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Comment by Zikes | Hacker News Reader

You can call captious derogatory, but I'll call it a compliment.

I'll also be around to say "I told you so" once my nit picking proves out.

You took the metaphor explaining a part of the original argument, not the argument itself, a metaphor used to illustrate the argument better, a metaphor that was just there to make a point clearer, then you expanded it needlessly and painfully for all involved, muddled it a great deal, turned it around and attacked the original point. With a metaphor. That you used way past its place of purpose.

I actually have no idea where this tactic should even be on the hierarchy of disagreement. It's shockingly effective in practice though - you're basically redefining the meaning of the words I use for your own purpose. I can't disagree with you, because I'm trying to say something which cannot be exactly defined, leading me to use metaphors or allegories or other kinds of inexact language, but whenever I say something like this you switch it around so it now doesn't mean what I intend it to mean. I literally lack the words with which to disagree in this situation.

I quoted the article in an attempt to pinpoint a key detail which I felt was at the heart of the issue: that what people consider petty or captious is far too subjective. This, in itself, is a fairly obvious point which I don't think the article addresses well enough, and in fact uses my quoted metaphor to dismiss entirely.

The article encourages people to learn this word and to use it to dismiss people they feel are being petty. Rather than address those so-called petty problems or even the person themselves they are encouraged to write that person off entirely.

The point of the pornography quote is to demonstrate that yes, there may be interpersonal variability in the definition of the term, but there is a strong area of agreement and overlap between us all. You seem to have missed that the point is to say: while we cannot firmly affix what constitutes pedantry and captiousness, we have an innate and largely convergent working sense for it.

You can't just raise every objection, petty or not, and feel justified when a couple of them turn out to be important. The ideal to strive for should be to identify non-petty objections and only raise those. Raising many petty ones are actively harmful to the social fabric of the workplace.

As I explained in my parent comment, "petty" is far too subjective a term.

I have no doubt that I'm seen as captious by many of the people I work with because I bring up problems that they see as petty, but my unique perspective on the project at hand puts me in a position to see the significance of that issue and how it applies to the project as a whole.

But if those people read the linked article, they'll say "oh, he's just being captious" and be dismissive.

You are definitely that guy, who is going to live and die by the truth for the smallest inconsequential detail. Theres a war and over expending resource on every battle will destroy the effort for winning the war. A matter of economy and survival space, not correctness and truth-space.

It's a matter of the importance of that correctness and truth-space, and that you shouldn't be dismissive of people that are just trying to paint as complete a picture as possible before just diving right in and expending effort on what will ultimately be a fruitless effort.

That is where wars are won or lost.

I wish "that guy" had been there before we went into Iraq and Afghanistan.

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