
The Dying Art of Disagreement - tomfitz
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/opinion/dying-art-of-disagreement.html
======
imh
>Yes, we disagree constantly. But what makes our disagreements so toxic is
that we refuse to make eye contact with our opponents, or try to see things as
they might, or find some middle ground.

This bothers me so much. In my social circle (and I expect many of yours)
simply understanding the other side is demonized. It's a sin to admit that,
despite their conclusions being terrible, these human beings have some sense
somewhere.

When you hear a view you disagree with, instead of disagreeing, first try to
understand. These are intelligent human beings who will surprise you. Most
often, it turns out the point they are making isn't quite the one you thought,
or at least it has some nuance and the truth is somewhere in between you.

It's bad even here on HN. There was a post last week about using genetic
algorithms to solve jigsaw puzzles. It looks like this:
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nemanja-m/gaps/master/imag...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nemanja-m/gaps/master/images/lena.gif)
.

One commenter was disappointed at the test image used, because:

> At best, it's crass and tasteless. At worst, it's openly disrespectful and
> hostile to women.

Another commenter asked:

> Why is it crass and tasteless? And why is it openly hostile and
> disrespectful to women?

The response was:

> If I need to explain to you why using a nude image of a model (taken from a
> pornography magazine, no less) is hostile and disrespectful, then I suspect
> you are part of the problem.

As typical, treating your "opponent" as an intelligent moral person, trying to
understand them first, applying the slightest bit of empathy, then even if you
agree that the picture is crass/hostile/whatever, it's much more respectful
and likely that the asker simply did not know the history of it, rather than
the asker being immoral (from that POV).

Jumping straight to "you are part of the problem" is an extreme version of
what happens in most of these disagreements. There's no respect or effort
towards empathy and it makes me really sad.

~~~
Mz
I generally agree with you, but:

 _applying the slightest bit of empathy, you 'd immediately realize that the
questioner simply didn't know the history of the test image (the original
uncropped image was from playboy)._

You are implicitly agreeing that with the idea that naked pictures of women
are fundamentally _crass, tasteless, openly hostile and disrespectful to
women._ I think this is not really a good thing to do, though I realize it is
politically correct and the safe route.

I'm female and occasionally rant about how fashionable misandry (or the
demonization of anything hetero male) has become, a la:
[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/11/having-
sad.h...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/11/having-sad.html)

I have a lame hypothesis that if a woman makes such comments, maybe people
will see the logic. Experience seems to not support that hypothesis. Haters
keep on hating anyway. Sigh.

~~~
imh
I'm trying not to implicitly disagree or agree with either side. The point
here regards the meta discussion about disagreement and arguers not respecting
and trying to understand the other side before jumping on them.

I'll try to clarify what I meant more concretely. The parent commenter in that
thread seemed to think that any good person who knew the context would
understand why it was bad. The next comment didn't see why it was bad, so the
first person decided the next must not be a good person. Had they examined the
other premise (context), they would have seen that lack of context is more
likely. Of course there are other buried premises and assumptions, and all of
those are more likely in some way imprecise or something rather than the next
commenter simply being a bad person. Even in the most extreme cases,
miscommunication happens all the damned time. Fixing those instead of deciding
you're better/smarter/whatever is where I think those discussions should go.

The point is how the disagreement looked from the point of view of the person
making those comments. I figured my own point of view isn't relevant to the
meta-discussion.

~~~
Mz
One framing that would avoid the implication:

"Even if you agree that the picture is crass (etc) due to being from Playboy,
a much more likely and respectful explanation is that the asker simply did not
know the history of it."

There may be others. It is incredibly hard to sidestep the wider cultural
framing that women exist solely as sex objects, they are prey and men are
predators. It is a problem space I have thought long and hard about. I think
my statement that your statement implicitly agrees with certain things is
accurate.

However, it wasn't intended to accuse you, personally, of anything. The degree
to which it does so is an error on my part. It is late. I am tired. Etc.

I wholly agree with you that jumping to accusations was poor form. I did not
witness that particular discussion of the Lena test photo, but I have seen
such discussions before on HN. They tend to be incredibly uncharitable. This
is really common when anything vaguely related to sex enters discussion.

I do my best to respectfully critique it. I am aware sex is a very sensitive
subject. But the subtext of most such derails is that all heterosexual sex is
inherently abusive of women. I really think that needs all the gentle, kind
push back humanity can muster. I do what little I can.

Best.

