by throw10920 | 2025-08-20 04:21:43+00:00
> There's nothing automatically unbiased and unmanipulative about criticism, and there's nothing automatically justified and useful about criticism.

I neither claimed nor implied either of those things, and it's pretty clear that my argument rests on neither.

> I have to skim read and filter out piles of irrelevant miserable put-down dismissive low-thought low-effort dross and it often isn't even about the topic of the post!

So, you conceded that you put "evidence" in your original comment that was completely irrelevant to my points, and are trying to divert the argument.

> opening a thread full of cynicism has a manipulative effect on the reader's emotional state

This is false, and completely nonsensical. A bunch of comments from different, uncoordinated entities literally cannot be "manipulative" according to the literal dictionary definition of the word, which requires intention, which literally cannot happen with a bunch of random unassociated strangers:

"A manipulative person tries to control people to their advantage" "tending to influence or control someone or something to your advantage, often without anyone knowing it"[1]

This is you misusing language to try to bolster your point.

> counter your implied claim that enthusiasm is manipulative and criticism isn't

There is zero implication of that anywhere in my comment. That's the third time you've dishonestly put words in my mouth.

> But they explicitly dismiss the bad takes and not every single take?

Yet again, factually false, and extremely dishonest. You know very well that there's no way to tell which takes they considered to be "bad" and so that this is a general dismissal of criticism they disagree with.

> You said "they want to shut down criticism of something they like" as if that's a bad thing which should not be happening.

With the context of my original comment, which is specifically the case of the emotionally manipulative "The negativity here is amazing" type - yes, that's obviously a bad thing, because it's being done in a manipulative way that doesn't address the problems of the critical comment.

> You argued that point. [...] If you argue that, then you think criticism has some inherent value.

No, it very obviously does not. That's a very bad reading comprehension and/or logical thinking failure, and the fourth time you've put words in my mouth.

It's pretty embarrassing that I have to spell this out in so much detail, but because you repeatedly misinterpret my words and maliciously put words in my mouth, here we go: I believe that some criticism has value and some does not. The kind of "wow why is everyone so negative" categorical dismissal both dismisses valueless criticism (which is fine, in isolation) and dismisses valid criticism, which is malicious and bad. I never once said that criticism has inherent value, nor did I imply it, nor does any part of my argument rest upon that point.

> there area vastly more options to criticise a thing than to praise a thing, so people who choose criticism are more likely pulling from a big pool of low effort cached thoughts, than a small pool of high effort (positive or critical) thoughts, so a critical comment is more likely a bad comment than a good comment. Dismissing a whole lot of critical comments in one go is therefore a reasonable response.

This is an extremely bad argument. Humans are not statistical models. Thoughts are not a mathematical space that you randomly sample from. Dismissing someone's argument via emotional manipulation is evil. Categorically dismissing a bunch of comments via emotional manipulation when you have the full capability to assess the bad ones individually (via downvoting, flagging, or responding) is also evil and indicates that you are a person who either fundamentally does not have the ability to think rationally, or is malicious enough that they employ this technique anyway because they're trying to manipulate others.

> OK let's go with, you said: "undermines people's critical thinking skills" and I say "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"

This is dishonest rhetorical reframing. If you write an emotionally manipulative comment that doesn't make a logical argument but uses charged language to undermine a position without actually addressing its points logically, that subverts someone's logical thinking capability by pressuring them to respond emotionally, because by definition it's a manipulative statement. That is tautologically true and needs zero evidence.

> particularly because the ratio of possible criticisms to possible praise is something approaching infinity-to-one

And, as we previously discussed, this is a meaningless statement that has no basis in reality because statements are not mathematical sets. And, even if they were, this is a claim for which the statement "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" applies. I'm looking forward to your proof that the measure of criticisms in the set of statements is greater than the measure of the set of praise.

> most critical comments on a HN thread are not worth reading

This is also a "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" case. And, here, it turns out that it's fairly easy to gather evidence against it - for instance, the first five critical comments on that Nim thread (44938094, 44939336, 44939757, 44939770, and 44941418) are all worth reading and not zero-value. I'm looking forward to you finding every single critical comment in that thread and labeling them as worth reading or not to support your very bold claim.

And, of course, that undermines your entire argument at the end - not that the other inferences were valid anyway:

> It's justified to dismiss them in bulk, because the space of possible critical/engaging comments means the work to respond to every bad take is far too much

Nobody said you had to respond to those critical comments individually - there are flag and downvote buttons, you know. And even if there weren't - emotionally undermining someone's logical point is evil, so this still is not justified, unless there are zero valid criticisms made in the entire thread (and you somehow have the clairvoyance to know that none will be posted after you make your comment). The ends do not justify the means.

Your entire response was full of logical fallacies, dishonest manipulation and reframing, failure to read and/or understand my points, and repeated lying and trying to claim I said or meant something that I never did (four times now).

I don't think it's possible to argue logically with you, so this is now no longer about changing your mind, and more about countering your invalid claims so that other HN readers won't be deceived.

And, given the voting on our respective comments, I think that I've done a pretty good job so far.

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/manipula...