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Comment by sanderjd | Hacker News Reader

> Please be civil.

lol, what? That was a civil comment. This seems like an excellent example of the point being made. Replying to a perfectly reasonable but critical comment with "please be civil" is super condescending.

So is stuff like "one man's modus ponens".

Look, we get it, you're talking to people who found this stuff smart and interesting in the past. But we got tired of it. For me, I realized after awhile that the people I most admired in real life were pretty much the opposite of the people I was reading the most on the internet. None of the smartest people I know talk in this snooty online iamsosmart style.

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Scott:

> This isn’t about me being an expert on these topics and getting them exactly right, it’s about me calibrating my ability to tell how much I know about things and how certain I am.

> At least $250 million in damage from BLM protests this year: 30%

Aurornis:

> I forgot about the slightly condescending, lecturing tone that comes out when you disagree with rationalist figureheads.

> Since Scott Alexander comes up a lot, a few randomly selected predictions that didn't come true:

> He predicted at least $250 million in damages from Black Lives Matter protests.

Is this a "perfectly reasonable but critical comment"?

Am I condescending if I say that predicting a 30% chance that something happens means predicting a 70% chance that it won't happen... so the fact that it didn't happen probably shouldn't be used as "gotcha!"?

No. You're not being civil right now. You are lacing your reply with insults.

Your bar for "civil" is too low. Being defensive and thin skinned doesn't make your perspective more compelling.

You're both right. In all seriousness.

Agreed.

(I did waffle upon re-reading my comment and thinking it could have been more civil. But then decided that this person is also being very thin skinned. So I think you're right that we're both right.)

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