Comment by vunderba
1 day ago
> It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a critic. I'd rather be a fan.
Trotting out absolute statements does no one any good. I could just as easily spin this on its head and say that it feels socially safe to always show blind enthusiasm for the latest trend lest you be labelled a "hater".
It feels like we're just redefining critic to be synonymous with cynic. There's no reason that you can't simultaneously be both fan and a critic of X.
The absolute irony of this comment :)
The medium is hard to separate from the message; it is built in to threaded commenting by the voting system. People upvote the comments that best express ideas that they support and as a consequence it is usually hard to add to the most highly upvoted comment. But that is the most obvious comment to attach opposing views to. That leads to a predictable tick/tock thread structure where every 2nd post is thematically similar but every other post is contrary.
The irony here is present but better interpreted as the forum structure being biased towards criticism.
You have a very insightful comment here — one small caveat however: it’s the crowd that is biased towards criticism, not the forum structure.
And this just made me realize why I don’t like HN very much. We live in a bizarre state of mind here with a common interest of creation and furtherance, but simultaneously inside the belly of the beast, it is a forum of unconditional criticism.
It’s in good faith obviously. People see an idea and critique it to the edge of existence with the desire help or further an idea; but it becomes a tick/tock that pulls the original idea apart beyond recognition.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything productive come out of the comments on HN, ever. It’s just a slew of people who say you can always do better after taking a long look at your idea, assuming your intended goal is perfection.
The irony is present because of the poster. It is explained by the contents of the post, not by the thread order in which it resides.
:) This is nice closure for engaging less though, sincerely. I see I’ve fallen victim to this mindset with this very comment, in its own irony.
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The original comment already contained its own irony, directing unfair criticism at critics. Hemingway wasn't exactly some impartial observer of human behavior here. He was butthurt that a published commentator once said something bad about his writing.
The reality of military operations, which Hemingway himself probably knew having served himself (though maybe the situation has changed as I can't claim familiarity with the specifics of how it worked over a century ago), is that the biggest critic of any unit involved in a battle post-battle is the unit itself. Every action is always followed by an after-action review, in which you go over what went well, what went wrong, what you should continue, and what you should change. It's neither unrelentingly positive nor negative. It's honest.
But for whatever reason, much of the creative class seems to think anyone who isn't able to do something themselves is universally unqualified to comment on the work of others. Plenty of rather obvious examples show this to be ridiculous. The top coaches and trainers throughout history were rarely great athletes themselves.
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Irony is often the language of truth.
Often is the sometimes of never.
In fact, the best critics of something are often its biggest fans. Roger Ebert, for example, wrote some pretty critical pieces, but nobody can deny that he was driven primarily by a love of cinema. Or take politics: I've seen people complain that left-wing commentators were too critical of Biden when they should have been criticising Trump, but often it's easier — and more useful — to criticise the things you like in the hope that they will improve, rather than spending all your time criticising something you don't like that will never listen to you.
That said, it's still important to take the time to sing the praises of something you like. If Ebert had spent all his time talking down bad films, reading his columns would have been painful drudgery (see also: CinemaSins, Nostalgia Critic, and similar attempts at film-criticism-by-cynicism). A good critic wants their target to succeed, and celebrates when that happens.
Very accurate description. I think this gets missed sometimes. Sometimes you’re criticizing because you know a subject well and want to see it improved.
See also: code review
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It is a real skill to critique a thing and not come off as complaining about it.
Instead of statements, I favor questions. Instead of "I, me, you, etc,", I favor communal "we, the code, the team." Be specific when possible. I try to focus on what should be done vs what shouldn't be done.
"Why did you not handle $situation" -> "how does this code handle $situation?"
"You shouldn't do $thing" -> "$thing has sharp edges, see $link-to-more-info. The general approach used in the code base is to $alternative."
Good observation: The biggest critics are indeed often the biggest fans — but funnily enough often just in a consumerist way.
If you listen to interviees with great writers, musicians, painters or actors you will often find it surprising when they tell you which other arrists they like. That is because the people making the stuff often have a much more open mind about what constitutes interesting and/or good writing, music, paintings or acting.
To me as an practitioner it feels at time that these "enthusiastic consumer critics" are incredibly bitter about not being able to live from the art they love like the ones they critique, so they carve out their niche and give themselves self-worth by playing a strong role in the field they love.
With good critics this love is the predominant message, with bad critics it is the bitterness.
Oh the irony - Sometimes people need to stfu and root for something without pointing out how it could be better. "Awesome! Did you think about..... STFU!"
> Oh the irony - Sometimes people need to stfu and root for something without pointing out how it could be better. "Awesome! Did you think about..... STFU!"
There are many such people already, there are also many haters, and many people in the middle. This diversity is how humanity managed to get this far, we need all of them.
Feels like engaging with the logic and content of an argument is more in the spirit of this website than replying “stfu”.
"You should...."
If you're a real critic, absolutely. But most of what passes for criticism today is just hindsight dressed up as insight. It ignores the fact that choices are made in a fog, assumes outcomes were inevitable, and retroactively assigns blame. It feels like scorekeeping not being a rational/fair critic.
The truth is that for many people criticism and contrarianism serves an extremely simple function: It allows them to sound smart and distinguish themselves from others.
And that explains 90% of all the criticism that has ever been given.