~~~
imh
That's fair. Communication is hard. I edited my original comment along the
lines of your suggestion. I hope that it's still clear and concise and now
does a better job of not taking sides. I think sometimes I go overboard in
trying to empathize with the side I disagree with and end up appearing to
agree with it.

~~~
Mz
:-)

------
TheAceOfHearts
I've posted this quote a few times before, and I find it fully relevant to
this discussion:

> He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons
> may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is
> equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so
> much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either
> opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries
> from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what
> they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who
> actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and
> persuasive form.

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

A few months back I read "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by
Politics and Religion", by Jonathan Haidt. I'd highly suggest reading it for
anyone seeking to improve their understanding of the ideological landscape in
modern America. From the publisher's summary: In The Righteous Mind, social
psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points
the way forward to mutual understanding.

The biggest problem I'm seeing with many online communities is the
unwillingness to engage with others. There's no discussions, they just tell
you that you're wrong and evil, and then they ban or block you. That's no way
to change people's mind; it just makes people more likely to dig in their
heels. If you want to change people's views you need to engage them calmly and
with respect. One of the greatest example of this that I can think of is Daryl
Davis, a black man who converted ~200 people from the KKK just by befriending
them.

~~~
matt4077
This is a very high-minded concept, but I just can't see how it would work in
practice.

To take an example less divisive than politics, I'll use religion (yeah–go
figure).

Say you're an agnostic biologist. One Sunday, you meet your new neighbour, who
happens to be an Eckists
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckankar#Teachings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckankar#Teachings)).
After a few weeks of infrequent small talk, he becomes dead set on helping you
find you way to God's graces through a series of 25 two-hour rituals of
singing the 'Hu'. He's also really excited by having someone to share his
theory of the spiritual fluid "yam" that separates the living matter from the
dead, and he considers "DNA" to be a hoax perpetrated by the Christadelphian
Conspiracy.

You make what you believe is a very good case against any God existing, give
an even better overview of the basics of molecular biology, and point out some
of the most glaring inconsistencies in his theory of life.

But he comes back at you with the full force of someone spending about 500% as
much time thinking and reading about religion and "yam" than you do. He always
has an argument, and sometimes it takes a sleepless night to figure out where
his argument actually breaks down.

Through no fault of yours, his internet connection starts developing the ugly
habit of showing rather immoral photos of all genders where he would usually
expect to see completely wholesome photos of the Eckankars' last Day of
Celebrating Celibacy and Celery. He finally moves out.

You new neighbour is Frances. He is excited to tell you everything about his
Christadelphian faith, and how the walnut is actually the most intelligent
brain on the planet. He also has all the answers.

Now imagine there's an endless supply of these people, and they start showing
up at work, starting to make legislation to cut your funding, and march across
campus with their "Torches for the Glory of Walnut Yam". Do you actually
belief your study of mitochondrial diseases will be improved by debating every
single one of them? Remember: they don't operate by your standard of
reasoning: whenever you find the missing link between hamster and opossum,
they just see it as two new missing links in the chain of evolution.

~~~
alansammarone
While everything you said is true, I think it misses the point. It's clear
that in order to have a reasonable discussion, we need to have two reasonable
people who are willing to discuss. And you may just include "is not a
conspiracy theory nutjob" or "is able to express his/her point of view in a
clear way" in your definition of reasonable (of course, you _should 'nt_
include "agrees with me" in your definition of reasonable").

The point is that you should try it out to see whether they're "reasonable".
And if they are, then you're supposed to have an open, genuine discussion with
them.

~~~
matt4077
In that case, we do indeed agree. Except, probably, where exactly those lines
get drawn. There is obviously a grey area, and we probably have more nuanced
options to react, rather than just a binary engage/ignore.

I believe my argument was based on those culture war examples of the last
months–most notably Charlottesville, where this idea of debating ideas on
equal footing was frequently invoked. But it may be my German schooling that
puts the ideas aired at those rallies firmly outside the Overton Window.

------
Mz
Sadly, the piece does not actually seem to model the behavior it advocates. I
wish it were more well written.

It is a really hard problem space to address well. But, I think a good place
to start would be to acknowledge that with 7 billion people on the planet and
the existence of the internet, humanity has an unprecedentedly challenging
circumstance that makes it inherently harder than ever to find common ground
with people with whom we disagree. Then challenge people to up their game.

