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Comment by alexasmyths | Hacker News Reader

That was one of the most HN comments I've ever read.

Hey, it's just a metaphor.

Scales and ratios not needed.

edit: Wasn't meant to be negative ... as I could see myself writing something like that and my GF giggling at me for a week ...

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I agree with parent, it's not just a metaphor but a wildly inaccurate guess that makes the reader think duckduckgo is more irrelevant than it really is.

> That was one of the most HN comments I've ever read.

What does this mean?

HN has a reputation among some[who?][weasel words] as a place where many commenters are some combination of pedantic, overly literal and out of touch with mainstream culture. Taking this metaphor to pieces would seem to check the first 2 boxes pretty neatly.

Yup. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

You actually make it sound bad. I would more likely to say they are precise and usually won't allow for inaccurate information to fly through the front page without pointing out the issues.

See guys, this is why we don't get invited to parties...

We'll just have to hold our own shindig, with educational flash cards and nature documentaries.

So you'd have us call out every metaphor, turn of phrase, expression, hyperbole, etc., because it's imprecise or ambiguous?

Hyperbole, yes. Hyperbole is what's ruining the world today. Metaphors if they're really bad, sculpting intuition that's off by orders of magnitude.

"Hyperbole is what's ruining the world today."

Well played.

Let me use another metaphor to describe why some of us more "common folk" roll our eyes when we see objections like this prominent in the comments: while HN doesn't seem to miss the forest for the trees, it often seems as or more interested in focusing on a few individual trees than discussing the forest.

I don't think the correctness or incorrectness of the scale of the metaphor really changes the way the whole article reads. Yet it's the first discussion piece I see in the comments on HN, and that doesn't surprise me a bit.

That said, it's a known quirk of the site and not a problem in my mind. I don't hate the tendency even it does cause a regular eye roll from me.

There is definitely a culture of contrarianism on HN; there is a tendency for some users here to play devil's advocate or just argue against the logic of any article for the sake of feeling superior or clever. I'll probably get downvoted for this comment, but doesn't change the reality. And most of us are probably guilty of blending in with that culture here occasionally, while others seem to thrive on it.

+1 It's the reason I turn up.

I think they mean the tendency to take a statement and apply maths or logic to show that it is incorrect (or less frequently, correct).

I regularly do this (to the frustration of those around me) and I think there is a strong correlation between enjoying hacker news and having this personality trait.

No, the point is not simply using math to show something is wrong. It's using math to show something that doesn't need to be 100% correct to convey the desired meaning is wrong. It's pedantry to the point of wondering if the person responding has ever actually had a conversation with a human being that didn't involve a keyboard. If someone hears an elephant/mosquito metaphor in this context and starts doing math instead of simply taking it for what it is - a hyperbolic way of saying "this thing is really, really big/impressive/well-funded/whatever, and this other thing is... the opposite," that's a level of social awkwardness and borderline autism that is simply unnecessary in any discussion.

Okay, DDG is a hyena and not a mosquito. Great. Tell me how that changes the meaning of the article, or the strength of the facts used, or its conclusions, or the credibility of the author.

> What does this mean?

It means comments around here have a tendency to be overly pedantic and critical.

"I found a small detail in an irrelevant anecdote that is wrong (or more likely, that I misunderstood completely), therefore your entire argument is suspect and you're bad and you should feel bad."

HN comments have a tendency to obsess about almost irrelevant details. Exact, precise dictionary definitions of words clearly being used in context to mean something not exact matching the dictionary. Arguments over whether passing a pointer counts as pass by value or pass by reference. Taking metaphors and going off on numerical tangents that don't add anything to the meaning or discussion.

HN comments suffer from these and more.

Do you consider the difference between a mosquito and a goose to be "almost irrelevant"?

LOL - in a metaphorical / rhetorical contest, yes, the difference is irrelevant. What matters is the sense of overwhelming difference between the elephant and <insert most common animals or insects>.

In this context — absolutely. Alas, the worrying trend I see more and more lately that people start to have trouble seeing context of anything. Sometimes it can be amusing, sometimes it looks dangerous.

Let's take a look here. The message being communicated was "google is much much larger than duckduckgo". Metaphor used carried that information. Communication achieved.

What's this about a goose and a mosquito? What's that adding to the communication? Seems pretty irrelevant.

I think it adds a lot. Comparing an elephant and a mosquito makes it seem like the mosquito is almost non-existent. A goose compared to an elephant is much more significant. A goose can stand up to an elephant. [1]

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CURzgw60bFY

"That's the most, hacker-newsyist comment I've ever read.""

The author went out of his way to say that the scale of the metaphor was wrong. I don't find it that pedantic for someone to point out that the opposite is true, especially when it makes a huge difference to the reader understanding the scale of DuckDuckGo's accomplishments.

> it's just a metaphor

But the author said, specifically "I’m actually making things better", which isn't true.

The idea of a metaphor is to give you a more clear and ideally accurate understanding of something.

But doing that doesn't necessarily involves calculating a precise measurement of the ratios present in the metaphor. Human language conveys lots of meaning by evocative imaginery, too, so not all expressions should be taken literally.

Sometimes, taking the literal meaning might even distort the original message, like in this case changing the mosquito with a goose - if that had been the original expression, everyone would have wondered why the author chose such strange comparison.

The calculations were necessary to determine and illustrate how inaccurate and distorting the original version is. The size of the animals is being used to show sizes of companies, since everyone is generally familiar with the sizes of mosquitoes, geese and elephants. But the difference between a mosquito and a goose is drastic… handily, someone else already did the calculations to show how drastic. So, it is a bad original metaphor and it is misleading.

I was going to suggest that a good author would then to choose an animal about the size of the goose that has the same characteristics as a mosquito, but why? A mosquito is considered annoying, harmful and parasitic – if it was the size of the goose, things to be very different. It would be considered a terrifying predator of the jungle. So I don't see what qualities of a mosquito would make it an appropriate choice, and this is what makes the metaphor worth correcting. It is somewhat of a slur against DDG, more so since the numbers are so dramatically inaccurate.

A good animal choose would be a… duck?

But if there ever a place to be correct in what you say both factually and mathematically and then not be ridiculed for it, it's here. I support the parent argument.

"But if there ever a place to be correct in what you say both factually and mathematically"

It's a metaphor. Not a fact.

English != Math :)

>" That was one of the most HN comments I've ever read."

You know, that's just a gratuitous swipe. So was this in the blog post: "First, DuckDuckGo didn’t start as a nerd attempt to find the ultimate algorithm."

It really looks like you want to put down nerds to make yourself feel more sophisticated or popular. This isn't high school, though, and you're pissing in the same pool you're posting in. Turning "HN" into an adjective with a pejorative tone isn't going to win you any friends on HN, especially as a new poster. It's just mean spirited.

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