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Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

shkspr.mobi

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Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#191

Post by brlewis »

bokan wrote: post #179
brlewis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it different from this bookmarklet? https://twitter.com/austegard/status/1228150401427529728

The big difference is that the original intended text is encoded in the URL. An element-id fragment is better than just a URL but will often be less granular than the exact text being linked (e.g. a heading). If you're looking to link a citation to a statement, having the text is far more useful since the person following the link doesn't have to now find the statement in a potentially large and broad section. Also,…

The extension needs to be installed by both the creator and the receiver of the URL with the original intended text encoded into it?

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#192

Post by smt88 »

Taek wrote: post #155
smt88 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, this solution doesn't benefit from a blockchain structure. You could do the same thing with an immutable, publicly readable database. The currently unsolvable problem is that there is often disagreement about axioms and proofs bring disproved. Even mathematical proofs can be very controversial. This is one of many problems that humans can't solve yet, which means it's hard/impossible to teach computers to…

Where does that immutability come from? If you have a centralized service controlling the flow of knowledge, this could have its own consequences. Maybe some sort of CRDT + gossip network? But at that point you are quite close to a blockchain. (Not that I'm confident such a thing is a good idea, but I do think that a decent portion of the blockchain stack makes sense given the idea)

> Where does that immutability come from? If you have a centralized service controlling the flow of knowledge, this could have its own consequences.

Data can be:

- decentralized

- public

- immutable

- redundant

- verifiable with asymmetric cryptography

..without being part of a blockchain. The technology to do this has existed much longer than blockchain has as a concept. Torrents are a good example.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#193

Post by enchiridion »

hn_check wrote: post #167
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time and time again I've found cited sources that don't say what was claimed. I've seen that here on HN, too. Person 1 claims X. Person 2 asks for evidence. Person 1 posts a URL, as if it's evidence for X. But when you read the contents carefully, you realize that it doesn't actually provide any evidence for X. It provides evidence for something that's somewhere in the same general topic as X, but that's not what P…

Just as often person 1 says something, providing no citations (but living in a world where we know that anyone can support/debunk with their own searches). Person 2 comes along and posts a retort with a number of citations, properly linked in the footer of their post. HN upvotes person 2. Downvotes person 1 to the nether. Clearly they were debunked. Only person 2's citations were noise [1]. They were just marginally…

It's an appeal to authority that short circuits the fast nature of HN. Most people are just skimming and some will vote based citations.

@dang what do you think of a rule against citation spam?

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#194

Post by smt88 »

marcinzm wrote: post #154
smt88 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, this solution doesn't benefit from a blockchain structure. You could do the same thing with an immutable, publicly readable database. The currently unsolvable problem is that there is often disagreement about axioms and proofs bring disproved. Even mathematical proofs can be very controversial. This is one of many problems that humans can't solve yet, which means it's hard/impossible to teach computers to…

Axioms can also be mutually contradictory and this may not be obvious initially. Then you can prove and disprove everything at the same time.

If axioms are mutually contradictory, that doesn't actually prevent the concept of computing them and attaching them to logical chains.

The core problem with computing them is that no machine can decide whether the axioms are contradictory in the first place. In most cases, even humans won't 100% agree.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#195

Post by cbozeman »

082349872349872 wrote: post #74
duxup wrote: post #59

I 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…

Page 58 of "The Art of Conversing With Men" (an 1805 translation of a 1788 work by Knigge) shows that trolls were a thing in the eighteenth century: > "There are people who pretend to know every thing better than others, contradict every one, frequently against their own conviction, merely for the sake of disputing. There are others who are fond of speaking in parodoxes , and accustomed to maintain assertions which n…

The notion of beating jackasses with a walking cane is supremely satisfying.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#197

Post by cbozeman »

jerf wrote: post #157
082349872349872 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Page 58 of "The Art of Conversing With Men" (an 1805 translation of a 1788 work by Knigge) shows that trolls were a thing in the eighteenth century: > "There are people who pretend to know every thing better than others, contradict every one, frequently against their own conviction, merely for the sake of disputing. There are others who are fond of speaking in parodoxes , and accustomed to maintain assertions which n…

To be honest, lately I've been coming around to the idea that a culture that permits you to simply punch someone who walks up to you and flagrantly insults your spouse is probably more civilized than our culture where the puncher faces years of jail time, while the troll gets to do it risk-free. Let me explicitly say I don't mean this as something to draw out much farther than the example I give. I don't mean to punc…

Masterfully written, sir or ma'am. I agree wholeheartedly.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#198

Post by bokan »

brlewis wrote: post #191
bokan wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big difference is that the original intended text is encoded in the URL. An element-id fragment is better than just a URL but will often be less granular than the exact text being linked (e.g. a heading). If you're looking to link a citation to a statement, having the text is far more useful since the person following the link doesn't have to now find the statement in a potentially large and broad section. Also,…

The extension needs to be installed by both the creator and the receiver of the URL with the original intended text encoded into it?

The extension uses a new URL fragment addition that Chrome has shipped: https://github.com/WICG/scroll-to-text-fragment so these links will work on any Chrome/Chromium-based browser. (in non-Chromium browsers without the extension the link will load but the fragment wont be recognized)

The hope is that this is useful and adopted by other browser engines and links like this would eventually be interoperable.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#199

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

t0mas88 wrote: post #138
komali2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The thing about is that if you create the source, then link it back to Wikipedia, then reference it in Wikipedia, it will not likely go away...

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#200

Post by clairity »

brlewis wrote: post #183
clairity wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Why is expressing disbelief less furthering of discussion than citation-free expression of belief?

because in the first instance, all you're saying is "prove it", implying that the prior reasoning was deficient without specifying the insufficiency. that's vague, lazy, and ultimately unproductive/stifling. at least point out the deficiency, thus furthering the discussion.

the counter is not a non-furthering "citation-free expression of belief", but rather a rationale, a chain of observations leading to a reasonable conclusion, which can largely stand on its own and also furthers the discussion.

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