This piece is guilty of the very sin it decries: Being not genuinely
respectful and empathetic to the people it criticizes. I think acknowledging
the unique and extreme challenges of modern life as a starting place is the
only way out.

First, admit that agreeing to disagree is fundamentally harder than it has
ever been before in human history because there is so much more opportunity to
interact with people whose views and choices are utterly alien. Then, invite
people to rise to the occasion.

Otherwise, you are merely pissing on people and provoking them in the exact
way the article describes and decries as a bad practice. Most of this article
merely slams parents, educational institutions, etc for their failures. There
is zero acknowledgement that these failures might amount to crumpling under
extreme stress.

------
rdtsc
> We express our disagreements in radio and cable TV rants in ways that are
> increasingly virulent;

And Tweeter. I never signed up, but from the posts and tweets I've seen, I
can't imagine a worse platform for sharing ideas or views. I don't see a
stream of 140 character insults or smartass comments ever resulting in someone
saying "Hmm, that's a great point, maybe I'll rethink my position. I guess I
am a dumbass just like you described. Thanks".

> Then we get to college, where the dominant mode of politics is identity
> politics, and in which the primary test of an argument isn’t the quality of
> the thinking but the cultural,

There is an element there were colleges have started to treat students (and
parents who pay for the tuition) as customers. Don't offend anyone, build
clubs for every need and hobby, luxury dorms. My university last I heard built
a huge rec center with a pool and a lazy river going around it. Oh the irony.
Tuition has risen dramatically and the idea is anyone who pays that much is
not going to tolerate being inconvenienced, or challenged in any way. If they
do, they'll "demand to talk to the manager" so to speak. Take their money and
go some other place. And maybe mentality extends to ideas and what is taught
and so on, not just rec centers and facilities.

> This is the baroque way Americans often speak these days. It is a way of
> replacing individual thought — with all the effort that actual thinking
> requires — with social identification

Another thing I noticed as an outsider, that maybe people from America haven't
noticed because they are immersed in the culture, is that just as much as
there are victims and oppressed groups, there is an equal and greater amount
of those who want to gain an upper hand by either identifying as a victim in
some way or claim to speak for some victims "My heart aches for the struggles
of group X and I'll go on a Tweeter rampage to support them". And yet they've
never interacted with that group in any meaningful way to understand them, and
are simply doing this dance to brag and gain some kind of status. Can't tell
how many times I've heard people trying to one up each other concerning how
many minority group they know. "Oh you're friends with X and Y. Aha but I have
a friend who is X, Y, and Z. And everyone gasps, oh wow, that's really cool
you're such a good person". Once you see it a few times, it's hard to miss it.

~~~
cakedoggie
> ever resulting in someone saying "Hmm, that's a great point, maybe I'll
> rethink my position. I guess I am a dumbass just like you described.
> Thanks".

Because there is no magical system that does this, and expecting it is
slightly silly.

~~~
indubitable
Discussion alone suffices to enable people to regularly change their views.
The problem is that Twitter is specifically built to inhibit reasoned
discussion. It's meant for one liners and zingers. This tiny post is now at
315 characters, well over twice as long as any thought capable of being
expressed on Twitter.

------
matt4077
> Socrates quarrels with Homer. Aristotle quarrels with Plato. [..] These
> quarrels are never personal.

This, like many of today's rosy views of the golden past, is slightly
misleading: while Socrates many have high-minded intellectual quarrels with
Homer, one can't just ignore that he was murdered ("sentenced to death") by
his fellow Athenians for supposedly corrupting the youth.

In comparison to drinking hemlock, the criticism today's divisive figures have
to endure seems manageable.

------
thisrod
It's worth knowing the context to this. The author was invited to present a
prize in memory of Mark Colvin, but the Colvin family took offence to the
arrogantly foolish things he has said about the greenhouse effect. There's an
element of knowing when to stop digging here.

 _Socrates quarrels with Homer. Aristotle quarrels with Plato. Locke quarrels
with Hobbes and Rousseau quarrels with them both. Nietzsche quarrels with
everyone. Wittgenstein quarrels with himself._

If only Newton and Boltzmann made the reading list.

------
indubitable
Excellent article.

