Comment by dang
2 years ago
Edit: I took a closer look, and it turns out that you've been posting abusively to HN for quite some time and using the site primarily for battle and flamewar. I've therefore banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
--- original comment below ---
I understand that these are passion-activating topics and that a war is being fought over them right now. Still, it's not ok to take HN threads into hellish flamewars, so please don't do this here.
HN is for curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. That requires thoughtfulness, respect for others, and even a certain playfulness. If you're not in that state about a topic, please don't post on that topic for the time being.
All I can say, dan (and knowing this won't change your action): this wasn't my intent.
You've got some straight-up trolls running around, posting blatantly pernicious nonsense in regard to these topics -- obviously without sincere intent, simply to push buttons.
Mixed with some merely woefully naive and/or highly obstinate folks, posting basically noise (wildly inaccurate narratives about extremely basic historical matters or recent events).
If there is a better strategy or tone to use for countering this kind of negative behavior -- I wish I knew what it was.
In my experience, internet commenters are far too quick to assume that others are pernicious trolls without sincere intent. This is basically a Russell conjugation.
Once you've framed the other that way, it's easy to feel that you no longer need to follow the rules—since if the other person is pernicious and insincere, they should obviously just be annihilated.
This is how we end up in the flamewar situation where we end up having to ban accounts. Since everyone is following this logic, everyone is trying to annihilate the other. From an outside point of view, the interesting thing is how similarly all the parties are behaving, even as they perceive each other as enemies and opposites.
By far the better strategy is to resist this temptation altogether—to look for interpretations of the other as not pernicious or insincere, but rather sincere and legitimate—and then to try to meet them respectfully. This is a massively more effective way to go about it, and also won't get you banned here.
You know you're right, Dan - 'pernicious' is not the best mental model to use here. No matter how ineluctably dreary some of these leavings my seem.
So a non-reciprocal response would be more effective.