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Comment by icarus_drowning | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Shouldn't he be skeptical because he disagrees with some element of their advice? Shouldn't he be willing to engage with it, rather than dismissing it out of hand?

Oh, wait-- that's what he always does when he encounters someone who disagrees with him even in the slightest, even if it simply means referring to an operating system as merely "Linux".

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He didn't dismiss the advice, but indicated he was skeptical of it. Pretty mild really.

As a rule I am skeptical of all advice, irrespective of how well aligned the provider may claim to be; but you can be certain I'm listening.

When your reply to criticism consists of only the statement that you are skeptical of that criticism, it is an implicit rejection of the criticism. I think almost any human would read it that way.

Yes, all he said was that he was skeptical. But if Stallman really is just commenting that he is skeptical, it is a poorly timed observation. I suspect you are wrong and that he means more than the literality of what he is saying.

It's obviously a rejection, but not obviously for the reason stated. From his point of view, he's just received a forward of an "open letter" that some blogger he's never heard of has already published seeking to gather attention at his expense. My guess is that he really wanted to write "Who are you? Go fuck yourself" but thought better of it, and this was really the only point he could score given how little he knows about the blogger.

It shouldn't matter what Stallman knows about the blogger. Either the argument itself is worth responding to, or it isn't.

In this case you can be certain Stallman is not listening. That's the interpretation that any native English speaker would and should take from that reply.

Sorry to do the pedantic-nerd thing, but why should he take the time and effort to "engage with it?"

I could imagine that after fighting for a cause for decades, the arguments and advice tend to repeat themselves. At some point it is not economical anymore to engage with every opponent.

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