However, there is one glaring issue. I completely agree that part of the
increasing radicalism among younger Americans is coming from an increasing
sensationalistic media that will say anything and do anything for clicks. [0]
Unfortunately, there is a reason for that. Another absolutely phenomenal
article that was written by a 50 year veteran of the news industry is "The Bad
News About the News." [1] It describes more in detail precisely why the media
has become what it has become. And the answer can be summed up in one word:
money.

For many decades a small handful of media organizations had an effective
monopoly on news, and access to information in general. That entailed a
practically endless stream of money. Ethics and integrity cost nothing in a
world where money is no concern. But then enter the internet. It, as a
competitor to traditional news outlets, started very slow. And that slowness
led traditional news media to fail to appreciate its potential. In short order
the internet not only showed its potential but turned traditional media
outlets borderline obsolete. They died from a fatal case of myopia. And we
replaced them with social media which has shown that negative news, partisan
news, emotionally charged news, and sensationalized news is what gets clicks.
Even better when you combine them together.

And in the end, if you can't beat them join them. This has likely only been
urged on by the ownership of the news media today. Time Warner owns CNN.
Comcast owns NBC. Disney owns ABC. These are not exactly the first names you
think of in altruism, which is what valuing an informed public over profitable
quarters comes down to. The BBC is a peculiarity. They have ostensibly no
profit motive, but I'm not familiar enough with their funding/directives/etc
to even try to hypothesize why they've also jumped on the bandwagon. I can say
something about ostensibly not for profit organizations in the US like NPR.
NPR has been struggling. In the past 10 years alone they've had to buy out
contracts and downsize multiple times. The only way they keep afloat is by
donations, and mostly large donations. With them barely staying afloat if they
publish anything that might cause a corporate donor to pull their support, it
would be enough to put the company back in crisis. The company itself ends up
beholden to special interests in a way that's even more insidious than Time
Warner owning CNN. That's a direct and visible line. The line between donor
interests and 'not for profit' organizations is less apparent to many.

I'm in no way defending what the news media has become. But like the article
emphasizes, I think the first step before judging a group is to try your best
to try to genuinely understand why they behave/think the way they do, in lieu
of just attaching a label to them and calling them evil.

[0] - An image that sums up the state of the media today.
[https://i.imgur.com/PxU76c0h.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/PxU76c0h.jpg)

[1] -
[http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...](http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-
news.html)

~~~
matt4077
> [0] - An image that sums up the state of the media today.
> [https://i.imgur.com/PxU76c0h.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/PxU76c0h.jpg)

I see maybe one or two people in that crowd that could be professional
photographers or cameramen. It just shows how people in general may prefer
whatever sin is implied.

And while TV probably gets more attention today, real journalism has always
and still does happen mostly at newspapers. The WSJ/NYT/Economist/New Yorker
of today are no worse than they ever were. In fact, it's not that long ago
that almost all publishers were unabashed propagandists for some cause or
party.

But it's true that changing economics have roughly halved the revenue
journalism has available, and contrary to all the armchair publicists
everywhere, we have yet to find a way to stop the profession from further
deterioration. Those large organisations above may survive by virtue of their
size, and the goodwill of people enamoured with what they represent. But at
the local level, many communities will soon have to function without any good
sources of news. And voting without information means all the incentives, and
the mechanisms, of democracy will seize to function.

It's en vogue now to disparage all journalists as hacks of similar low
caliber, differing only in the name that signs the cheques they get for
pushing their benefactors' viewpoints. But that really doesn't help, because
it removes all incentives to do good work. If some journo at The Economist
gets "You're a lying puppet sucking Wall Street's dick" on twitter every
morning, they'll soon run out of any remaining idealism.

So I'd wish people would be as appreciative of good work as they are critical
of shoddy work. Highlight the excellent shows on NPR just as often as
denouncing the drivel at MSNBC. Note how CNN fires staffers that approved a
story they ultimately couldn't prove just as often as reminding everyone how
wrong the NYT was about Iraqi WMD 16 years ago.

~~~
indubitable
Here [1] is the New York Times on Watergate, just before the 1972 election and
shortly before Nixon would genuinely be impeached. It clearly explains the
entire situation without speculation or judgement. It provides all information
necessary and pertinent to the issue at hand, nothing more - nothing less.
Nearly all statements of fact are well sourced and verifiable. There is the
most bare minimum usage of anonymous sources. That is journalistic excellence.

Consider their articles today. For instance the first non-opinion article I
received when searching specifically for their site and Trump Russia was this
[2]. The following 7 statements are the leads to 7 different paragraphs in
that story.

