Comment by plaguepilled | Hacker News Reader

Comment by plaguepilled | Hacker News Reader

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With respect I don't agree at all.

Writers have a responsibility to ensure that they take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of their statements, and that those statements are clear.

The alternative of doing so is to state that public writing is of no consequence and that writers should be held unaccountable for their own actions.

This is obviously in contrast to the popular opinion, and for good reason: if you cannot disagree with a piece of writing, it limits your ability to engage with it.

Therefore, because his examples of alienation (to borrow your term) are incomplete, OPs omissions are an issue. While its true it conveys his base point (he's alone), it is difficult to answer any helpful questions around the point.

Examples of questions we can't answer: does the world need to change or him? Why? Would that help? If he isn't bothered by the state if affairs, why the melancholic tone? Is there more to the story? What initiated this isolation?

Regarding the 'sharing what one is comfortable sharing' - I would normally agree, but again, the tone makes me think a point resides somewhere. Therefore I think that's not the core issue.

> Writers have a responsibility to ensure that they take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of their statements, and that those statements are clear.

What a crazy take. Writers can write whatever they want. A book of poetry or prose doesn't have to meet some HN rationalist level of accuracy and rigour.

Writers can do whatever they want, sure, but actions which make their intention harder to parse also make it harder to engage with their work. Since writers who publish to the public want others to read their work, it becomes their responsibility in a capacity to write in a way that makes their intended message comprehensible.

Said another way, there is no law that forces me to write in English. I could interleave uncommon French and German across this comment (borrowing terms from other languages is nothing new!).

But if I flexed language proficiency without regard to which words are commonly known, it may make my comment less accessible, and therefore you may choose not to engage with what I'm saying or respond. That might not be a problem for me, but regardless the decision is my responsibility.

The responsibility for clarity does not come from someone else - it is an extension of the decision to publish.

This does extend to prose and poetry by the way. Both are written to conventions within the disciplines and follow patterns. Those patterns are very different to ordinary speech but they are certainly there, and readers judge writers on those merits.

It isn't to say a writer is lesser as a person for writing out of convention, but the convention provides a framework to interpret the art. If the convention isn't broken for a meaningful reason, it can detract from the wider message.

> The alternative of doing so is to state that public writing is of no consequence and that writers should be held unaccountable for their own actions.

This "accountability" rhetoric conjures up an image of a one-man tribunal, hastily set up in the middle of the public square, demanding that passers-by submit to judgment.

Accountability goes both ways. Maybe you should provide an account for why you feel the need to hold others "accountable". Why not just ignore writing that you find too vague to be meaningful to you?

That's whataboutism, not a direct contradiction.

I didn't write the original post, so my comment is geared towards addressing that, rather than expositing my own views. In a similar way, your post is geared towards criticising mine, rather than justifying your own engagement - that's perfectly normal.

But, since you asked, I hold others accountable in the same way you do now. It is because I recognised behaviour I do jot agree with and I want the person to engage with the criticisms I have made and (hopefully) change their mind.

Framed this way, it is a constructive activity, not some tribunal activity as you describe. Again, if you cannot disagree with someone, you are very limited in how you can engage with them.

> Writers have a responsibility to ensure that they take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of their statements, and that those statements are clear.

Walking up riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, James Joyce scoffs at your banality.

Lewis Carrol, astride a frumious bandersnatch, ignores tiresome linguistic catechisms such as yours, enjoying his frabjuous — and well-deserved — literary immortality.

James Joyce flexed on clarity as a literary feat.

Lewis Carrol used absurd scenarios to engage his child whom he wrote for.

The exception proves the rule.

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