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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

I don't get how that's a swipe, it is not a rhetorical question, my intent there is to literally ask what he's talking about given the arguments made. I did not attack the commenter personally,"brigade" or an ad-hominem argument. I think you might be misunderstandig our conversation here, this being a text medium it is hard to comminicate tone and body language. It's not uncommon for me to say a phrase like in technical arguments with people I get along with very well. This is a technical discourse not a interpersonal one, my disagreement is with the supposed factual statements not the person as such how can it be a swipe against them?

That said, I will avoid that specific phrase on this site as you asked.

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It's easy to get hung up on specific words, so it might be easier to consider meanings. What is the meaning of the phrase "What are you even talking about?" Is it a question? If so, what answer were you hoping for?

If I take you at your word that it's not rhetorical, then I could replace your question with "what do you mean?" – however, if you don't know what the poster means, why does the rest of the comment continue as if you understood them perfectly?

The more plausible interpretation of "what are you even talking about?" is "you are spouting nonsense". Yes, your wording is more polite, but the meaning is the same. The only way a polite insult isn't an insult is if you assume the person you're insulting doesn't understand it. Kinda makes it two insults, really.

All discourse is interpersonal, and how you disagree with someone's statements has interpersonal implications. I think your argument misses the point. I also think your argument is disingenuous and avoids engaging with substance in order to project misunderstanding onto the person trying to help you.

Both of those are opinions about your statements. Which do you think best exemplifies the following?

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine.

It's not rhetorical and it is not literal either. A rephrase can be "what you are saying makes no sense for the reasons I am about to lay out and I would like it if you can address my points below, based on my understanding the argumets you made lack basic coherency, please tell me what you think of my counter-argument".

If this was a work email in a super-uptight place I would say something like that. Had I known that simple phrase I use all the time would be so controversial I would have avoided it or rephrased.

You chose to question my motives and assume the likely explanation is that I am atracking the person instead of their are argument. I am insinuating that their argument sounds ridiculous but I am not implying that as a fault of their intellect or personality but a lack of perspective where sharing my perspective might help them change an opinion.

I will not defend my personality and motives being questioned when I made no attempt to do so, I also did not the attack the person themselves in anyway. You should not assume malice. I think @dang saw me break rules in the past over one of the politcally charged threads and assumed it was in my personality. Feel free to review my post history on technical topics like this, I make best effort to avoid ad-hominem or anything resembling an insult. Presumption of malice itself is unfair.

I have nothing to gain by attacking anyone. And even if I did, you should look at the context od what I said after that phrase to find out what my intent was. If I don't promote myself or say anything against the person why are you assuming malice?

What about when I said "please try some threat modeling here" is that being snarky as well? It can be if you assume malice. I hope no such assumptions are made.

Either way, I did make a mistake: after years on HN, I keep forgeting that it is to be treates like a corporate/work environment. Two friends using my ever so controversial phrase would not assume malice or police for snarkiness, but two coworkers or paries of a business meeting/engagement would.

I will be careful to be more aware of the environment.

Oh, and not all discourse is interpersonal. It is done interpersonally but the subject of the discourse is does not have to be the other party themselves,their intellect or character (and was not the case in my response -- very obviously)

A polite way to say this would be "Can you clarify what your concern is?" or "Can you clarify what you're referring to?". The original phrase drips with disdain. If that's not the intended sentiment, then well, that's a challenge of conveying emotions in text. You could always include an emoji to better convey the meaning :-)

Some phrases come with a built-in sentiment that people will assume exists unless it's overridden.

A rephrase would be "what you are saying makes no sense at all" I think that can equally be misunderstood. It does drip of disdain, you are not misunderstanding that part, you (and @dang) are misunderstaning the subject of this disdain which is the perceieved lack of logical coherence on my end. You're taking it as if I meant that if I am right and the other person is wrong, their knowledge or intellect should be discredited, hence why dang said it was a swipe. To me, it simply means (if I am right, which may not be the case) they lacked the perspective which I laid out as an argument afterwards. The purpose of the discord is so we gain new perspectives that change our understandings and opinions on the subject matter. I don't even remember the nick of the person I replied to, and I made sure that my identity is not visible on HN (outside of correlations people can make),I have absolutely no reason to one up anyone.

I still maintain it was clearly not a swipe purely due to the fact that I made no attempts to attack the persons personality or intellect or to promote my own, as such my intellectual honesty and purity of intent should be given the benefit of the doubt.

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