Comment by dang
1 year ago
The trick is to realize that if you've made a good point, readers will be smart enough to notice that the other person is just coming back with new bullshit. You don't need the last word to win an argument; being first to walk away actually adds power to your argument. If you've said what needs to be said, no "whatabout" can cancel it, and you'll weaken your case if you chase after it.
I still suck at this in practice but I'm sure of it in theory!
(I'm working on a longer reply to you at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39158911, but I can't resist replying here too because I feel like I figured this one out after 15+ years of frustration.)
Agreed on both the advice and the difficulty of engaging in practice.
What I'll frequently do where a counterparty has looped back to an earlier position is to simply link directly to my earlier response to that point, with the implicit statement "we've already covered this ground, I'm not going to repeat myself".
Walking away from such discussions is still challenging as there's always a temptation to respond. This is where employing HN's thread-collapse feature is useful. I'll typically do this at some point above my final response. The threads remain closed until the post is about two weeks old per earlier discussions with dang.
Say whatever else you will about him but pg was really good at this.
At least it's an ethos!