Be careful about what you dislike • Hacker News Board

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#61

Post by wolfgke » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #8

praseodym wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a bit like "is" vs. "is being"?

The "is being" construct also exists by using the two verbs ("estar a ser") but it's not the same. Basically in order of permanence: ser -> a mostly permanent characteristic estar -> a current characteristic that could change in the future estar a ser -> a characteristic of the specific interaction

In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12879933 you gave an example of "estar a ser" for Portuguese. Since I currently try to learn both Spanish and Portuguese: Does a form similar to "estar a ser" also exist in Spanish or is it specific to Portuguese?

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#62

Post by Unman » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:05 PM UTC

Hmmm... while agreeing with the sentiment I am unimpressed by the lack of evidence for one of his supporting examples. What stood out for me was this bald assertion with no reference to falsifiable specifics:

"_Not_only_was_it_already_a_much_improved_agreement_from_ the_start_,but it kept being modified from the initial public version of it to the one that was finally sent to national parliaments."

Either the writer of this is an expert on the topic, well-known in the field and the weight of this judgement on its own is a valuable primary source; or, the writer is referring to such an analysis conducted by other experts but has not bothered to include a citation/link; or, the writer has their own critique but instead of presenting _that_ has just stated an opinion which they know to be controversial.

All of the above possibilities contribute substantially to the noise around any discussion.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#63

Post by eric_cc » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

cyberpanther wrote: post #32

A very common cognitive bias or logic pattern our brain follows is to whitelist or blacklist things. When we trust something, we follow it without question or we begin rationalizing it no matter what. And in the day of the internet and Google we can confirm basically any bias we have on either side of an issue. You should scrutinize your own thoughts and opinions and others to see if they are just believing something…

> JS has the best trajectory right now of any language out there

> I've found it best to not be so opinionated about everything

Lol

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#64

Post by hiou » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

I find that people who sit in the greys tend to be very worried about their public perception or have very little passion beyond maintaining personal comfort.

The people I look for are those that take strong stands but are willing and able to adjust and even quickly reverse those stances.

To me it's the difference between a leader and a worker bee.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#65

Post by chucksmash » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

Espousing nuanced opinions and making effective arguments are often at odds though. It's very easy for people to lose the thread of an argument if it is chock full of footnotes.

I try to aim for "strong opinions, weakly held" - present a specific, actionable and strong position but be open to changing it if a better argument is made.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#66

Post by jerf » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

eric_cc wrote: post #63

cyberpanther wrote: post #32

A very common cognitive bias or logic pattern our brain follows is to whitelist or blacklist things. When we trust something, we follow it without question or we begin rationalizing it no matter what. And in the day of the internet and Google we can confirm basically any bias we have on either side of an issue. You should scrutinize your own thoughts and opinions and others to see if they are just believing something…

> JS has the best trajectory right now of any language out there > I've found it best to not be so opinionated about everything Lol

To be fair, JS does have a pretty good trajectory. When you start from near the absolute bottom, there's nowhere to go but up. I do not mean that as a crack against the language; it is an observation that even JS partisans ought to agree with if they think for a moment. I'm looking back all the way to its creation, when it was a language designed to handle onclick events that fit into one attribute tag. There was a lot of up to go from there.

However, looking into the future and seeing where a language with Javascript's technical foundation can end up, it's hard to see it ever exceeding Python 3 or Ruby, and both of those languages, while perhaps not in outright decline, are certainly looking at having peaked and entering their "maturity" phase. Confident declarations that it is the future are probably not warranted when it is at most the present. I don't think WebAssembly will "kill" Javascript any time soon, but once it really gets going it's going to start eating away at all the really big uses of it, because WebAssembly will permit languages that can fit into niches other than the 1990s-style dynamic language maxima. It's a nice maxima (totally no sarcasm, I'm just barely old enough to have tasted the paradigms it replaced and dynamic languages got as big as they did for a reason) but it's now in 2016 also abundantly clear it's not the only one.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#67

Post by kstenerud » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

It's unfortunate, but we have a tendency to take some beliefs so deeply that they become a part of our core identity. Once this happens, validation of the idea becomes validation of ourselves. Attacks upon the idea become attacks upon ourselves.

Once someone has reached this point, logic simply cannot reach them. Successfully defeating their arguments will only strengthen their resolve (the backfire effect), because they're being driven by the amygdala, which only understands threat response. They will grab onto any argument, no matter how flimsy, and be completely unaware of how little sense it makes. Any further argument with them will at best do nothing, at worst make you look as much a fool as he.

The wise man learns to recognize this state and back off.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#68

Post by dahart » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

andybak wrote: post #2

I'm fascinated by the topic of English Prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime It introduced me to the idea that 'is' should be treated very carefully. Any assertion outside of strict formal languages that use it are half-truths at best. It also introduces heightens the emotional tone of a discussion. If you say "John is foo" you tend to create the impression that John will always and has always been foo. Foo-ne…

I had never heard of E-Prime, but this reminded me of Reginald Braithwaite's presentation "Optimism" [1].

He advocates becoming aware of when people use temporary or permanent language, and suggests using temporary language for criticizing other people and permanent language for praising people. This is a brilliant bit of human psychology that is highly practical in everyday situations.

I don't know whether E-Prime is practical, it seems problematic to try to police the language itself, but the goals & rationale have a good heart. We probably would be better off if we could all speak less dogmatically and hyperbolically.

I do recall someone here on HN mentioning attempts to create a new language in which one could not lie, I wonder if E-prime was what was being referred to...

  [1] https://github.com/raganwald/presentations/blob/master/optimism.md
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12298898

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#69

Post by twic » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

hiou wrote: post #64

hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

I find that people who sit in the greys tend to be very worried about their public perception or have very little passion beyond maintaining personal comfort. The people I look for are those that take strong stands but are willing and able to adjust and even quickly reverse those stances. To me it's the difference between a leader and a worker bee.

> The people I look for are those that take strong stands but are willing and able to adjust and even quickly reverse those stances.

Sometimes called "strong opinions, weakly held".

I find this principle to be incoherent - if you understand something well enough to have a strong opinion, you understand it well enough to hold that opinion strongly. Holding strong opinions on things you don't understand that well seems unhelpful.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#70

Post by Veen » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

minusf wrote: post #50

for me personally it is news the_mitsuhiko is "not vocally against python3 anymore". i cannot find any other recent blog posts besides this one, where python3 is praised or encouraged fully. so why be surprised if people still think he is a big python3 critic? as i see it, the issue is less about parroting other's outdated technical opinions, it's about not being vocal enough about the change of heart.

> i cannot find any other recent blog posts besides this one, where python3 is praised or encouraged fully. So why be surprised if people think he's a big python critic.

I think this attitude is exactly what the article argues against.

If (1) you read his earlier posts about python 3 and (2) understood the specific objections and (3) are aware the current state of python 3 is such that those objections don't apply, then you have no good reason to suppose he still considers them to be valid objections.

If (3) isn't the case, you still don't have a good reason to assume his opinions haven't changed, because the world moves on and that has to be accounted for.