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A comment on Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009). Parent comment

Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by montalbano on Saturday February 29, 2020 @03:26PM (#22452848)
Your point about genetic engineering capability is true (source: spent two years working in an advanced plant science lab).

The latter one I'm not sure about, it's complicated.

The downvoting of this comment seems a little strange to me.

Edit: Thanks for explaining, I get it now, I shouldn't have mentioned it anyway, I was just interested in the scientific substance of parent comment and wondered why others seemed not to be (I get it now, it wasn't the scientific aspect of the comment which was against HN guidelines).

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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by dang on Saturday February 29, 2020 @03:32PM (#22452890)
I imagine it was downvoted because of "You can just stop reading right there", which is an internet trope (-> repetitive -> bad for HN) and also needlessly aggressive. The comment would be just fine without that bit—well, plus the snarky "magical". Snark is deprecated on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by DenisM on Saturday February 29, 2020 @03:54PM (#22453028)
Can you add sarcasm next to snark in the guidelines? I’ve never seen sarcasm improve a conversation and it inflames passions unnecessarily. Thanks for considering this, whatever you decide.
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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by dang on Saturday February 29, 2020 @04:24PM (#22453197)
How would you define the difference?
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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by lonelappde on Sunday March 01, 2020 @12:51AM (#22455356)
Sarcasm is writing the opposite of what you mean. It doesn't work in short form text (similar to Poe's Law) but people do it anyway because it works in their internal monologue that has vocal intonation. Even when it works, it's an obnoxious outburst and intellectually devoid of value.

Snark is general obnoxiousness that adds no intellectual value.

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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by DenisM on Saturday February 29, 2020 @06:16PM (#22453909)
It’s not to signify a difference, but to expand coverage. I wouldn’t want to argue with someone saying “I was sarcastic, but not snarky”.

There are many comments ending with /s to signify sarcasm or even /sarcasm or such. It’s easier to point out a transgression when the user has agreed in his mind or his words that he was in fact being sarcastic.

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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by dang on Sunday March 01, 2020 @12:04AM (#22455219)
I think we'd just reply that they're close enough to count as the same thing for HN purposes. "Don't be snarky" is nice and short.
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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by DenisM on Sunday March 01, 2020 @01:09AM (#22455410)
It’s not so much for you as it is for me. I often quote the rules, this would make it easier for me.
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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by dang on Sunday March 01, 2020 @08:39PM (#22460847)
Ah I see. If it comes up, you can point to this subthread, or you can always ping us at [email protected]. Thanks for quoting the rules and helping to preserve this place!
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Re:Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment (2009) by Causality1 on Saturday February 29, 2020 @05:08PM (#22453507)
It's hero worship. Dyson was an innovator and very much an outside the box thinker. He was also fond of what rationalists call "magical thinking".

"What the secular faith of Dysonism offers is, first, a hypertrophied version of the technological fix, and second, the fantasy that, should the fix fail, we have someplace else to go."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-dan...

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