Comment by austincheney | Hacker News Reader

Comment by austincheney | Hacker News Reader

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How horrible. If I had a dime for every time somebody on the internet took a civil disagreement of opinion to an emotional level I would be a trillionaire. If this is how I qualified my self-worth I would be in a very bad place. This is also the reason I deleted my Reddit account.

God forbid you offer technical advise or attempt to explain a complex subject and the answer somehow becomes extremely political. The biggest example I remember is the folks at r/programming really REALLY want WASM to replace JavaScript. I, being a long time JavaScript programmer, explained how WASM isn't replacing JavaScript for technical reasons and the stated goals around that technology. Immediate emotional failure on an epic scale. I could have said something about harming children and would have been less reviled. This isn't even a political subject. I imagine an actual political subreddit being quite comical.

People get emotional online for all kinds of reasons. PRO TIP: there are many people online that cannot follow a conversation, possibly their own conversation, or who have trouble with basic reading comprehension. ANOTHER PRO TIP: echo chambers and conformity are very real qualities that easily feel threatened for nonthreatening reasons.

I know that some people do have real emotion behind their posts, but I also know some people who read emotion from text when there isn't any at all.

e.g. "Javascript is fucking stupid" could equally be a screaming rant or just a casual comment with a group of cursing sailors.

Pretending you know what emotions someone's expressing from plaintext is basically the opposite problem of what you're talking about and is equally flawed.

I wasn't there though, so if they were leveling personal attacks because of your dissenting opinion, you were likely correct about the emotional part.

> I could have said something about harming children and would have been less reviled.

Yes, but that's literally because people see their technologies as being more human than most humans. It's something that goes down to an individuals core and is intrinsically defining of how they understand and express.

Not saying it makes sense to average Joe. Just a different breed of person.

For example, the soundness property of a language. Think about why that might be what creates the echo chamber, rather than thinking about how the echo chamber reacts when whatever contributes to verifying soundness is modified. The reaction might be a side effect, rather than an outright planned action.

When I encounter echo chambers here is what I see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity

It is the opposite of wanting to learn, explore, or be challenged. It is all about harmony and using people as numbers to wrap yourself in a warm comfort blanket of emotional protection and qualification. It is the very idea that an opinion is truth when it can be made popular or false if it can be demonized by a congregation, particularly when every conversation is a contest with emotional validation as the prize.

When emotional harmony becomes more important than the subject matter of discussion I am done.

I agree, but this is the root of my dilemma from which my own understanding has grown.

If I agree with you right here and now, have we not technically formed our own 'echo chamber'?

Echo chambers from the outside look like inside out fishbowls because they are. But every set of agreeable statements, whether shared between individuals or distributed through time, same system - pieces are just labeled differently.

However, I do understand the emotional feeling that occurs when conforming is heavily pressured, from nearly every side. That's disharmonous emotionally to the people it is disharmonous to. The ones who get silenced.

I understand both sides. Can't say I know more than that. Can't say I have an opinion on the matter because it goes beyond the facts.

Another way to look at the problem: are math and logic an echo chamber?

> If I agree with you right here and now, have we not technically formed our own 'echo chamber'?

Good point, but no.

Agreement is not necessarily an indication of conformance. You have to also consider to what degree that agreement, or disagreement, must be exercised. I agree and disagree with many political opinions, but I don't join groups who share my political opinions. My personal opinions often remain personal. Even if I did join a group of politically like-minded persons I would not go on regular protests to merely advertise my opinion. I certainly wouldn't take it to a higher level by going to a counter-protest or berating those I disagree with.

Typically the more important and advertised a social agreement becomes the less it is about the subject matter agreed upon and the more it is about exercising forced social norms of a group. In math and logic agreement is attained by a proof and not by some social pressure to force a predetermined outcome.

> In math and logic agreement is attained by a proof.

Of course I agree with this. Just makes me think of bad ways of understanding math and logic. Having to carry it around inside myself as though I am it, because nothing else besides myself, others like myself, and actual computers can test the understanding. Proofs can be written with the utmost rigor. There's still room for error. No proof is perfect.

I'm not sure if that's more so, an artistic interpretation of mathematics and logic, or, just the other side to it. Even if my memory was eidetic and I knew all there was to know about all existing mathematics and logic, I'm still not sure I'd be certain I know what I know. What's the difference between seeing a connection between two pieces of data, and identifying an inferential rule? Direction, intentional direction. Backwards chaining.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_chaining

> and not by some social pressure to force a predetermined outcome

This is what I always find, I dunno, bizarre. It really seems like, overriding thinking in favor of something, some way of forcing an outcome.

> Having to carry it around inside myself as though I am it, because nothing else besides myself, others like myself, and actual computers can test the understanding.

I think that is an overly simplistic view. Perhaps the way to think about this is not an isolated fragment in the form of an abstraction but rather a product you can hold your in hands. You can test your understanding of that product in various ways and use it perform various tasks beyond which it was designed to achieve. These processes require problem solving and creativity which are forms of originality. Originality is a very lonely place, but its great when it solves a problem and reveals a reward. What is the greater virtue: solving for loneliness or solving for the problem?

This is better explained in the introduction to Nicomachean Ethics. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...

Essentially a tool is of use for its own sake, an intermediate use, or existing solely for the use of something else. That which is of use for its own sake has the highest utility value while that which is only existent to benefit something else has the lowest utility value.

It seems, though, your thoughts are more concerning potential unity around theoretical concepts. For that I recommend reading upon Intellectual Virtue as an achievable ethic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics#Book_VI:_In...

Stoicism is the closest I can get away from appealing to emotional harmony blindly (choose the happy way now but potentially make a grave error by doing so).

Thinking about things that aren't presented with a face... one face or many.

Unity with concepts. Read Nichomachean ethics in college, but funnily enough now that I look at it, the professors may have found much more literal value in it than did the students.

Humor, the Greeks, educational systems. Life, sigh.

The directions things go in.

/r/programming is the most toxic programming-related group/forum/board I've ever seen.

Incidentally, I think part of the communication problem is that commenter #2 read commenter #1's comment, plus a bunch of other people's comments that color the interpretation of commenter #1's statement. It only gets worse as your comment ages and whole discussions evolve around it.

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