Comment by perching_aix
2 days ago
It genuinely seemed to me that they were looking for empirical reproductions of a formal proof, which is a nonsensical demand and objection given what formal proofs are. My question was spurred on by this and genuine.
I now see in the other subthread what they mean.
It may be that there wasn't enough information in your comment for me to read its intent correctly. I thought you were taking a snarky swipe at the other commenter—especially because most people on HN can be presumed to know what a formal proof is.
If that was the case, I apologize for misreading you! If you're interested, I can point you to https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for past explanations about this type of misunderstanding and how to avoid it in the future.
Thank you, I'll try to keep it in mind. I'll admit that the curtness of my original question was not just you misreading it, but it did (also) come from a place of genuine confusion.
For what it's worth, it's not even that I don't see merit to their points. I'm just unable to trust that they're being genuine, not the least for how they conduct themselves (which I only fault them for so much). This also impacts my ability to reason about their points clearly.
Sadly, I'm not able to pitch any systematic solutions.