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The very first thing I did was ... change the wordsYou did not mention that you had changed the words, and Hacker News does not present me with older posts in the thread, so I literally had no idea you did that. Since you changed the words, why didn't you just say so, instead of trying to defend your straw man?
Also, now that you've changed the words, I still disagree with what you wrote, because you're making an implicit assumption as to what it means for a company to be important, without defining that assumption. And without defining that assumption, you don't really have a basis for claiming that the op is wrong. Obviously op is wrong by your definition of important, but not wrong by their definition of important.
But at least it isn't a straw man anymore.
> And given that all you've done here is attack, attack, attack, what do you expect me to do other than be defensive?
I told you that you were committing a very obvious logical fallacy, and instead of simply saying "you're right, I've now changed the wording so my argument is no longer depending upon that logical fallacy", you started trying to accuse me of what is ultimately a meaningless non-semantic distinction in an attempt to trivialize and discredit my original response.
> Since you like logic, you'll like this: if you don't understand what I'm saying, then it's not a straw man on my part
That's bullshit. I do understand what you're saying. It may not be what you meant to say, but I can't look inside your head and figure out what you meant to say, all I can do is respond to the actual argument you write down. If that argument is wrong, the fault does not lie with me in pointing out the straw man, the fault lies with you in not expressing your argument in a manner that can be understood correctly and without logical fallacy.
> Not once have you 'just admitted' that you might have been off-kilter, not even an "I still disagree with you, but yeah, I could have behaved better"
What? What is this, kindergarden? Do I have to apologize to you for disagreeing with your argument and pointing out a logical fallacy? That's ridiculous. Nothing I have said in this thread is needlessly antagonistic or rude, or otherwise uncalled-for. The fact that you went on the defensive instead of appropriately responding to my criticism does not make my criticism something that I need to apologize for.