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Comment by pyrocat | Hacker News Reader

Before resorting to ad hominem attacks you may want to do some research on who you're attacking. Robert Khoo is neither a moron nor a psychopath. I disagree with his job posting, but it helps no one to attack the person behind it (with false insults) instead of attacking the posting itself and what it represents.

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Ad hominem is attacking the person rather than their position on the topic at hand. This guy has played his hand and shown us his position.

Now what you want is us to take your personal view of this person as read and ignore his clearly laid out position. So really you're the one being ad hominem, though unusually being supportive (I prefer 'enabling') rather than attacking.

Let's forget who this is and discuss this person's job ad.

EDIT: A pre-emptive clarification: The fact that one could do research on this person makes no difference. The ad is the ad, the details of the person who wrote it are actually irrelevant here.

Man, that was exactly an ad-hominem attack. Exactly.

Discussing an accusation of ad hominem inevitably involves you discussing that person's ad hominem-ism, which is ironically meta-ad hominem. Unavoidable I think... though strangely comical I must say!

To be more clear, ad hominem is attacking the person making an argument as an illogical response to said argument. It's attacking the argument by attacking the person making it.

Merely attacking someone does not an ad hominem make; since ad hominem is based in the study of logic, calling a personal attack such as the comment up-thread "ad hominem" makes no sense. The person posting the job is not entering into an argument.

Yes, you're right, other than the idea that the job posting isn't entering into an argument - I'd say that it is, the person is taking a position that they feel this is a reasonable and justifiable job to advertise.

We can reasonably consider this implicit position and draw conclusions, and yes absolutely, because something happens to be a personal attack, it isn't necessarily ad hominem. Saying 'ignore what this person has done and listen to me telling you he's a great guy' very much is.

"Ad hominem" is not a synonym for "personal." Just say "personal." Seriously, "ad hominem" is my new favorite HN drinking game.

Ad hominem: "Higher taxes are bad because you're the one suggesting them."

Personal: "You are an idiot for suggesting higher taxes."

See the difference?

I don't really get critiques like this. Because this guy was once a respected guy, he is totally allowed to hire workers to work under terrible conditions and exploit people and if you call him any names while he does so it is YOU that has the problem? Seems like a reasonable standard...

I think someone who so blatantly values his developers so little deserves to be insulted.

Well at least do some research before you insult him then? Here are some options: enabler, workaholic, calculating

What about someone who values honesty enough to actually list the accurate job posting, which honestly doesn't sound that different than a lot of jobs in this industry. The biggest difference is those jobs didn't actually list the bad conditions in the job posting.

So it's ok to be an abusive arsehole as long as you're honest about it? The only crime is to be a dishonest arsehole?

How about being a decent reasonable human being/employer? Or is that just off the table altogether in this discussion?

With limbo-like justifications like this I'm not surprised these kind of diseased company cultures exist.

Yes. You are acting like this job is not voluntary.

That some naive person "volunteers" to be exploited and abused doesn't make it any less exploitative or abusive.

Just because accepting a job is voluntary doors not give license to employers to exploit their employees. 100 years ago, that same argument was advanced by people opposed to worker safety laws and child labor laws. People use that argument to justify jobs where you have to sleep with the boss to get the job. The fact that some people are desperate doesn't give an employer endless license.

Unemployment is really high right now. A lot of folks might feel compelled to take any job.

So a job that advertises terrible working conditions is suddenly morally upstanding and ethical just because you know what you're in for? What if you need money to feed your family and the job ad says that as a precondition to getting hired you need to give them one of your kidneys?

This is exactly why labor law exists and why libertarian/extreme capitalist societies could never function. The argument "it's a free market" doesn't hold water. Without a system of checks and balances exploitation will always take place because there are always people desperate enough to do anything to make a living. No matter what you say about "free markets" and "voluntary agreements", you can't convince me that it's right and ethical and a good idea in any capacity.

Labor laws? Holy crap, you are deluded. We're talking about a cushy white-collar job here. Yes, the expectations sound pretty bad, relatively speaking. But it's a far cry from exploitative labor.

Calm down, go back and re-read the sub-thread. We are talking about general principles behind the practice, not necessarily about this concrete example.

How very patronizing of you.

In the entire category of white-collar jobs the idea of requiring labor laws is ludicrous.

So the dude who writes the exploitative job description is fine, while the average business owner is an asshole because you assume their job sucks and they're lying. Totally reasonable logic.

I am sure some people would find many things about you that make you deserve to be insulted, too. Empathy is not optional even for people you disagree with.

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