Why isn’t the L in uppercase for the URL acronym?
Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
131–140 of 282 posts
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#132This should go for almost everything written in a newspaper. We all know about the the intentional spin and unintentional failure to understand technical topics but, when written in a newspaper, hearsay is treated as factual secondary source.
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#133I hate URL fights. I give little extra value to people providing links with their clams. I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Discussion on the internet is broken in most places (HN is less broken than most). I find little value providing URLs. Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it, fewer actually want to read it in an intellectually…
furthermore, calling for citations is primarily an expression of disbelief, not a furthering of discussion.
either the argument was indeed faulty, in which case the responder should call out the weakness directly, or the responder has no specific objection but wants simply to object. it's lazy and should be discouraged (e.g., downvoted). another lazy response is providing links without summarizing the linked content, but i digress.
citations can buttress but never make an argument.
this of course is different from the memes that the author seems to be targeting, which don't make sound arguments in the first place, and no citation will make them rational. it's best to simply ignore those.
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Demanding citations you don't plan to read, to either waste a person's time or to make them look unreliable, is a tactic I've seen used so often I normally don't care to provide links. Instead, I'll just point out some 'so you agree with my argument but doubt data backs it up?' at which point, if they respond, it'll b…
>Edit: To clarify, I mean discussions in other sites. "to clarify" being roughly analogous to "before y'all see what I've written and rush to hit the 'make the wrongthink gray' button before you understand what I've said". Nobody ever got rewarded for trash-talking the platform they were talking on. It's kind of funny to see all throughout these comments people are taking great pains to exempt HN from criticism when…
It was because I was primarily thinking about reddit when I was posting and only after posting did I consider that someone might think I meant on this site. So I decided to immediately edit to clarify any potential confusion, as I do honestly find this place to have one of the best chances of 'good faith' discussions happening.
That isn't to say discussions here are perfect. Sometimes I do find people will stereotype or strawman my argument, but I find it happens less here than in any other site and to enough of an extent I don't find it influencing my discussions.
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly why I submitted [1] to HN, coincidentally a few hours ago. IMO, assertions should be computable (if possible) and backed by data. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23896279
I think this could be a great application for a DAG blockchain, with the axioms of a given scientific field as initial seed blocks. Then any proofs can be derived using the previous blocks, and, should any proof be disproved the whole sub chain depending on it would collapse and need to be rewritten “remined”
Don't Gödel's incompleteness theorems show that this approach is impossible even for a domain as simple as arithmetic?
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#136Isn't this just a submarine post to put a quote about masks and people who don't wear them on top of HN?
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still remember one fake news site that took this to the extreme, in that it linked to a story that flat out didn't exist on the site it linked to. You clicked on the link, and you just ended up with a 404 error page. The fact that fooled anyone should probably give you a worrying insight into how many people are willing to trust/distrust links without even clicking on them. But yeah, either way, make sure the link…
About five or six years ago I spent a long time making outrageous claims on Reddit, and I'd wrap various parts of it in link tags. The links would go to random nytime articles, random papers, or simply nowhere at all. Then I'd watch as the outrageous claim propagated (this in niche communities). It was absolutely terrifying. I never, ever got called out. EDIT: I'm remembering now I'd pretend to be all sorts of people…
There is a huge asymmetry between the effort to make an outrageous claim and that to refute one.
> I never, ever got called out.
In Reddit parlance: ain't nobody got time for that
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still remember one fake news site that took this to the extreme, in that it linked to a story that flat out didn't exist on the site it linked to. You clicked on the link, and you just ended up with a 404 error page. The fact that fooled anyone should probably give you a worrying insight into how many people are willing to trust/distrust links without even clicking on them. But yeah, either way, make sure the link…
About five or six years ago I spent a long time making outrageous claims on Reddit, and I'd wrap various parts of it in link tags. The links would go to random nytime articles, random papers, or simply nowhere at all. Then I'd watch as the outrageous claim propagated (this in niche communities). It was absolutely terrifying. I never, ever got called out. EDIT: I'm remembering now I'd pretend to be all sorts of people…
When I was in university one of my friends tried to win a bet at a bar by editing a Wikipedia page to add the outrageous claim he made. At first my trust in Wikipedia increased because it got removed in less then an hour. The next day it decreased, because he registered a free blog account, published one post with his outrageous claim in it (and basically nothing else), then edited Wikipedia again adding the blog as a source. That edit stayed up for years. He still tells that story when drinking with friends...
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#139As many of those who have read academic papers know, even claims with citations are often suspicious. Time and time again I've found cited sources that don't say what was claimed. Sometimes, citations are not specific enough (e.g., citing a huge book rather than the specific page with the evidence). So, better than giving a URL would be to give a URL with a "fragment" if possible, i.e., #id. https://en.wikipedia.org/…
you should be able to make an argument without resting primarily and directly on other people's words, even if you largely rest on other people's ideas. whether it convinces any particular person is largely out of your control, and shouldn't consume the debate. citations don't change that calculus.
Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> providing links ... when called out People got so used to seeing links up to the point a fight might end in a "URL request": you have to sustain your claims by bringing a link to the discussion, and if you fail to do so, you are wrong. Like if every research and every paper, study or whatever is publicly accessible and indexed. If am I wrong, please provide a link to a study which demonstrates it.
I claim there is a tea pot in orbit around the sun. I can’t sustain my claims by bringing a link, you need to provide reference to prove that I am wrong.
While difficult for me to characterize, I feel that there is a middle ground for more casual interactions that doesn't call for maximum rigor so as to fend off the most radical claims. In practice, we can just dismiss them without engaging.