\- "The tactics reflect some of the hard-charging — and polarizing —
personalities of Mr. Mueller’s team"

\- "“They seem to be pursuing this more aggressively, taking a much harder
line, than you’d expect to see in a typical white-collar case,”"

\- "“They are setting a tone. It’s important early on to strike terror in the
hearts of people in Washington, or else you will be rolled,”"

\- "The moves against Mr. Manafort are just a glimpse of the aggressive
tactics used by Mr. Mueller and his team of prosecutors "

\- "The tactics reflect some of the hard-charging — and polarizing —
personalities of Mr. Mueller’s team"

\- "Admirers of Andrew Weissmann, one of the team’s senior prosecutors,
describe him as relentless and uncompromising"

\- "Some lawyers defending people who have been caught up in Mr. Mueller’s
investigation privately complain that the special counsel’s team is unwilling
to engage in the usual back-and-forth"

The piece reads like a trailer for a new low brow crime TV show. There's
practically 0 valuable information, but it creates drama and starts building
up characters to get readers ready for the next exciting entry. If you didn't
get it - this prosecutor, he's a serious hardass - wow! Isn't that
incredible!? In case you somehow missed it, they also added a picture of him
looking like a hardass with the caption: _" Robert S. Mueller III, a former
F.B.I director, is known to dislike meandering investigations that languish
for years."_ What a cowboy! The sheriff is in town boys!

It's sad that we now find this sort of journalism acceptable. And it's
certainly not the reporters' doing it. That article carries no less than 3
names on the byline with 3 contributing reporters as well. It's like blaming
developers for a shoddy piece of software. They create it no doubt, but the
conditions and direction of which they are operating within are outside of
their control so long as they continue to retain their employment there. That
Watergate story was phenomenally interesting and informative, but it wouldn't
hit the lowest common denominator. For that you need that emotional attachment
- the characters, the story, the sensationalism. And so that is what the
NYTimes today delivers.

I hope that the NYTimes new paywall push is a resounding success. So long as
they are a slave to clicks, their quality will continue to deteriorate.

[1] - [http://www.nytimes.com/1972/11/01/archives/the-watergate-
mys...](http://www.nytimes.com/1972/11/01/archives/the-watergate-mystery-the-
watergate-mystery-after-19-weeks-of.html?mcubz=1)

[2] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/mueller-
russi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/mueller-russia-
investigation.html)

~~~
matt4077
This seems to just be examples of two different styles. I can't help but
notice that the Watergate article would probably get ripped to shreds by
today's critics on the internet: it makes judicious use of unnamed sources, it
includes a lot of hearsay and speculation, and even the title ("Mystery")
would today be construed to be a partisan attack.

Here's a different story on Mueller from todays NYT, which I believe is much
closer in style to the Watergate article:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/us/politics/mueller-
russi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/us/politics/mueller-russia-
senate-judiciary-committee.html)

~~~
indubitable
Look at what the article is doing. Let me ask you a few questions that would
seem relevant to the bill itself:

\- How many members are on the senate judiciary committee? How many have
stated they would vote for the 1st bill? How many have stated they would vote
for the second bill?

\- How often do bills that leave committee become law?

\- Why, specifically, are the lawmakers sponsoring the bills uncertain if
their legislation would end up on the senate floor?

\- Why do the senators feel that these are bills that Trump would not veto (or
do they feel they can achieve a veto overriding supermajority)?

\- What, specifically, are the constitutional issues these bills face?

Very basic questions I think that all seem like they'd provide critical
insight to what's going on. Most are completely ignored, or answered in the
most unbelievably lazy ways possible. For instance the final paragraph
actually mentions a concern that these bills could simply be vetoed by the
president. The final sentence: "Other legal scholars disagreed." So is the
NYTimes suggesting that legal scholars are saying Trump can't veto these
bills? That's certainly what they seem to be implying. That is completely
incorrect and certainly deserves vastly more than a 4 word sentence.

The rest of the article back to the theme of character building, drama, and
salaciousness. I may have no clue what's going on, but did you know that some
politician on the council just said 'They have concern about the president's
respect for the law'? That quote is also a misleading nonsequitor. The entire
point of this is that it would be completely lawful and legal for Trump to
dismiss the investigator. The committee's goal seems to be to try to change
the law to prevent this. I would add that quote was not only within the
article itself, but also attached to an image as well. Again, character
building and drama.

