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Comment by Will_Parker | Hacker News Reader

You've made a great point easily dismissible with the word "fucking". (Sorry for being annoying but it's a key point I wished I learned when younger.)

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Profane words cannot possibly invalidate a point by themselves. I personally don't mind swearing, unless it is used in a context to offend someone/something (which can always still be done with an alternative, "safer" selection of words).

While that is true, it was the most efficient way to state that while putting emphasis on how easy it was. "Freaking" or some other substitute for the word "fucking" is the next easiest. Simply leaving out the word completely changes the meaning a little.

I'll eat the downvotes without caring, in case it makes one person think, because it's the advice I needed 10 years ago to be a more effective communicator, which I didn't take.

Consider "In rural areas, which reflect the dominant lifestyle of human beings for 10,000 years, it was common to have many hours alone to think while performing labour. Hence it's obviously not a privileged mode of thought."

While you've made a cogent point, brevity is often your friend when it comes to communication. Becoming a more effective communicator is the ability to say more with less. Not say the same amount with more.

Just my opinion, but the original sentence containing the vulgarity is more clear and concise. It feels more human because that's how lots of people talk when they are in an informal setting (which an internet message board certainly is).

It's much more concise, and much less persuasive to someone entering the discussion with preconceptions.

I try to not judge an argument by it's language. It feels close to ad hominem reasoning to me.

That was my argument ten years ago. I'm just challenging people to think of communication primarily in terms of how an aggregate of how hundreds or thousands of people will perceive it, because this was a key that led to me being much better at making my points and getting what I want. Letting go my ego that it violates a core value of being true to myself.

In other contexts I just want to fucking vent about some stupid shit that dumb people say. But I'd suggest this site isn't the best place for that, and I wouldn't expect such a tone to help people consider my point of view more carefully.

Well, you could just replace "pretty fucking easy" with "very easy", and then you'd have even more brevity and the same clarity, but without the extra distraction.

If you use expletives all the time, they lose their value, which is the ability to make a very strong point, such as expressing utter disgust.

Also, HN tries to be more than just your average internet message board, and making it just a little less informal may be what helps keep it a generally civil place. Our comments are going out to the whole world here, not just to a small group of our friends who have similar backgrounds and preferences.

That's a fine wording if the setting calls for such a tone, but is it not the same tone as the original. Your sentence is too formal for many settings. Occasionally, it would be correct for HN, but HN trends towards a more informal yet educated tone. Used in the wrong setting, it just seems at best wordy or at worst like you are trying to prove you are smarter than the other.

It is difficult to replace such an intensifier as "fucking" without simply using a common replacement (bloody, for example). The most neutral I could come up with is something akin to "counfoudedly", and naturally one would do away with the word "very". Another simply worded option would be to repeat the word "very" once or twice more. I'm more likely to use the latter in some spheres online or with my mother or in an English speaking workplace, especially in the US. (Norwegians seem a bit freer with expletives, especially the English word "fuck").

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