HN stays online through the work of humans.

The community thrives by following guidelines, among them:

* be kind

* do not sneer

* do not call names

* respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize

I am 110% in support of those community principles when it comes to criticism of people. We must always assume mutual respect, practice kindness and argue in good faith. It's never not the right thing to do, whether you're motivated by persuasion or simple humanity.

But can we at least recognise that there's an enormous distinction between criticism of people and criticism of ideas? In my estimation, when someone is calling for an idea to be protected from unkindness, or name-calling, or sneering, it's probably deserving of it.

Ideas shouldn't be beyond criticism, sure. But if you can't criticize an idea without being unkind, resorting to name calling, and misrepresenting someones view -- at best you aren't haven't a dialog, at worst you don't have any valid criticism to contribute.

This user has not indicated themselves to be interested in dialogue for its own sake in this thread. They have used the words "argue" and "criticize".

How do you suppose that being unkind to an idea is not “dialog” and not “valid”? You are casting ethical judgements upon rhetorical devices. That is nonsense.

Thank you for the great example. You've made your point in two sentences. Adding "That is nonsense" contributes nothing to your argument.

However, by labelling the idea as nonsense, by extension I must be someone whose ideas are nonsense.

This lowers the level of discourse. To what end? What did labelling my idea as nonsense accomplish? Did it help your argument? Or was it to make me feel bad, or to make you feel good?

Ignoring your last sentence, I do find the idea of ethics on rhetorical devices peculiar. Like - if I were to use a straw man device, would that be unethical? In a sense - maybe. I'd be misleading which is a form of lying.

I certainly wouldn't say labelling an idea as "dumb" would be unethical, though. It's just not productive to having a conversation: name calling begets more name calling. It puts people on the defensive where they are not receptive to new ideas.

Straw man arguments are a fallacy, not a "rhetorical device". It's an error we're all prone to doing at some point, unintentionally. I would argue that it's only unethical if it's done intentionally—and while you can guess at someone's intention, knowing is usually impossible. So unless you can literally read minds, only the author can truly know if they were being unethical or not.

> Straw man arguments are a fallacy, not a "rhetorical device"

They're both? But agree with everything else

It is not both. Only a fallacy. A straw man is an attribute of an argument which is completely independent from the language used to convey it.

Words don't exist only to "contribute to the argument" but also to summarise, to express emotions, as rhetorical flourishes, or simply to amuse. In this case, the last sentence is the conclusion of my argument. If you disagree, well, you disagree with my argument.

And with that you've just demonstrated my point. By focusing on an aesthetic component of my rhetoric rather than the substantive, you have chosen to steer this entire discussion away from the underlying topic.

> by extension I must be someone whose ideas are nonsense

That is nonsense. It does not follow.

> What did labelling my idea as nonsense accomplish?

It's my opinion. And while you're welcome to call that idea yours, I only consider it an idea. You shouldn't be so quick to tie your ideas to your identity. Everyone has lots of opinions and a good number of them are certain to be wrong.

Your argument is ill conceived, pedantic, and seeks desperately to justify previous positions.

But you are not someone who makes ill conceived, pedantic, or desperate arguments to save face. That would be nonsense. It does not follow. Don't be so quick to tie your identity to the pedantic arguments you've made.

* be kind

* do not sneer

* do not call names

* respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize

Glad to see you concede the point.

Ideas have no rights. People do.