6 ms·

why do i even bother with HN comments? OP: "gives an anecdote about how the article is wrong or incomplete" REPLY: "gives an anecdote about how the OP is wron

why do i even bother with HN comments? OP: "gives an anecdote about how the article is wrong or incomplete" REPLY: "gives an anecdote about how the OP is wrong or incomplete" REPLY-REPLY: "gives an anecdote about how the REPLY is wrong or incomplete" repeat adnauseum on every comment chain for ever and ever.

agumonkey 8y ago
well I'm sorry
CompelTechnic 8y ago
Nerds like to divide reality into finer and finer resolution.
- some_account 8y ago
  Ego.
coldtea 8y ago
That's what's called a discussion. People make arguments, corrections to other's arguments, and counter-arguments.
- some_account 8y ago
  I can absolutely understand why people don't like discussions. Usually people don't have them to learn - they have them to teach. If two people like that are having a discussion, it's truly an pointless activity.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    Am guilty of this quite often.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Usually people don't have them to learn - they have them to teach. Doesn't matter IMO. Both sides are still getting something out of it. Even if they just try to "teach" and think they already know everything, they also get to hear the argument of the other side, and think counterarguments -- thus improving their argument too. In other words, even if they stick to their a priori beliefs no matter what, they at least learn to defend and define them better, because of having to deal with the other side. Besides, a discussion is not just something to "learn" from. It's also entertaining on its own, a way to express yourself, hone your thoughts and so on. Learning from the discussion is not required for those things. Not everything has to have an end goal, or "improve" us.
  - Bjartr 8y ago
    > If two people like that are having a discussion, it's truly an pointless activity. Some points I can see and am able to articulate: 1. Being exposed to opposing viewpoints is valuable even if your goals don't consciously include learning from them. Pointless to the individual because rationally they won't further their goal? Perhaps. Pointless to society as a whole? I would argue no. 2. Non-participants exposed to such a discussion can learn from all sides, even if the individuals actually doing the discussion gain absolutely nothing, and there are orders of magnitude more non-participants than participants. So even a small impact can be far-reaching.
  - reificator 8y ago
    I try to teach when I'm in a discussion, and I learn a lot from them. Both from trying to teach and from hearing other viewpoints. In fact I tend to actively try to seek out and befriend people who disagree with me, specifically to learn more. It's easy enough for me at least to make friends with a bunch of clones of myself, and while that's not a bad thing I think perspective is important. And you get that from discussing things with people who disagree. I don't think that teaching vs learning is mutually exclusive, and while intent matters I don't believe you can have a (non-repeat) discussion without learning something. It kind of frightens me how much emphasis has been put into creating social bubbles where no one disagrees. Especially online where it's so easy to do. (I want to emphasize that I am not criticizing having people around to support you.)
reificator 8y ago
I think that the post you replied to was perfectly reasonable in its tone, and amazingly tame by HN standards. Could you clarify on what you took issue with?
bomberFighter 8y ago
I've noticed this about HN's "substantive comment" policy, regarding always "adding to the conversation" somehow. By and large, it mostly encourages reproaches, much in the same way that vote ranking often encourages baseless downvotes that the community uses to drive preferred opinions to the top of any thread, and onto the main page. The result is a very dry humorless community, preserving all the downsides of an echo chamber, but deceptively without all the back slapping, inside jokes, voices of encouragement and memetic kidding around that other echo chambers demonstrate. You'll see what success on HN looks like, if you look at the karma scores of some of the most active users, whose tone is most reinforced by the incentive system, and then browse their participation artifacts, and reflect on what kind of a person might naturally play into this feedback system. Is that the kind of person you would have this site transform you into? The power of positive people, indeed.

agumonkey 8y ago

well I'm sorry

CompelTechnic 8y ago

Nerds like to divide reality into finer and finer resolution.

some_account 8y ago
Ego.

coldtea 8y ago

That's what's called a discussion. People make arguments, corrections to other's arguments, and counter-arguments.

some_account 8y ago
I can absolutely understand why people don't like discussions. Usually people don't have them to learn - they have them to teach. If two people like that are having a discussion, it's truly an pointless activity.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Am guilty of this quite often.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Usually people don't have them to learn - they have them to teach. Doesn't matter IMO. Both sides are still getting something out of it. Even if they just try to "teach" and think they already know everything, they also get to hear the argument of the other side, and think counterarguments -- thus improving their argument too. In other words, even if they stick to their a priori beliefs no matter what, they at least learn to defend and define them better, because of having to deal with the other side. Besides, a discussion is not just something to "learn" from. It's also entertaining on its own, a way to express yourself, hone your thoughts and so on. Learning from the discussion is not required for those things. Not everything has to have an end goal, or "improve" us.
- Bjartr 8y ago
  > If two people like that are having a discussion, it's truly an pointless activity. Some points I can see and am able to articulate: 1. Being exposed to opposing viewpoints is valuable even if your goals don't consciously include learning from them. Pointless to the individual because rationally they won't further their goal? Perhaps. Pointless to society as a whole? I would argue no. 2. Non-participants exposed to such a discussion can learn from all sides, even if the individuals actually doing the discussion gain absolutely nothing, and there are orders of magnitude more non-participants than participants. So even a small impact can be far-reaching.
- reificator 8y ago
  I try to teach when I'm in a discussion, and I learn a lot from them. Both from trying to teach and from hearing other viewpoints. In fact I tend to actively try to seek out and befriend people who disagree with me, specifically to learn more. It's easy enough for me at least to make friends with a bunch of clones of myself, and while that's not a bad thing I think perspective is important. And you get that from discussing things with people who disagree. I don't think that teaching vs learning is mutually exclusive, and while intent matters I don't believe you can have a (non-repeat) discussion without learning something. It kind of frightens me how much emphasis has been put into creating social bubbles where no one disagrees. Especially online where it's so easy to do. (I want to emphasize that I am not criticizing having people around to support you.)

reificator 8y ago

I think that the post you replied to was perfectly reasonable in its tone, and amazingly tame by HN standards. Could you clarify on what you took issue with?

bomberFighter 8y ago

I've noticed this about HN's "substantive comment" policy, regarding always "adding to the conversation" somehow. By and large, it mostly encourages reproaches, much in the same way that vote ranking often encourages baseless downvotes that the community uses to drive preferred opinions to the top of any thread, and onto the main page. The result is a very dry humorless community, preserving all the downsides of an echo chamber, but deceptively without all the back slapping, inside jokes, voices of encouragement and memetic kidding around that other echo chambers demonstrate. You'll see what success on HN looks like, if you look at the karma scores of some of the most active users, whose tone is most reinforced by the incentive system, and then browse their participation artifacts, and reflect on what kind of a person might naturally play into this feedback system. Is that the kind of person you would have this site transform you into? The power of positive people, indeed.