The Man Who Writes His Dissenting Opinion in All Caps | Hacker News Reader

The Man Who Writes His Dissenting Opinion in All Caps

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102 pointsgordon_freeman25 comments

"The theory being that no matter what the issues are, the most hysterical side is probably incorrect" Fedor laughed.

What a great observation. I'm going to try to pay more attention to this in the future.

Assuming an absence of capital letters, the very hardest part has to be in ignoring personal bias enough that one can objectively determine which side is more hysterical.

On any of the hot button issues the proponents and opponents both view themselves as perfectly logical, and their opposites as being hysterical, with very, very few people in the middle who may have an opinion, but are legitimately able to see both sides of things.

That's why this algorithmic approach is actually a kind of interesting idea. Obviously the all-caps technique is too simplistic, but it would be interesting to try and give political opinions a hysterical rating based on the vocabulary used.

Obviously it wouldn't be a foolproof method; it's hard to talk about the consequences of global warming or NSA overreach without scoring pretty high in hystericalness, but it would still be a neat tool.

The word "incorrect" here seems unjustified.

"less well-informed" would probably be a more reasonable claim, and possibly verifiable.

What about "historical" reactions to Hitler before ww2 ?

I imagine the pro-nazi sentiment was a lot more hysterical than the anti-nazi sentiment. But, of course, I say this with no evidence.

He had a vary positive image in the US prior to WWII. IMO, this is simply an outgrowth of what it takes to gain power. Sure, plenty of people recall Hitler being man of the year 1939. But, few recall Josef Stalin was also named TIME's Man of the year January 1943

It was an outgrowth of US values and principles, which harmonized with Hitler's in a lot of ways, and he was influenced by many American and British thinkers.

I could easily see a WWII that was the US, Britain, and Germany vs. the USSR.

Man of the Year is not an endorsement. It goes to the most influential, whether they've influenced things for good or for bad. Time basically put European leaders on blast for being completely ineffective in reigning in Germany's aggression.

Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year, 1938 http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539,...

Endorsement's come in all kinds. Quick name the leader of China? It's not like the leader of the worlds largest economy is irrelevant is it?

PS: I had a vague idea that Angela Merkel was and or is Germany's current leader, but other than name and tittle I am drawing a complete blank. For a leader to have a positive image they need to be 'well known' and not demonized.

What evidence? Learn history! Churchill's "the Second World War" might be a good place to start.

hmm, interesting. I think it depends on context.

The opinions are there to guide people's decisions. "Incorrect" is a better word to gauge the truthfulness of the opinions. "less well-informed" whilst also accurate is more forgiving and does not really help a voter choose between opinions.

I don't know about that even, I know some professional philosophers of ethics who are extremely passionate about veganism, but I wouldn't say they were less well-informed.

I imagine the anti-slavery folks seemed to be the more hysterical.

I don't recall them leaving the Union.

Actually, they did.

To what are you referring?

It's an inherently conservative-biased view. If you think the status quo is fine, you're less likely to get hysterical than if you think there is something wrong that needs to be changed. But actually, sometimes change is necessary.

> If you think the status quo is fine, you're less likely to get hysterical than if you think there is something wrong that needs to be changed

I tend to think the opposite. It seems that if you think the status quo is fine, and someone comes along trying to change it, you are more likely to get hysterical. For example (at least here in the US), some proponents of "traditional family values" can get just as hysterical as proponents of marriage equality when marriage equality is on the ballot.

Not necessarily, conservatives tend to be the most hysterical when it come to Gay rights or a lot of important matter. It's not because they want the status quo to stay as it is that they won't be hysterical whenever something threaten that status quo.

How amusing that, for me, this is an demonstration of The Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon [1] : viz https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8514310

[1] http://www.psmag.com/culture/theres-a-name-for-that-the-baad...

It's really that emotional people are more likely to say dumb things. It doesn't necessarily mean their overall stance is right or wrong. Plenty of sociopaths can argue for evil things without ever getting upset.

Regardless of the fact that it turned out to be completely wrong, and was simply a Terence Faulkner detector?

Good job detecting old conservative men who lived the bulk of their lives pre-internet before an anti-caps convention was commonplace.

I think the most interesting twist about this, is that even though at first glance it turns out there was just one guy who tends to use capital letters more than others, his hypothesis that "shouting" was the reason for the caps turned out to be wrong. It just turns out to be Faulkner's writing style, possibly influenced by his background as a lawyer.

The twist of course, is "Fedor researched the issues on this year’s ballot much more thoroughly before voting. He actually ended up siding with Faulkner on a few counts. After all, they both dislike ballot measures."

I can't vote (I'm not a citizen), and perhaps for that very reason I enjoy perusing the votter guides and reading every last little thing, for years. I entirely agree with this observation - if you're into spotting logical fallacies or rhetorical trickery (including typographical) then it's nerdy fun to play fallacy bingo on the proposition arguments and campaign ads. I know Faulkner's annual arguments from living in SF, and there are similar folk in every county.

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