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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

I haven't walked anything back. An awful lot of people are woefully misreading what I said in a much more negative light than I intended, then acting like I changed my story when I try to communicate about the issue.

It's probably best for me to walk away at this point. Most of the remarks here do not strike me as good faith engagement.

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Part of the problem is that nowadays, people don't even recognise their accusations as such, but consider them benign, universally-understood downsides.

"Professionals tend to act based on financial motives" is among these. You seem to think it's just human nature, and don't even expect anything different. Yet ask any psychologist, and they'll react as the would to an accusation of murder.

That's because in their job, intentional deviations from the standard-of-care can quite easily turn into murder (or manslaughter/negligent homicide to be more precise).

Very similar: accusations against journalists that they are acting on behalf of some publication-wide agenda, take money from the subjects they cover, or write/don't write certain articles with an eye towards the sector's financial future ("The Times studiously avoids mentioning adblockers")

If lots of people are simultaneously misunderstanding you in the exact same way, it's probably not that they're all stupid and malicious.

Cf. https://xkcd.com/1984/

No, but remarks like this essentially are malicious, regardless of whatever else is going on here. It's basically a personal attack that in no way tries to engage me about whatever point I was trying to make.

The fact that you created an account just moments before taking a dig at me only reinforces the idea that this is absolutely not a good faith comment by you.

There are lots of things that can cause a conversation to go sideways. It's really common for the group to then blame the person at the center. It only serves to compound and entrench the problem.

Its a malicious rhetorical tool to use attempts at clarification as evidence of retreat. That's what politicians do. People here are not professional communicators, you can't expect them to say things perfectly the first time.

it's probably not that they're all stupid and malicious

... any more than psychiatrists are stupid and malicious for acting in accordance with the norms of their profession.

In both cases, people can be wrong without being stupid/malicious, and likewise, people can be wrong whilst adhering firmly to the status quo.

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