First, thank you for the long reply. I know the effort and time involved in typing those out and I really appreciate your taking it.

> On the contrary, the problem with a natural language is that is imprecise, vague and ambiguous.

These are attributes of natural language, but I do not see how their existence invalidates my argument. Natural language is ambiguous because words are like variables that can take different values depending on the situation. Any advanced society necessarily requires the shared context and for the other side to make assumptions about what is not said in order to communicate at the very high bandwidth required to deal with the complexity of life.

For example, imagine two buddies meeting at the bar after a hard day of work. One of them sips his beer then says "man... that was a long, long day." He does not literally mean that the day contained more work hours than usual. He is bonding by expressing a hint of shared feelings (that they are satisfied with a hard day's work and can begin relaxing) to his colleague with whom he just shared an experience. I just provided you with context with the early part of the story: bar, long day, beer... which allows you to understand what he says.

And this is why I need to make assumptions in order to further understanding and discussion:

> it's so easy to allow assumptions to creep into one's interpretation of it

> I don't know if the poster is an objectivist

It does not matter if you know or not. Every word posted on a public forum is an attempt at convincing somebody of something, a means of spreading a message or communicating a feeling (as in the case above - although these comments are relatively rare on HN). A brief one liner has to be very well chosen in order to be effective, as it assumes a good read on people's mindsets, the context, and their background in order to have the intended effect. My comment was that the way your comment read was an attack on more than the book.

> "Appeal to emotion" is a logical fallacy

The way I understand it, appeal to emotion is a family of fallacies used to advance arguments without taking a reasoned path, with a subconscious or conscious goal to do so.

> Not every form of discourse is an argument. Mine certainly wasn't and I suspect John's wasn't either.

This is where we disagree. Anything you post here will be read by others and might influence their thinking. Whether or not you want to, you send a message with your comments. Whether or not you meant to have an impact, your words will have that impact. "I didn't mean to hurt X" is not an excuse for inconsiderateness.

> Rather, it means that I don't think I'm good enough at arguing to produce any net worth by engaging in the discussion of a comment like yours.

A different opinion is ALWAYS welcome. The only way to learn is to put oneself in the other's point of view and see if there is something to it...

> out of a highly emotional motivation

What would you guess is my motivation? Most highly emotional "motivation" of irrational arguments is linked to belonging to a tribe and having to accept its arguments in order to further the power of its voice (as members acting in concert predictably are exponentially more powerful as a result). My understanding is that you believe/d that I belong to the "Objectivist" tribe. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have no interest in debating ownership or not to a tribe; I think such arguments are automatic ways to engage discussion onto emotional ground and away from what you might call "fact".

For example, you might debate the idea of taxing pollution. You can argue about it from the point of view of Tragedy of the Commons in economics and trying to establish some kind of net welfare equation, or you can argue against it by saying "you pinko commie" and for it by saying "you fascist tax evader from the 1%". The latter form of argumentation is extremely noxious to civilisation, which is why I oppose it.

> Regardless of the context of HN "and its sophisticated audience and level of discussion", sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes a person might state the equivalent of "I think 'Atlas Shrugged' is crap and adults who wholeheartedly buy into it should know better" and it might not be a slippery slope to a dystopian future where all rational argument has been replaced by Trump/Clinton debates; sometimes a person's sense of humor is impolite to a certain audience and the best reply is more along the lines of "Dude, don't be a jerk" rather than "The test results say you are a horrible person; we weren't even testing for that." ;)

http://reactionimage.org/img/gallery/9325080020.jpg