5 ms·

> If the reasons are benign and not to suppress awareness and discussion -- in short, not people thinking themselves the lords of others -- then nobody would ha

> If the reasons are benign and not to suppress awareness and discussion -- in short, not people thinking themselves the lords of others -- then nobody would have a problem with people opting out with something like "ignore thread flags" option. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933217 what gives? easy way to put the money where the mouth is, no takers, ever. > I'm sure he makes mistakes, has biases conscious and unconscious like the rest of us but I don't think he presiding over the place perched on a throne of lies. It doesn't matter. Just like the identity or motivation of the people doing the flagging doesn't matter. This is what it actually is, and HN is one of the places to discuss issues like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187 -- and that was all fine and well before SV got into bed with fascism, after all. Attracting people who are curious and passionate about technology (and its impact on the world) was a welcome thing, in between the YC job ads and whatnot. Such stories about a young Kremlin "maverick" would be read and discussed with much interest. But when people have even more expertise, are likely to know of more related things, then suddenly it's off-topic? Hah. I'd say the opposite is the obviously the case: this is where push comes to shove and a lot of lip service flies away like chaff in the wind. > just people thinking 'oh god, not more of this shit, not here', whatever their other views. And how do you square the deluge of all sorts of sophistry, the posters of which usually don't reply to corrections, doing mental gymnastics to claim there is nothing to see here, talking about "the far left" constantly and all that? They're just what we see, but the rest of the iceberg is "most likely" of some entirely different material? Maybe, maybe not. People's reason from being unhelpful range from bad motivations to weakness, because saying "oh no not more of this" is just that. There is literally a "hide" button right next to "flag". That's what you do when you don't want to see something. I see a lot of stuff I don't care for and I would NEVER think of making it impossible for other people to discuss it. And whenever one of those "most likely" people says that that they flagged it because they don't want to see it, not once did they respond to my question why others shouldn't be able to discuss it, either. One tried something extremely handwavey and then didn't respond when asked what that actually is supposed to mean. That's a clear signal to me, it's pretty undiluted even.

pvg 2y ago
From your linked comment: who never followed up when I challenge them. That one seems really straightforward - people don't owe you receipts for their views or explanations for their motivations. The aspirational goal of the place is conversation, not interrogation.
- computerthings 2y ago
  > That one seems really straightforward - people don't owe you receipts for their views or explanations for their motivations. Everything "seems straightforward" when you just make up what seems convenient without actually inspecting what is there, or the "aspirations" of the comments I'm referring to. People do owe themselves there being receipts before they speak, absolutely. This is not a diary, this is making claims in public. Of course they have to stand up to scrutiny, or get retracted. What else? What do you consider intellectually honest where that isn't the minimum? If I ask what is the thought process here, and there is only evasion, because there is no thought process, or I ask what some wishy washy phrases means in practice, in the actual context it was used as an argument in, and I get nothing, then that's because there was just this wishy washy phrase. The respective people can prove that wrong. You can't do it for them. Why even try? Why even go there? If I say "what you just wrote is racist so the opposite is true" and you ask "how so?" and then I don't reply because it was obviously bullshit, then that's not some high-fallutin' principled stand for good faith conversation, it's really just people trying something, failing, not acknowledging that, to keep doing it. It's the opposite of good faith discussion.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    People do owe themselves there being receipts before they speak, absolutely. No, they don't. Especially not here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=water%20cooler%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
    - computerthings 2y ago
      Sure, it's a watercooler, with Blockwarts that seek to prevent any discussion of the giant yellow bulldozer outside the window, but when you ask them if they don't have to work sometimes, they never make the case why other people can only talk about what they like. They just stare, and then interrupt again. > Please don't post shallow dismissals The person I replied to picked the part from a link I did NOT quote, ignored what I did I quote, everything else I wrote, and said "this one is easy". And then even that "one easy thing" was just a straw man. They used the phrase "owing receipts" to refer to something I said, misrepresenting or rather simply not caring about the contexts that did refer to, instead making up a straw man, what they preferred imagining it to be. I obviously ignored the straw man, and re-used their word "receipts" instead of repeating my original phrasing, but it's the same thing. It means what it actually means, not what the straw man made it out to be. Don't say random shit. That's implied in not posting shallow dismissals, random shit is a subset of shallow dismissal. And if you can't rephrase what you said, or how it's applicable or relevant, because you haven't thought about it at all, because it's literally just a knee-jerk "no u" or some slogan, then no, of course you shouldn't say it. I mean, I don't care, I can easily refute it. But for me it just takes up space to refute something that would have been prevented by being parsed by the author first, instead of me parsing it first.

pvg 2y ago

From your linked comment: who never followed up when I challenge them. That one seems really straightforward - people don't owe you receipts for their views or explanations for their motivations. The aspirational goal of the place is conversation, not interrogation.

computerthings 2y ago
> That one seems really straightforward - people don't owe you receipts for their views or explanations for their motivations. Everything "seems straightforward" when you just make up what seems convenient without actually inspecting what is there, or the "aspirations" of the comments I'm referring to. People do owe themselves there being receipts before they speak, absolutely. This is not a diary, this is making claims in public. Of course they have to stand up to scrutiny, or get retracted. What else? What do you consider intellectually honest where that isn't the minimum? If I ask what is the thought process here, and there is only evasion, because there is no thought process, or I ask what some wishy washy phrases means in practice, in the actual context it was used as an argument in, and I get nothing, then that's because there was just this wishy washy phrase. The respective people can prove that wrong. You can't do it for them. Why even try? Why even go there? If I say "what you just wrote is racist so the opposite is true" and you ask "how so?" and then I don't reply because it was obviously bullshit, then that's not some high-fallutin' principled stand for good faith conversation, it's really just people trying something, failing, not acknowledging that, to keep doing it. It's the opposite of good faith discussion.
- tptacek 2y ago
  People do owe themselves there being receipts before they speak, absolutely. No, they don't. Especially not here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=water%20cooler%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - computerthings 2y ago
    Sure, it's a watercooler, with Blockwarts that seek to prevent any discussion of the giant yellow bulldozer outside the window, but when you ask them if they don't have to work sometimes, they never make the case why other people can only talk about what they like. They just stare, and then interrupt again. > Please don't post shallow dismissals The person I replied to picked the part from a link I did NOT quote, ignored what I did I quote, everything else I wrote, and said "this one is easy". And then even that "one easy thing" was just a straw man. They used the phrase "owing receipts" to refer to something I said, misrepresenting or rather simply not caring about the contexts that did refer to, instead making up a straw man, what they preferred imagining it to be. I obviously ignored the straw man, and re-used their word "receipts" instead of repeating my original phrasing, but it's the same thing. It means what it actually means, not what the straw man made it out to be. Don't say random shit. That's implied in not posting shallow dismissals, random shit is a subset of shallow dismissal. And if you can't rephrase what you said, or how it's applicable or relevant, because you haven't thought about it at all, because it's literally just a knee-jerk "no u" or some slogan, then no, of course you shouldn't say it. I mean, I don't care, I can easily refute it. But for me it just takes up space to refute something that would have been prevented by being parsed by the author first, instead of me parsing it first.