Comment by Uehreka
2 years ago
Can we just chill on the whole “using this single word incorrectly breaks your whole argument” thing?
A lot of folks on HN end posts about a company with a sentence like “Disclaimer: I used to work for X”. This language (probably taken from contract law or something) is meant an admission of possible bias but in practice is also a signal that this person may know what they’re talking about more-so than the average person. After reading a lot of posts like this, it might feel reasonable for someone to flip the word around say something like “I need to disclaim…” when beginning a post, in order to signal their proximity to a topic or field as well as any sort of insider bias they may possess.
So sure, “I need to disclose” would’ve been the better word choice, but we all knew what GP was saying. It seems pedantic to imply otherwise.
Let me translate. They said, “I will disclaim I am a professional structural biologist that works in this field every day.”
That is synonymous with saying, “I will deny I am a professional structural biologist that works in this field every day.”
The person posting is actually a structural biologist. What they stated was cognitively dissonant with the intent of their post, and that’s what stopped me.
I don’t pay attention to typos or minor usage issues, but in this case, I read two more sentences and said, “What??”
EDIT: Two more things. First, I found the post interesting and useful. I didn’t say anything about breaking the argument.
Second, “I need to disclose…” is the exact opposite of what they said.
Looks like the downvotes say that your interpretation of this language in this context is not the most common interpretation.
>we all knew what GP was saying
I was confused initially too.