Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

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> What is Wolfram Derangement Syndrome?

He writes a lot about himself in every article and makes claims that others find excessive. Commenters get triggered by this and post about how annoying it is. These reactions are just as predictable and just as fixated on Wolfram himself as he is, and in that sense are guilty of the same thing. This repetitive dynamic is what I mean by Wolfram Derangement Syndrome. It has been tedious—and therefore off topic—for many years. Here are a few past explanations in case helpful:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10978871 (Jan 2016)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10723588 (Dec 2015)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20071283 (June 2019)

There's often a lot that's interesting and thoughtful in Wolfram's pieces, stuff that's worth discussing on HN, so this is really a test for the community: can we mask out the predictable bits and focus on the interesting ones?

A few years ago, we added a guideline to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html to cover cases like this: "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."

> Commenters get triggered by this and post about how annoying it is. These reactions are just as predictable and just as fixated on Wolfram himself as he is, and in that sense are guilty of the same

I agree with the gist of your position, but the wording here is inflammatory (suggesting people are “triggered” rather than justifiably angry) and are obsessing over a man when in my experience his history of similar behavior goes back far longer and is exaggerated a lot more by his much stronger influence than the average hn commenter. I agree that it’s not interesting discussion, but people are largely trying to practice skepticism with a man who makes very exciting claims and sometimes isn’t being entirely honest about those claims or where they originated.

Basically, there is missing context that hn comments aren’t capturing that can help to understand this resentment towards him and your post here seems to be ignoring some of that context and equating the two sides when there is a large power disparity between them.

Edit: Also the choice to coin this phrase as a “derangement” feels inflammatory as well.

Yup, I get how my comment could feel inflammatory to those who feel that way about Wolfram, and how the words 'triggered' and 'derangement' might push on sore spots. I'm sorry if it rubs the wrong way—I know these things can land in unpleasant ways, and that's not what I mean to do.

I do mean to exhort the community a bit when I post like that. From the HN point of view, it's not interesting to talk about Wolfram's egoic tics because there's nothing new to say or learn about it. It's simply a recitation of old resentments that have been circulating since before HN existed. We ought to be able to recognize this and turn our attention to more interesting things—and Wolfram does usually have more interesting things to say.

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