How to Disagree • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Disagree

#31

Post by TheAmazingIdiot » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 7:26 PM UTC

nika wrote: post #11

DH0, upvoted to 5 (while my comments are 0 and -1): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138625 This was my first day. I stuck around for a day or two, then I just logged out and stopped participating. Just use this as a site to find links, and when you're not logged in there's no incentive to go see what people said in reply to you, and no focus on karma score or anything. I don't know if the site requires a certain…

I have seen similar objections to my comments, along with the downvotes. Just as yummyfajitas said, if you evoke cognitive dissonance or frankly mess with peoples' worldview, they will downvote you. It matters not if you are discussing in a matters of science or otherwise.

Meditation seems to be a popular thing here on HN, given the amount of "Zen", "Meditation", Buddhism, and other Eastern topics. One of my specialities is specifically Yoga, Tantra, and Tibetan Buddhism. Meditation is a key part of these practices, as is other spiritual and religious work.

However, the disjoin I witness here is although meditation is seen as good benefit, anything spiritual and/or religious is downvoted to oblivion. One of the first lessons in proper meditation is shielding, yet the naysayers come out in droves. The Hindus have fond Asana to deal with the itches and movements when trying to meditate. Tumo was developed by the ascetic monks in the Tibetan mountains to generate massive amounts of body heat. Reincarnation, in Tibet, is not seen as some religious belief but as a fact of life. This is to the point that payments can be arranged between lifetimes.

I can discuss these techniques at length, as well as do some of them. I'm still learning and do not claim to be any sort of master. However, if these people want to learn about meditation, they better as well know how meditation fails, what happens when you succeed, and pitfalls thereof. Yet when I mention, there are a few who are genuinely curious, and a majority who -1.

Re: How to Disagree

#32

Post by jsyedidia » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

medwezys wrote: post #28

Sorry for offtopic, but (with all due respect to author and content) why da heck 95'ish buttons in website menu? They are burning my eyeballs and make me feel old.

The explanation is all here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1597129

Nobody criticize the Yahoo Store buttons!

Re: How to Disagree

#33

Post by sfphotoarts » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 7:52 PM UTC

"Most people don't really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can't help it."

I wish this point had been expanded upon, but I feel like I just saw a bunch of weasels sucking eggs.

It would make a very interesting essay on the origins of meanness, clearly (citation needed) it has evolutionary advantage (or is a side effect of such). I wonder if a poll could be constructed that would given to enough people would support or refute pg's claim. Given limited resources and if it comes down to me feed my family or you feed yours I'm pretty sure the past 600million years of brain development would kick in and side with meanness, but we live in a time of relative plenty and given those conditions I truly wonder where human nature falls.

Re: How to Disagree

#34

Post by jimmyjim » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:04 PM UTC

Older discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021060

Re: How to Disagree

#35

Post by GrangalanJr » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:07 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #16

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know. This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) se…

In Bryan Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher, he describes exactly this habit as the thing that impressed him most about Karl Popper.

I think some fear that giving an opposing position (X) the best possible interpretation, or responding to the smartest supporters of X, might make their own position (Y) look weaker by comparison, perhaps so much so that some readers will decide to buy into X rather than Y after all! "Strawmanning" is the easier route, as it saves one the bother of having to come up with powerful or detailed counterarguments.

Re: How to Disagree

#36

Post by stcredzero » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:14 PM UTC

ehsanul wrote: post #25

stcredzero wrote: post #16

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know. This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) se…

That's an enlightening comment. How can I stop being a "faker", as you call it? I, and probably some other HNers, are often pretty critical or take things people say more literally than they meant often, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt with a more liberal interpretation. I realize this is usually not conducive to "profound and productive interactions", but it is almost second nature for me, something…

How can I stop being a "faker", as you call it? I, and probably some other HNers, are often pretty critical or take things people say more literally than they meant often, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt with a more liberal interpretation.

    1) Find something fundamental to be secure in.
    2) Just stop being a faker.
    3) Get busy doing the real thing.

The first is the most important. One of the professors I admired greatly would always give your idea his best effort, because he knew that the mathematics would eventually cause it to blow up if it wasn't correct. Find first principles that you can take as iron clad, then always build off of those with honesty and humility. There was never a reason for him to grasp at straws to fabricate a straw man. He knew there were solid theories he could work from and test as hard as he could. He also never had a reason to pretend something was more solid than he actually knew it to be.

That's all well and fine for hard sciences, I guess, but the same goes for most of the softer disciplines as well. History is often your friend. Find the historical precedents and examine them honestly.

EDIT: Another thing you can do, if you haven't already, is read this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...

Re: How to Disagree

#37

Post by patrickk » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:15 PM UTC

djcapelis wrote: post #15

xlorm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was assuming po meant some automatic system. If you wanted to use humans maybe you could have moderators do it. I agree that it'd be dangerous to let anyone tag. People on YouTube usually mark anything they disagree with as spam. Hopefully it wouldn't be the same here though. After reading your comment I realized I've seen downvoted comments but I can't downvote. Is there a karma requirement?

Yes. After you hit a certain karma threshold a down arrow shows up and you are able to downvote. The specific threshold varies, but it's below a thousand and above a hundred.

"The specific threshold varies..." around 200 points if I remember correctly

Re: How to Disagree

#38

Post by wahnfrieden » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:38 PM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #37

djcapelis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. After you hit a certain karma threshold a down arrow shows up and you are able to downvote. The specific threshold varies, but it's below a thousand and above a hundred.

" The specific threshold varies... " around 200 points if I remember correctly

500 now.

Re: How to Disagree

#39

Post by paulbaumgart » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 8:58 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #16

The truly intellectually honest way to disagree: Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Make an earnest attempt to make some form of the idea work in the context of everything you know. This is my litmus test for first-class minds. I've been using this for the past 25 years and I've found that those who truly take this approach are 1) uncommon, 2) impressively smart, 3) genuinely curious, and 4) se…

I think the key realization is that genuinely being right is much more useful (especially in the long-run) than having others perceive you as being right in any particular debate.

Re: How to Disagree

#40

Post by jcr » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 9:09 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #22

telemachos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take the idea in question, and give it some genuine love. Something like this is often known as the principle of charity[1] or the principle of humanity[2]. There's a ton of interesting philosophical work on such principles (why they might be a good idea, whether they underpin all language use, whether they are part of our default belief-desire model for interacting with other people, etc.). But the best succinct v…

But the best succinct version I know comes from a friend I went to grad school with: "Don't be an asshole." Another aspect: If you think you're so smart, that you can already know everyone else's ideas are stupid and don't matter, you're probably just being an asshole.

Spotting your own negativity is a good test, but I prefer to phrase it in more self-effacing terms, "When trying to spot all the assholes in the room, I always need to find a mirror."