
Don't be mean, it's stupid - yesplorer
https://news.layervault.com/stories/2052-dont-be-mean-its-stupid
======
Udo
I can't claim to have followed the LV fiasco on HN in all of its detail, but
the parts I saw were mostly respectful and pretty well balanced. The "Designer
News sucks" post was not, but that particular battlefield is a distraction.
The main thing is still the Flat UI debacle, without which none of this would
have happened.

Is Flat UI a ripoff? Yes, sure, and they come across as more than a bit
sleazy. _But_ are they in clear violation of LV's copyright? Absolutely not.
In design as well as in pretty much every other human endeavor, all things are
derivative. That's a core truth about technology and civilization in general.
The Flat UI dude did not straight-up copy LV's stuff though. Still, he re-
implemented it and he deserves to be called out for it. He should at least
have given LV some credit for inspiring him.

That's where it ends though. The rest is _all_ on LV. That DMCA abuse was
stupid and unnecessary. Sure, you can blame HN for making that observation but
that doesn't change the fact that it's not the observers fault you screwed up.
Failing to admit that (and apparently making DMCA jokes on Twitter in bad
taste) only serves to emphasize why people are upset with you.

LV, you used a bad law in questionable circumstances to shut up something that
was no threat to you. Then you doubled down, smugly and with not a small
amount of self-righteousness, when people called you out on your ethics.

The saddest part of this is that you could have easily turned this into an ad
for your stuff. If you simply had come out and graciously acknowledged the
similarities between Flat UI and your icons, people would have sided with you.
Your implicit counter-argument that it doesn't matter if you're acting badly
as long as it's _the other guy_ who broke the law is interesting, but it's
also far from certain things will actually turn out this way in a court of
law.

This was a failure on many, many levels. Doubling down on bullying while at
the same time crying "not fair!" is just one of them.

~~~
raganwald
If you're using words like "asshole," you are definitely adding fuel to the
fire. I sense you know this. In general, your argument strikes me as a "Tu
Quoque:" They are bullies, so it's wrong for them to point out when we are
mean.

You then go on for a while about what makes them bullies, all of which is
tangential to whether or not HN is mean.

I caution against this kind of rhetoric. It leads to a place where the rule
is, "It's ok to be mean to people we don't like, for whatever reason."

Civility is a form of justice. It should be extended to those we respect but
also to those we don't respect. Extending justice to the guilty is part of
what makes a nation just. Extending civility to those we disrespect is what
makes a community civil.

~~~
Udo
You're right, actually. I'm going to change that single word. I hope that
enables you to see my post in another light, because I don't really recognize
your characterization of what I said. To make it absolutely clear: at no point
did I mean to imply that LV deserve to be bullied only because they are
behaving badly. I did use the "a word" to describe behavior, not personality,
but I acknowledge that was misguided.

~~~
raganwald
I was just about to add that it's important to distinguish between "harsh" and
"mean."

"Dude, you fucked up" is harsh but not mean, and while it isn't to everyone's
taste, it can be a bitter pill that provides the cure. It doesn't really cross
the line to mean until the intent becomes more of making someone feel bad than
pushing them to get better.

