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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Can you please make your substantive points without resorting to the flamewar style? Your comments are standing out as more flamey than anyone else's that I've seen, so far, in the thread.

In particular, it would be good if you would note and follow the following site guidelines:

"Don't be snarky."

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Your views are welcome, but we need you to express them in the intended spirit of the forum. The same, of course, is true for anyone with opposing views.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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In Paul Graham's hierarchy of disagreement, he notes that articulate forms of name-calling are still name-calling.

When Graham opens his essay by providing a definition of 'prig' but then using that pejorative over and over again to refer to his conceptual opposition in this essay, how are those who are responding to the essay to respond? It seems we put ourselves on a field disadvantage if we are to argue a point with an author who is immediately resorting to name-calling with one arm tied behind our backs.

I respect this site tries to be something else than other online fora. But it is a site still inextricably tied to Graham and his legacy, so when he drops an essay like this it's reasonable to either expect people responding to it will take the same tone as the founder of this site, or that we should be very, very clear that this site has become something not at all associated with its founding.

Has it?

We ask commenters to stick to the guidelines regardless of what someone else is doing or you feel they're doing (I don't mean you personally, of course, but all of us). It's the only way this place even has a chance, because it always feels like the other person started it and also did worse.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

But I think you'd be wise to drop this idea of a "field disadvantage". HN threads aren't supposed to be a football game, a tank battle, or anything else where that image would fit. It's not about defeating opponents or, as I used to say, smiting enemies. It's about maximizing interestingness, to put it clumsily.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&que...

I’ve been on the site since the beginning under various usernames. I agree with your point overall but sometimes something said truly is “bad” (idiotic, foolish, whatever) and is deserving of being called so.

I believe writing “after the riots of 2020” and framing what happened as “wokeness” qualifies as idiotic.

I made my points and haven’t responded further. I don’t believe I’ve said anything else that can be considered flamewar style commentary. I’ll keep in mind what you’ve said.

The trouble is that all those labels do is rile up people who use opposite labels, or put the same labels on opposite things. Then we get into a label war, which is bad for everybody and invariably deterioriates into acrimony. We're trying to avoid that sort of internet here.

You got a lot on your hands and I’m writing what follows more for myself than for an attempt to change your mind. The Overton window has greatly shifted rightward the last 50 years. The sort of statements being made by people like Musk merit condemnation. It’s no longer a matter of let’s politely disagree and state our mutual positions. We are well into the realm of the Paradox of Tolerance. Normalizing abhorrent viewpoints is not a lofty goal.

I appreciate the reply and it generates at least half a dozen interesting (at least to me!) responses in me, but it would probably take all afternoon to figure out what they are and write them down, so I guess I'd better not :(

(especially because getting my wording wrong on topics like this leads to painful reactions - I don't mean from you, but the format here feels like intimate conversation when in fact it's public broadcasting)

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