic) are generally motivated by the desire to genuinely help the discussion or by mean-spirited nitpicking. If the former, they're also interested in learning about how discussions tend to behave on the forum in which they're participating, which is why I chimed it. If I assumed the latter, I would refrain from commenting at all.

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Okay. In that case I question what motivated your initial comment correcting your parent?

Correcting a commonly abused saying, and thereby slightly reducing the volume of bullshit if only imperceptibly. I have to wonder why you seem so interested in commenting mostly on the comments of others.

Sometimes these things are peeves. I have a peeve about using "they" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, but admit it doesn't have much effect on expressiveness.

In general, though, I feel that the more precisely we use language, the more expressive it can be. Begging the question is different from raising the question. If we allow that conflation, it then becomes more difficult or requires more words to express what "begging the question" really is.

>If we allow that conflation, it then becomes more difficult or requires more words to express what "begging the question" really is.

By analogy with Huffman coding, the meanings that are used less often should require more words to express than the more commonly-used meanings. And if you really want to express the meaning "assuming the premise", then you could just say "assuming the premise", instead of insisting on the "precision" of using a 16th-century mistranslation of petitio principii.

Damn! (Just when I thought I was out….) Honest question deserves an honest answer. Very similar motivation. I'm very interested in figuring out how to promote productive, constructive discussions in general and online in particular. The deep polarization that seems to have increased and been exacerbated by the internet is an issue that I think desperately needs to be solved. HN is a community that values constructive conversation and at the same time struggles with it. If I can help make that better, I want to do so. I think a lot of people actually share that same goal, at least implicitly, and aren't always aware of the dynamics of online forums in general or on HN in particular.

I have to agree with that, although I'm not so aware of the polarization or other dynamics here yet, I can certainly admire your aims and methods. Good luck spreading civility and discourse, although I'd encourage you to assume the best intentions in others as you go.

Thanks. I appreciate it. The polarization I refer to is more apparent in political threads here and in US society at large, not specific to HN. To be clear, my assumption at the start was as I described in my second comment: I did assume that you were sincerely trying to help. Your response was what made me question that that was the case, but I suspect your response was colored by the snark that I allowed to slip into my initial comment. I generally strive to keep that at bay because it's so rarely helpful in conversation, and it was a lack of discipline on my part that I didn't keep in in check here as well.

Would you mind sharing with me how you would have written my initial comment, (given what you know of my intention) that would have had the most positive effect on you? I'll take my answer off the air. Thanks again for your time and attention here. It's a rare opportunity and I do appreciate it.

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