Re:Ham radio operators are saving Puerto Rico (2017)
by mehrdadn on Saturday March 10, 2018 @05:31PM
(#16560514)
In all honesty I find it borderline impossible to say things in such a way that I will not be misunderstood on HN, at least if I plan to get anything else done during the rest of my day. A lot of people here go out of their way to misinterpret and/or take the most extreme interpretation of every comment, or to just change the discussion topic to something else while ignoring the actual comment.
Case in point for all of these was here: I was trying to replying to was "there is no downside to X but Y", and I replied with "what about Z?". A logical response could have ranged anywhere from "Yes, Z is also a downside that is worth mentioning" to "I'm not sure, because $reasons", to "No, Z is not really a downside because it would cause problem W". But instead people just went out of their ways to just ignore the actual point and provide replies ranging from "if you don't like it don't use it" (this was you, defending ham radio, as if me pointing out 1 downside is an attack on the entire concept) to "feature, !bug" (as if I somehow thought Z was an accident, or as if something being intentional automatically implies it must be an upside) to "that's how V behaves too" (which is wrong because, no, V doesn't force Z to happen, and even when Z does happen, it's far harder to exploit... and which, even if correct, would also be irrelevant to the point in the first place).
It's not that I can't, it's just that it honestly sucks all energy out of me (and the time out of my day) to try to preempt all these kinds of misinterpretations or topic changes from my comment. Not just that, but even when I do find the time and energy to do this, I just find that others come along who just cherry-pick the one sentence they disagree with and ignore all the rest of the comment explaining the nuances behind that one sentence. When I'm writing an article or a paper where the stakes are higher, I do find it worthwhile to try to do that (and it's still not easy). But over here, I just kind of always have this glimmer of hope that people will not go out of their way to start an uphill battle for me when non ever existed in the first place.
Case in point for all of these was here: I was trying to replying to was "there is no downside to X but Y", and I replied with "what about Z?". A logical response could have ranged anywhere from "Yes, Z is also a downside that is worth mentioning" to "I'm not sure, because $reasons", to "No, Z is not really a downside because it would cause problem W". But instead people just went out of their ways to just ignore the actual point and provide replies ranging from "if you don't like it don't use it" (this was you, defending ham radio, as if me pointing out 1 downside is an attack on the entire concept) to "feature, !bug" (as if I somehow thought Z was an accident, or as if something being intentional automatically implies it must be an upside) to "that's how V behaves too" (which is wrong because, no, V doesn't force Z to happen, and even when Z does happen, it's far harder to exploit... and which, even if correct, would also be irrelevant to the point in the first place).
It's not that I can't, it's just that it honestly sucks all energy out of me (and the time out of my day) to try to preempt all these kinds of misinterpretations or topic changes from my comment. Not just that, but even when I do find the time and energy to do this, I just find that others come along who just cherry-pick the one sentence they disagree with and ignore all the rest of the comment explaining the nuances behind that one sentence. When I'm writing an article or a paper where the stakes are higher, I do find it worthwhile to try to do that (and it's still not easy). But over here, I just kind of always have this glimmer of hope that people will not go out of their way to start an uphill battle for me when non ever existed in the first place.