------
grzm
It would be really amazing if those who choose to comment in this thread would
try to do their best to disagree with each other thoughtfully, charitably, and
respectfully.

~~~
gizmo686
I would love to, but those _others_ are just spouting thoughtless nonsense
that is impossible to argue with. /s

But seriously, thoughtful comments take time; and are often formed by trying
to explain why the thoughtless comments are wrong.

~~~
grzm
Indeed they do take time. Aren't we (HN in particular and our fellow humans in
general) worth it? Figuring out what each other means and why we ourselves are
misunderstood makes us better people. Like so many things, that does take
effort, and does get easier with practice.

~~~
gizmo686
Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there
comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the
fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend
where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the
beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.

~~~
grzm
Sure. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you see as a good way forward
for HN should be if the goal is to have substantial, constructive discussion.
Or at minimum, civil discussion. The low quality, incendiary comments degrade
discussion and can deter those who would otherwise engage in quality
discussion.

Edit to add: What's motivating me continuing this discussion is that I feel
like you're pushing back on encouraging people from doing better, from
improving how they engage with others. I'm not sure if that's really what you
intend, so please do elaborate on that point. Clearly this is important to me,
so I appreciate that you're taking the time. (Though, with that, I'm signing
off fir the night. It's late :)

~~~
gizmo686
First, big shoutout to dang and team for culling the worst of the comments and
maintaining a culture of relatively thoughtful comments. Practically speaking,
effective moderation is the only way forward I see

As an empirical matter, I would note that most threads (both here and on
simmilar sites, such as reddit) seem to follow a predictable life-cycle. An
initial wave of low quality posts gets down voted and gives way to more
thoughtful discussion. In less trolly topics, the "low quality" posts are
actually ok, but still give way to much higher quality posts through upvotes.

We can argue about the cause of this lifecycle. I think the general effort
calculus I explained above is a part of it. However, I think that often times
having low quality posts to respond to can be an effective prompt for high
quality posts to respond to; or for a poster to consider why the thoughts
expressed in them are wrong, and write a better top level post. Of course,
this would be better done with high quality posts, but those take more time.

Put another way, the best way to get a good answer is often to give a bad
answer and have people correct you.

edit for your edit:

I am pushing back because: A) I think you initial post _is_ low quality. As
such, it has led to (in my opinion) fruitful thinking on my part, and
hopefully a fruitfull discussion. and B) Underlying your initial post is, in
my opinion, a fundamental misunderstanding of how these threads work. I don't
like you insulting everyone who comments on this thread just because you saw
the thread at the ugliest part of its lifecylce.

~~~
grzm
Thanks for taking the time to respond and detailing your take on my initial
comment. Commenting as I did early in the thread was deliberate because of
what I've observed in threads. I agree with your take that thoughtful comments
tend to come later and can rise to the top. Another behavior I've observed is
that an early hot comment can stick at the top, acting as a defacto root and
coloring the resulting discussion.

I also think that one of the reasons for low-quality comments is due to people
reacting reflexively and emotionally rather than reflectively and
thoughtfully, and the intent of my comment is to remind people to take a beat
before commenting. It's not motivated by the idea that the commenters are
"bad" in some way, or to insult them. I get caught up often as well: I've
certainly written posts that I then decide not to submit, or delete soon after
submitting. As mentioned above, it takes effort to do this, but I think that
many people _do_ want to comment well and constructively, and that for many a
reminder is useful.

One of my goals here is to minimize the initial period of low-quality comments
and hopefully quiet the more heated subthreads. My comment wasn't a response
to the comments that were already there: I hoped to get in early enough that
those early commenters might see my comment and reflect a bit before posting
something thoughtless and incendiary. I understand that this isn't going to
stop all low-effort/low-quality/less-thoughtful comments. If we can shift the
default towards more reflection, I think this can have a net positive effect
on discussion quality overall, as well as perhaps encourage people to refrain
from responding to the less-thoughtful comments, or responding in a way that
can guide the discussion back on track. I know this isn't a novel idea, and it
might be fruitless.

(As an aside, I had read this particular op-ed before it had been submitted to
HN. I think it has some interesting points, and some that I disagree with,
which is fine, and could be improved, but it is one worth discussing. I
thought about submitting it, but had a pretty good idea of how the discussion
would go on HN and decided not to.)

