Comment by DjangoReinhardt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DjangoReinhardt | Hacker News Reader

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DjangoReinhardt

I agree with some of your points and would like to defend myself in regards to a few others, if you don;t mind.

The ageism bit wasn't a non-sequitur in any way but it was definitely under-explained and I am at fault on that one. I have been at the receiving end a few times ("Why do you want to know that? That's how it has always been done!" and "What would you know? You have barely written your first fizzbuzz!" are just a few examples) and the anguish just happened to pour out. Apologies for not explaining that better in the post but it does not invalidate the existence of the point in any way.

Ply my own bigotry? I am sorry if my post seemed to raise those questions/sentiments but I'd genuinely believe that I was trying to point out something that has troubled me. You, OTOH, without any knowledge of me or my intentions accused me of bigotry. Should I take that as an example of an ad hominem?

As for alan_cx's comment, yes, I am guilty of cherry-picking a part of it. I believe I made that clear in the lead-up but that's no excuse. I'll make amends and edit in the rest of the comment right away. It doesn't make the original comment any better in terms of its jeering nature, IMHO.

Personal attacks? Misrepresentations? Strawmen? I sincerely and unreservedly apologise for for any personal attacks or misrepresentations. I think I just chose to put in some (rather badly) cherry-picked but nonetheless valid examples. However, I know I am not perfect and am definitely prone to mistakes and the occasional exaggeration. If you could please point them out, I will make the necessary corrections immediately.

I repeat, I am not attacking the people of HN at any point in the post. I am ranting against the jeering disguised as criticism. Since all dark clouds have a silver lining, all jeering must have an inherent critical point, too. Should I take it to mean that jeering is now acceptable since it is criticism?

In that case, may I request you to please consider my jeering of HN's snobbish behavior as honest criticism?

> I repeat, I am not attacking the people of HN at any point in the post. You called them assholes. In the title.

As a bit more constructive criticism from someone who's coded on punchcards (you may get a lot of this): stop digging. Decide which bits of your post you want to stand by and which bits you want to apologise for and do so.

Personally, I think the point about not supporting newbies was worth raising but the content and tone got in the way.

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to read the whole thing. Secondly, thank you for not getting offended. Thirdly, thank you for being an awesome-enough human being for making this comment. You deserve everything good that life has to offer and I wish you get it all!

Thank you for pointing out the title. While I am guilty of sensationalizing the title, I have not referred to HN users specifically - neither in the title, nor in the post. Nowhere have I made the correlation between the two, nor do I intend to. I still believe the title fits the post and does not slander HN users specifically but please correct me if I am wrong.

I would like to stand by all my points in the post. I just seem to have expressed some of them a little inadequately. But you are right. I should have done better in the first place, no excuses.

There's just one part I will definitely be changing, and that's the part where I talk about the punchcards. Somehow, I seem to have missed the extra 'since' at the beginning of the line and it has changed the entire paragragh to something horrible. I am ashamed and I apologize to you personally for this mistake.

I'll be writing an errata/update based on some of the comments I have received in this discussion thread.

You, OTOH, without any knowledge of me or my intentions accused me of bigotry.

We are discussing a blog post that attempts to invent a caricature of those you disagree with based upon, it seems, age, despite that having literally nothing to do with the discussion in question (futher, I have no reason to believe the submitter of the item discussed was inexperienced, or that they themselves weren't one of those reviled card punchers. I'm not sure why you drew this divide that didn't actually exist at all, leading to further nonsense of castes, as if everyone wasn't discussing the poor execution of the presentation. I mention your own possible bigotry because it is similar to racists imagining every disagreement or situation must somehow involve race).

In that case, may I request you to please consider my jeering of HN's snobbish behavior as honest criticism?

Your jeering criticism was nonsense, however, manufacturing a strawman that didn't exist. People expressing frustration with the discussed submission, however, were making a very cogent point.

I am not exactly a student of philosophy so I may have a hard time understanding the argument, so please bear with me and my attempts to explain myself. If I misunderstand something, I apologise in advance for my inadequacies.

> ...attempts to invent a caricature of those you disagree with based upon age, despite that having literally nothing to do with the discussion in question...

By classifying my concerns as an 'attempt to invent a caricature' are you trying to claim that the issue I am trying to raise does not exist?

Also, you seem to be reducing my entire opinion to just the age-ist point. So I went and re-read my post. Turns out there is an additional 'since' in the line that changes the entire meaning of the paragraph:

> The ones that believe that ~~since~~ they have been writing software since the time that programs had to be punched on to cards and fed to a machine that was usually the size of three rooms, they believe that it gives them the right to look down upon any and all attempts by those who haven’t done the same.

This is clearly my fault and I should have been more careful. Age-ism isn't the divide I am talking about in the post and not even remotely the point I am trying to make! Therefore, I propose the following changes to the offending paragraph:

> Their asshole-ry (can't think of another word) comes from a self-belief so strong that you wonder if they have been writing software since the time it was fed to computers via punch-cards. Worse, their sense of entitlement is so strong that it leads them to believe that they have the divine right to look down upon any and all attempts by those who haven’t done the same.

> Your jeering criticism was nonsense, however, manufacturing a strawman that didn't exist.

What strawman did I manufacture?

> People expressing frustration with the discussed submission, however, were making a very cogent point.

When did I reject the notion that the people expressing frustration weren't making a cogent point? My entire opinion was based around the thought that they needed to be a little more positive/constructive with their criticism.

It seems we have differing opinions on what counts as positive/constructive and even on what counts as criticism itself, in which case, let's just agree to disagree?

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