This is not a personal swipe. Conflating terror watch lists, no fly lists, and red flag laws is so prima facie absurd, there’s no other way to put it. I have described the behavior, not attacked the person.
Disingenuousness isn't a behavior—something somebody says or does—but a state that one has to infer. I think what may have happened is that you made that inference, or it made itself, so rapidly as to not to notice that you were making it [1]. I say that because you used this very interesting phrase:
> so prima facie absurd
On a non-siloed [2] site like HN, one commonly runs into views that are more divergent from one's own than is usual in real life or on the siloed internet. Once the distance between some other view and our own exceeds a certain limit, this other view strikes us as more than just wrong. It seems absurd, impossible that anyone could hold it sincerely. This is not a pleasant experience; it feels a bit like being assaulted, and there is an immediate impulse to push back with a force that goes beyond just counterargument. This is natural and we've all felt it, but it's the moment that the HN guidelines are asking all of us to interrupt. For thoughtful conversation, people need to hold steady until that initial reflex passes and there's a chance for a slower, more reflective response [3] to kick in. This is a skill that can be learned, and one can think of HN as an experiment in having a large group of strangers work on learning it together.
Most views that seem absurd to us are not absurd in any universal way, but are legitimately held by people who we just normally don't talk about these things with because they're not in our strongly-connected component [4]. HN is an experiment to see whether we can have thoughtful conversation between components. It's easy to do that within one's component, but hard outside it. The question is whether we can do it enough for a richer overall graph to develop, or whether turbulence will shatter what few edges we do have and cause the whole thing to break down and become disjoint.
1. I don't mean to pick on you personally; this applies to all of us.
2. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
3. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
4. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20886068 in this thread for an example.
You're saying the same thing, but with language that focuses on the argument rather than the person. Not only is the former what you really intended to criticize anyway, but it tends to make people respond better, because they don't feel personally attacked. That elevates discussion and is good for everyone.
To ascribe motive to what you consider the absurdity of the comparison (“disingenuous”) is, as dang described it, ad hominem.
The fact that I can draw this distinction without indicating any agreement or disagreement with your actual argument helps emphasize this point.
I think you could make a very interesting comment on the distinction between the red flag lists and the others without discussing the poster.
Synonyms: dishonest deceitful underhand underhanded duplicitous double-dealing two-faced...
You get the idea.
This is not controversial.
The circumstances of the discussion are not comparable in any way to interviewing a mass murderer about his recent autobiography.
Notice I am not saying Madoff is in general is dishonest, only a specific action.
Really disliking an opinion is not proof that they've been dishonest.
Anyway, that’s a completely different argument. You assume the reason someone used such language was because they simply disagreed.
I am not saying it’s an accurate assessment, but an argument it’s self is evidence. Calling this absurd based only on the argument is fine if you have enough evidence as with say a modest proposal: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/30827_modestpr...
Now, if you disagree with that assessment fine, but don’t assume the assessment is always disingenuous. Someone may honestly believe the original statement is so far from a rational argument that it can’t be serious. They could simply be leavening their https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window.
Granted they might have simply been using abusive language because they have poor debating skills. Either way it’s a sign to stop a debate and go onto something more productive.
Let me be clear. This is not a situation where you would bring up dishonesty if you had proof, and there is no proof.
I agree with what you're saying about Bernie Madoff's autobiography itself, but strongly state that it is not analogous to this situation.
So if your 'what about' was a total tangent, I agree with your post. If you were trying to use it for an argument by analogy, I do not agree with that argument.
> You assume the reason someone used such language was because they simply disagreed.
More that they lack empathy! The comparison accused of being 'disingenuous' is not an inherently ridiculous one. All it takes is strongly valuing the second amendment to make that comparison. It's not in the same ballpark as a modest proposal. Anyone who honestly believes that the statement is far from a rational argument is not even trying to understand.
More importantly, disingenuousness is not a behavior. It isn't something a person says or does. You have to infer it from something they say or do. Internet users are far far too quick to make this leap, and it breaks the site guidelines to do that on HN.
2-3mm restraining/protection order requests are made per year in the US (often as boilerplate in divorce filings). Many are bogus.
If you don't drop it he'll start to harass you, to goad you into stepping over a line that he can then use as an excuse to up the ante, as it were.
It's best to just move on and realize you can't actually speak like a normal human being on these boards.
OTOH, I value actual discourse over politeness. But dang decided that person didn't need to be on HN.
But thank you for the assumptions, I appreciate them.
It’s very hard on an online forum to know if two people engaging in a debate have a shared intention in their communication. I trust dang to have a holistic view of good and bad behavior on HN.