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Comment by mistermann | Hacker News Reader

I sincerely believe this is something new and interesting. Suggesting someone has acted based on a subconscious psychological affect is less insulting than accusing someone of conscious or deliberate error (which happens routinely on HN), is it not? Which has the harsher punishment, second degree murder or first?

Serious question. Would you deny that there has been a noticeable decline in objectivity of commentary in the last year? I can agree singling one person out could be considered harsh, but make an honest effort to ignore the perceived "rudeness", is the failure of basic logic not a little striking here? If the topic wasn't controversial, do you think a similar situation would arise?

I take what you say seriously, and kindly ask for the same consideration in return.

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I'm sorry, but I don't follow all of that. The main issue with the original comment is simple: it is not within the guidelines on Hacker News to say that another user's brain is malfunctioning, or other things of that sort.

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The point is, it's a double standard. The guideline you quote used to be broadly followed, but is now broken regularly.

And his brain isn't malfunctioning, it's just behaving the way the human brain works, the vast majority of people on HN are quite broadly knowledgeable, I highly doubt you're that ignorant of human psychology, more likely you don't care for my opinion.

Besides, read my edit above - whether it was accidental or deliberate, the person was being incredibly intellectually dishonest. It wasn't too long ago that that counted for something on this website. I suppose it still does, but what's new is that it is trumped by political correctness.

If you're going to bother with a reply, how about you address my "intellectually dishonest" charge?

Demonstrate how I am incorrect.

In case you do make it back here, I now realize who I'm talking to and how thin of ice I'm likely treading on. This changes my opinion in no way, instead I'll make one last statement on this particular matter: I assert that the level of discourse on political related matters on HN has taken a significant turn for the worse, most likely corresponding to the most recent election. While this probably shouldn't be surprising, HN's are people after all, where I think (not guarantee, but think) criticism is valid is that there is widespread abuse of the guidelines noted above, widespread abuse of the truth, and a double standard of claims of "appropriate behavior".

I would imagine your instinctual reaction is to disagree, I'm sure mine would be as well, but then ask yourself this: is it possible I have a point? We know this phenomenon is happening on other forums, are HN'ers really all that special, are we immune to the shortcomings the rest of humanity suffers from?

This is too complicated. It's against HN's guidelines to take personal swipes, such as insinuating things about their brain. That's all. Please don't do it again.

It's against the rules regardless of your politics or theirs.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough, I would simply ask that the rules are enforced in an unbiased manner, and if I report someone for an objectively similar violation of the rules, that evaluation of that is unbiased.

It's not lost on me that I am involved in these types of discussions more than average, but it seems that this will naturally occur to anyone who is in a substantial minority - after all, would we expect people to be highly motivated to reply to a comment with which they agree?

I don't involve myself in these discussions entirely because I enjoy it, I also do it because it's important. Disagreement and debate is important to a healthy democracy, and there is a decreasing amount of genuine honest debate in the world.

Also not that as usual, someone coincidentally came across my posts on an at least 2 day old thread and delivered my obligatory downvotes. No problem though I suppose.

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