~~~
Udo
I just realized I come from a country where "don't be an asshole" is a common
phrase that is considered harsh but not mean ;-)

~~~
wuest
Disclaimer: I didn't read the original post, so I'm not sure where it was in
your post that the word 'asshole' used to live.

In my circles, at least, 'don't be an asshole' and 'you are being an asshole'
is harsh-not-mean, while 'you are an asshole' is mean-maybe-harsh. The
explicit declaration of state of being, rather than observation of behavior is
the differentiator.

------
mixmax
I don't think people are intentionally trying to be mean, but sometimes it
appears that way to others. Generally this site is full of smart people with
strong opinions, and for the most part that's a good thing that drives some
interesting discussion.

Unfortunately, smart people with an opinion sometimes have a problem seeing
the other side of the coin, and tend to see their point of view as the only
right one.

A good example is yesterdays 'PHP is the right tool for the job'
post.(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5337498>) The authors point that
PHP is a great tool for getting something up and running quickly without
having a lot of knowledge of servers and software was spot on, but he got a
lot of hate from the HN community. As a bad programmer (programming is not
what I do, I've only learned it to be a better manager, strategist and
sparring partner) I can tell you that PHP is by far the easiest thing to get
up and running for a fool like me. Yet noone seemed to accept this fact, and
came up with a whole lot of 'ruby is just as easy, you just need to install
[something I've never heard of, and probably wouldn't understand], or in
python you just run [stuff I don't know] on the command line [which I haven't
got a clue how works] and you're good to go.

These comments weren't meant to be mean, but from my perspective they were,
because I'm at a very different skill level than the peolpe making the
comments. They totally missed the point that PHP works for a lot of people
because Ithey have no idea how a command line works, don't know how to edit
configuration files, and don't care.

The problem isn't that people are intentionally mean, it's that some people
are so knowledgeable in their area of expertise that they have problems seeing
how it could be hard for others, and thus end up making remarks that seem
mean, but really aren't meant to be.

I bet a lot of people on HN still don't see why PHP is so popular, even though
the answer is unbelievable obvious. To me.

~~~
emiliobumachar
This is tangential to your very relevant comment, but FYI, a command line is
somewhere you type a command (a 'line of code') and it executes as if it was
in the middle of a running program.

Very useful when you want to see or confirm how somethig works. Type it and
press 'Enter'. It comes with the python installation, and it's commonly called
Interactive Interpreter.

~~~
mixmax
Thanks for the comment, I know what a command line is, I just find it
incredibly confusing and unintuitive. To exemplify here are a few of the
problems I run into when faced with a command line:

\- what can I do here? There are no tips, clues, or any other way of knowing
what to write. The answer often given is that there are MAN pages, help files,
etc. that you can bring up by typing more cryptic commands. I just don't have
the motivation to sift through a whole bunch of documents that may or may not
have the answer I'm looking for.

\- On a windows machine CLI doesn't work out of the box. I need to install
cygwin, configure it, and do all sorts of stuff I don't know about and don't
care about.

\- I get no feedback. When I've typed some cryptic command into the
commandline and hit enter I'm presented with a prompt. Maybe everything went
well, maybe it didn't. Maybe I now have a virus since I found the cryptic
command somewhere on the Internet. i just don't know.

\- I can't undo stuff. When I type a command and then find out it was wrong, I
have no obvious way of undoing it.

The point isn't that command lines are bad, on the contrary it's quite obvious
that it's a really powerful tool. It just has a steep learning curve, and not
all people are interested in spending the time it takes to master it just to
get a wordpress installation up and running.

The point is more that it's hard for experts to see why it's so hard to just
type 'grep -lsm (er /:rt) disc -f' to make the computer magically do
something. There are a whole lot of assumptions that take years to master
before you can type a command like that and not have your heart skip a beat
when you hit enter.

And that's okay, it's why good hackers are worth a lot of money. The majority
of people however, just want that wordpress blog to work.

------
carlisle_
While I can appreciate the sentiment of being friendly, it's something I
strive to do, what this post actually does to accomplish it is nothing. It's a
fairly sweeping generalization of a community, and to top it off you try to
admonish the naysayers with "don't be stupid," and accusations of arrogance.
It comes off as petty with low effort.

If you want people to be more positive, that's admirable. That being said,
this post accomplishes nothing to encourage people to be more friendly.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...and this kind of comment is probably what was being called out. Its typical
of HN comments - it deconstructs what was going on, and ranks it.

A sensitive person (read: designer) would call it mean. I think its just a
different mode of discourse. It is not sweet or kind; it just is. No more mean
than a compiler error message.

