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This sort of attitude is not really constructive discussion, and I personally feel it's out of place here on HN.

So, personally: please don't do that.

My original response was much more involved but I curtailed it to this.

I believe I replied pretty much in the same manner as jusbin1369.

My hope is that for people that look at comments only they will actually read the article instead of reading jusbin1369's comment and skipping it because they wouldn't want to be "manipulated" or consider the article another "propaganda" piece.

I also get very wary of questioning the intelligence of HN's crowd. I would gather readers are smart enough to know when they are being manipulated or not. I don't feel I need to be told or tell anyone how to be careful.

This issue is complex. I for one am grateful that we have newspapers outside the US that are willing to do this type of reporting. We all love technology on HN and I am sure we all love drone technology (I certainly do) but personally I feel the use of technology is more important than the technology itself. I definitely think in this debate, there does seem to be room for much much more information that needs to be put out there.

Your entire comment was sarcasm. Sarcasm is not a constructive or compelling way of making an argument.

I dunno, I thought it worked pretty well. Prim posturing, however, I find bland.

Sarcasm is a tool for someone that can't actually come up with a counter-argument. It's an appeal to absurdity combined with a strawman. Exaggerate the other side's point until it sounds ridiculous and pretend that's an argument.

Did you detect an argument in the OP to be responded to? The argument that people die in war, perhaps? The Fox News argument? The argument that if they're bombing weddings now, they were probably bombing villages before?

The sarcasm seemed to be based on the fact that you can agree that truth is good and falsehood is bad and not see that as a reason to dismiss the Guardian piece.

Sometimes the ridiculousness of the opposition's argument is more compelling to the majority of people than saying "You've committed fallacy A, B, C, D, & F." Especially when the 'argument' in question actually isn't even an argument.

"Opinion piece is misleading because it isn't a factual non-biased piece of journalism" seems like one of these times.

Ridiculousness is just a subjective opinion though, that's why it makes such a terrible argument. I think it's ridiculousness that McDonald's doesn't have free refills in the UK, but I doubt many UK residents feel the same way.

Good illustration of a time when a logical argument makes no sense but pointing out the ridiculousness shines light on the point!

It is sarcasm. I don't disagree with you on it. In terms of its effectiveness, I don't know. I contrasted a strong comment by singling out a single point about it. I certainly didn't intend it to be an attack and I hope its not seen as such by jusben1369.

In terms of its appropriateness, I guess that's debatable too. If me and jusben1369 were having a chat about this person to person, I'm sure we'd know that its a hearty debate and we could debate the merits of our opinion while still respecting each other and knowing that we have differing viewpoints. Not to say that this is always easy to do.

With only the written word, I guess these types of comments can be seen as verbal jousting. If this is viewed as such by everyone (especially jusben1369) then this was not my intention.

It might be appropriate on reddit, on the street, in a TV debate, in your living room, Hyde Park speakers corner, but it is not on HN. These kinds of comments are discouraged here, it's in the posting guidelines.

Sarcasm is a brilliant tool to use against derailing.

Why? It's just a strawman.

He disagreed with the grandparent's skewed analysis, and explained why.

Why don't you do the same rather than conflating "things I don't agree with" and "not really constructive discussion"?

The comment was sarcastic and hostile and dismissive of his point. It may not be incorrect, but it's the kind of thing I'd expect to see on /r/politics and come to HN to avoid.

Hey Avenger123. "I especially enjoyed your notion that the Guardian is "serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion." You are so right. I always fell that the White House and the American military are always providing really insightful information that is really backed up substantiated by information." Two thoughts there. It feels like you're arguing "two wrongs make a right" And secondly I spent time pointing out that there are pro war (Fox News) equivalents that I/we find equally objectionable. I don't like either. It's just unlikely that a pro war/drone piece would ever make it to the top of HN so I'm here objecting to a Guardian piece.

That really reads like the journalistic "View from Nowhere".

He provided some very real, substantive counterpoints, none of which you responded to.

I respectfully disagree with you on this.

Viewed from another lens the comment can be considered guilty of the the same charge that the article is being accused of doing.

You can make that charge of any warning about emotional manipulation. And since every warning is a form of emotional manipulation, it's not actually possible to escape it.

It's possible to be aware of such manipulation, but it's impossible to avoid doing it.

And these were? It read much more as a practice in "no one is unbiased so this is misleading."

It also tries to equate drones use against individual targets (a couple individuals generally) with large scale bombing, which is highly disputable, given that it is used more in an assassination sense. The "manipulation" in the comment is pretty blatant.

Two substantive counterpoints I spot in the comment are 1) that telling us about the effects of drone weapons is emotional manipulation, not informative, because the "drone" part doesn't affect it at all and 2) the idea that decisions are hard because the view is "pixelated" applies just as much to the regular kind of warfare.

1) It is clearly labeled as an opinion piece (First person abounds: I saw, I wish, I knew)... If you are looking for informative, unbiased, hard hitting journalism in an opinion piece you may be looking in the wrong place. 2) Decisions are always hard, even with perfect resolution/clarity, but adding additional handicaps (pixelation) seems like relevant information... I don't see how that is 'counterpoint' in any way?

1) seems like the pertinent disagreement, here. OK, fine, it's an opinion piece, and we shouldn't expect any sort of actual information from such a thing. Why, then, are we posting and upvoting such crap? Why is anybody defending it?

Agreed and agreed. The only reason I chimed in is because labeling an opinion piece as 'manipulation' seems pretty suspect. That is tantamount to saying "anyone who has an opinion I disagree with is manipulating me."

Article really shouldn't be on HN in the first place imo.

Edit: Spelling... It's hard.

Providing a counter point to the Guardian piece doesn't mean he's being misleading. New technology applications, military or otherwise often go through a pretty searing gauntlet of fear. To that end, pointing out the alternative pros and cons of the alternative scenario which is usually troops on the ground is helpful- not manipulative or misleading.

You make the assumption that his 'attack' on the Guardian's reporting is in essence support of the American military's / White House's position.

To use a loaded example, would you say that someone railing against Stalin was a supporter of Hitler? Probably not.

Actually, I don't make that assumption at all.

The article in the Guardian is not done by a fly by night newspaper without any credibility. The newspaper was started in 1821 and is considered a leading newspaper. It does identify itself as a liberal voice but so what. When did reading about the life experience of a UAV analyst who actually provides some real context to her discussion by providing external links become a source of manipulation and a "biased" view. Frankly, I learned more about UAW operations from her article than any release done by the "official" sources. There is no reason for me to believe that Heather is not who she says she is or that she was influenced into saying what she says.

It's not about taking sides on the drone issue. It's about an article being attacked that was written as commentary by someone who is a thousand times closer to the situation than most of us ever will be. I will gladly read more of these. If Heather stated how great drone attacks were, my thoughts would still stand. Let's have all the information out there without attaching the information as manipulation or biased. Personally, I would like to decide what's manipulative and biased without being told so.

CBS is not a fly-by-night operation either, yet they have screwed up stories before (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy).