The problem with a comment like this is that there's no detailed rebuttal. What you've given here is more of an aloof dismissal which is implicitly judgmental. If you're willing to bucket peoples' minds into greatness or smallness based on a single observation of their message board activity, how is your response substantively different from the thing it's criticizing?

This is to say that I reject the premise; your comment would put a chilling effect on frankly discussing other people, as though the only way to do so is through irrationality and gossip. People can critically discuss other people in an intelligent way without having "small minds", and you shouldn't attempt to infer a person's overall "mental state" from this kind of commentary, in my opinion.

> how is your response substantively different from the thing it's criticizing?

That is a fair criticism. I still think there is a difference in degree between (A) reading a long, thoughtful article and responding with unkind speculations about the author, and (B) reading such speculation that has little content in it and responding in turn with unkind speculations about the comment's author; but only a difference of degree, not of kind, I admit.

> your comment would put a chilling effect on frankly discussing other people, as though the only way to do so is through irrationality and gossip.

The proverb I quoted would do that, sure, which is why it's explicitly marked as only a decent (not excellent) heuristic. There are honest, thoughtful ways to go about discussing and criticizing people. Speculations and borderline conspiracy theories are not among them.

its ad hominem. its not discussing the content. all of what you said could be aimed at the gp parent regarding his characterization of PG's post

Citing the ad hominem fallacy is pretty reductive; in dialectics there are plenty of occasions where the identity of an arguer is relevant to their argument. The internet's obsession with calling out this fallacy has sucked all the formal nuance out of its rhetorical usage.

It also doesn't apply here, because the grandparent comment is not trying to refute PG's argument, it's mounting an entirely orthogonal one. So yes, I do agree it's not directly discussing the content. But that's also pretty characteristic of most HN threads.

People on HN usually talk about the ideas they have which are evoked by the article. They do not as a rule engage in formal refutation or advocation of the article's core thesis, unless it's very technical in nature.

It's only ad hominem if you reject something because it came from someone.

"great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people" is a quote that discusses people

I don't really agree with the OP, but that's not true. It's a quote which discusses people as a category in the abstract, which is to say it discusses the idea of people and their behavior. As much as I'd like to dunk on the quote like this, it is consistent :)

My interpretation of the quote has always been that discussing people means something along the lines of gossip, i.e. specific people. That being said I think there's a clear difference between simple gossip and critical discussion of others, which can be very intellectually elevated.

If you initiate a public dialogue with someone specifically for the purpose of making a show of rejecting the possibility of engaging in any dialogue with them, forgiveness of clichés is IMO a big ask.

That heuristic is a very antiquated mindset that largely just measures one’s relationship with formal education. One can be a great mind and never discuss “grand ideas”, simply because he’s too busy helping himself to the content of your metaphorical pockets.