~~~
carlisle_
I don't really think it's fair to say designers are sensitive. I understand
your sentiment, but generalizing personalities by profession is stereotyping
and fans the flames.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Well done! Another deconstruction, and an analysis. You must be an engineer
(Kidding!)

I think personality and profession are mightily correlated. To discriminate on
that basis would be wrong, but to use that correlation for analysis can be
very helpful.

------
jrajav
Don't be mean, find a more positive and constructive output for your feelings
instead - like a passive-aggressive, poorly disguised excuse for bashing
another community.

~~~
knowtheory
What you have just done is not an actual defense of your community and its
behavior. It is an attack on the OP. the OPs conduct has no bearing on the
justifications and motivation of _your_ conduct.

We should all endeavor to be more humane to others, and I'm sad to see a
comment like this leaning towards a persecution complex more than an
understanding of others.

~~~
crusso
_What you have just done is not an actual defense of your community and its
behavior._

Was that a requirement for posting to this thread?

I thought TFA was ironic - criticizing others for wasting their electrons
typing something non-productive while it was basically criticizing others and
wasting electrons typing something non-productive.

Seriously, nobody is curing cancer in TFA or this thread.

~~~
knowtheory
Spreading misery and bad feeling does not require a substantive topic to be
conveyed or middle school would be considerably more pleasant for everyone
involved.

You're right in the following fashion. I assumed that folks who participated
in this thread might want to be self-aware enough to check themselves before
they wreck themselves in a thread about nastiness.

Some folks (i would probably dub them trolls) might just double down on the
nastiness. I'd rather assume some good faith in discussing the topic.

Even if you disagree with the OP, it is possible to point out the substantive
facts over which you disagree, or to point out the flaws in the OP's premise
without _attacking_ the OP.

If there's no problem, then there's no problem.

But I don't think that's the case. HN's sharp edges occasionally protrude, and
maybe it's just my nostalgic memory, but it feels to me like people have been
getting nasty just for the sake of being nasty (or edgy, or funny, or
whatever).

People can be wrong, mistaken, misguided, misinformed, but unless they're
being _malicious_ I wish that people would more often give others the benefit
of the doubt.

There is a person on the other end of that keyboard (at least as far as we, or
Turing knows).

~~~
crusso
What I objected to was your automatic assumption that there was something to
defend and your condescending tone in obligating the GP to defend it.

It's really hard to be critical of criticism without committing the very act
you're claiming to be attacking.

~~~
knowtheory
Regardless of whether there's something to defend or not (as i said earlier),
that doesn't excuse attacking others, _especially_ in a conversation about
civility.

Aside from arguing over the contours of whether something is or isn't
hypocrisy, all being mean does is drag you down too. I'm not telling GP that
he is obligated to do anything. All I've said is that his response to OP makes
him come off as poorly as OP does and will not further his goals.

You can call that condescending if you want, but that doesn't really pertain
to the discussion, if you assume that GP is participating in the conversation
in good faith, and is addressing the OP's point.

------
skore
Here is the thing about Hacker News Comment Threads - They are precisely as
mean as the subject/object allows.

HN Commentators take pleasure in dissections (and even more pleasure in
dissecting those dissections). That can be tough for people, especially if
they submitted their content because they wanted feel-good feedback or some
kind of community exchange.

It is very easy to burn your fingers around here - one slip of technical
details, get one fact of history wrong and you will be told. Ruthlessly and
again and again. If _anything at all_ about your content is distracting, that
will be what users latch onto.

Of course it's kind of bad, of course people are often dismissive because of
trivial bits to the point where they actively obstruct themselves of
interesting discoveries.

But I value it's Zen-like quality. I know that if I ever were to submit
something to HN, should it find its way to the frontpage, I _would,
definitely_ find out every single flaw about it. Quickly.

From a technical perspective, that is kind of neat. From a social perspective,
it's about as emphatic as a meat cleaver.