I _think_ my thinking is consistent with how you understand threads like this
work. Would you agree? Perhaps one difference between your position and mine
is whether or not we can do anything to improve the sutation. Like you, I have
a lot of respect and admiration for the work 'dang and 'sctb have done in
moderating HN. Whatever quality has been maintained here is in part due to
their efforts and those in the community who respect the place HN is. One
point I do disagree on is the utility of low-quality comments. I'm glad you
can see some positive effect from them. I'm a bit chagrined that you felt my
initial comment was of that variety, but admit that it might have been better.
The few times I've attempted this type of comment before have been longer, and
I can see how "It would be really amazing if" can be read uncharitably. It
reiterates to me the importance of the effort of all participants in
communication.

You mention in another comment "This thread would seem to be a counter-
example." Do you think our discussion may have played a role in that? It's
impossible to ascertain this definitively, of course, and I chose the word
"may" deliberately. Perhaps a better posing of this question is do you think
discussions of the kind we're having _could_ play such role? If you think it's
possible, what is a better way to craft such a comment?

------
rayiner
I’m not sure how you’re supposed to respectfully disagree about someone like
Kissenger who got hundreds of thousands of people killed through his ideas.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Karl Marx's ideas have been responsible for the deaths of about 100 million
people (and counting), yet they still seem to be granted plenty of airtime at
our universities.

~~~
matt4077
Marx wrote books, and he died in 1883. The split between
Marxists/Trotskyists/Stalinists is well-documented, and reading Das Kapital,
you'll see it takes as much of a twisted mind to go from his ideas to Stalin
as it takes to get from the bible to the Westboro Baptist Church.

Kissinger was an active politician, and he's criticised not so much for his
ideas as his actions. I seem to remember that quite a few people during the
Charlottesville brouhaha were keen to insist that people should be judged by
their actions.

There's also a difference between a study of Marx/Kissinger, and attending an
event that has them as guests. A famous speaker's attendance is an honour for
the host, but it also honours the speaker. I'm sure there are scores of left-
leaning researchers and students who have read Kissinger's work or studied his
actions while being highly critical of him.

The obvious example is that it's just as common to read Hitler's book and
speeches as it is to read Marx when studying history.

~~~
Turing_Machine
> The obvious example is that it's just as common to read Hitler's book and
> speeches as it is to read Marx when studying history.

I'm sorry, that is not "obvious" at all. It's trivial to name dozens of
academics who are self-admitted Marxists, and who give Marxist ideas fulsome
praise in the classroom. They outnumber self-admitted Nazi academics by
thousands to one, at a minimum (I can't think of even one example of the
latter, off-hand, but I suppose there might be one or two out there).

------
jim-jim-jim
Speakers are compensated handsomely for their engagements, no? I don't see
anything wrong with students refusing to see their tuition bankroll the likes
of Kissinger or Rice--people with blood on their hands.

~~~
aaron-lebo
The article is talking about something more than protest.

 _Most of the hatred was focused on Dr. Murray, but when I took his right arm
to shield him and to make sure we stayed together, the crowd turned on me.
Someone pulled my hair, while others were shoving me. I feared for my life.
Once we got into the car, protesters climbed on it, hitting the windows and
rocking the vehicle whenever we stopped to avoid harming them. I am still
wearing a neck brace, and spent a week in a dark room to recover from a
concussion caused by the whiplash._

That's basically mob violence. Respectful protest and disagreement is to hear
someone out, not intimidate and violently stop them from speaking. It's just
an odd mindset. You're at college, so presumably you are there to be educated,
to experience different points of view, to learn.

edit: Asked if modern media or some other factor was the biggest cause of
this, saying this so the reply makes sense.

~~~
Swizec
> Or is there some other change in society that is a bigger factor?

Tribalism. We seem to be hardwired for it, to seek it out. As the immediate
bonds in family/religion/neighborhood/etc are being torn down by modern
individualism, so new tribal bonds are formed.

In the age of the internet, as you said, you can find a voice that validates
any belief. A community forms around the smallest nugget of common belief.

And so tribes are formed.

Mind you we also seem to be living in a society that increasingly believes
that anything you think, you immediately believe to be true. That to hold
opposing beliefs, or at least to inspect and consider thoughts that are
“wrong”, immediately makes you ... I dunno. Almost like thinking something
immediately makes it your sole belief.

So it becomes impossible, dangerous even, to allow opposing beliefs to even be
expressed lest they take you over.

Thought police basically.