~~~
edem
I understand your opinion but I think that this won't change soon. This site
is used by a lot of technical people and by definition their behavior tend to
be like what you described above.

~~~
skore
Didn't mean to imply a point on how this would develop in the future. I agree,
it probably won't change and I think that's alright.

------
smoyer
Hmmm ... if I offer what I believe as a valid criticism (constructively) but
it offends someone, they're going to tend to think of me as mean regardless of
my intention.

But I also think you can offer both compliments and criticism respectfully ...
and I think that may be what the writer really wants. What value would there
be to a "Show HN" if all you got were platitudes?

As an aside, I quit swearing (completely) when I was 18 or so, because I
realized that I knew enough language to articulate my feelings. It's led to
people assuming I only have nice things to say when the reality is that I can
be (I think) more scathing (in other words, the tone of what you say is
important too ... especially on the Internet).

~~~
ScottWhigham
* Hmmm ... if I offer what I believe as a valid criticism (constructively) but it offends someone, they're going to tend to think of me as mean regardless of my intention.*

Just because something offends someone else does not force that person to
think of you as "mean". I don't buy into that argument at all. I can be
offended but think "That guy's just a jerk - that's the way he is" (jerk !=
mean). Or I can choose to think, "He maybe was a bit harsh in how he said it,
but ultimately his point is correct."

You aren't "wrong" in your other ideas, but I just don't agree that offending
someone causes them to think you are mean.

------
leothekim
Asking someone not to be mean is passive-aggressive bullying.

If someone is being mean, you _confront_ the behavior it by:

1\. Tell them you don't like their tone and that it isn't constructive. Make
sure you criticize the behavior, not the person.

2\. Ask them if they want to share their point of view instead of trashing
someone else.

3\. Empathize with their point of view (the Internet makes this really hard)

If none of the above works, ignore the person (the Internet makes it very easy
to not make other people's feelings your problem). Not the adult thing to do,
but silence is a signal to trolls that they aren't going to be fed any time
soon.

------
davidroberts
A few years back, I took the second semester of a photography class with a new
instructor. The first semester we had critique sessions, but people were so
supportive it was hard to see where I needed to improve. The new instructor
changed that in a hurry by forbidding the words 'What I like about your
photo...' or the equivalent. We had to say what we didn't like. He said every
photo can be improved. It really opened my eyes to the defects in my photos,
and I got better in a hurry. Some of the other photographers were very
talented, and had great photos from the start. Their photos improved even
quicker.

I try to look at the community on Hacker News like that. There are a lot of
very talented people here, and very busy. It seems most people here don't want
to waste time to writing or hearing what's good about something they wrote or
did. They've gone beyond the stage where they need hand-holding. People are
working on the edge and they _want to get better_ , whatever that means to
them, and are willing to endure some criticism to get there.

Postscript: I love the fact you almost never see a TL;DR attitude on HN.

------
struppi
Unfortunately this seems to be the way the world is working. People who like
what you did do not speak up. People wo do not like it complain as loud as
possible. Maybe it's because complaining is more likely to lead to responses.
Or because when you have a negative feeling about something you feel more urge
to speak up.

I know this should not necessarily result in _mean_ complaints, but often it
does. So, what can we do against it? Simply ignore mean comments? Take care to
write better comments? Or should we just shut up when we have nothing to say?

~~~
bengillies
I think mean comments, such as you get on Hacker News often have a grain of
truth to them. That such emotion is attached to that grain of truth suggests
that someone likes your idea or cares enough about your product or the area
you're focussing on that it's worth pursuing.

Better then to count the meanness as validation of what you're working on and
to extract the grain of truth as constructive criticism suggesting how you can
improve.

------
C1D
If you go and remove someones work for no damn reason and I criticize you,
that makes me mean; there is absolutely no logic in your post. The whole post
was idiotic and was trying to deflect the fact that they filed a DMCA takedown
when there was no evidence that the work (flatUI) belongs to them.

~~~
argonaut
Ironically, this post perfectly fits the what the submitter is talking about
since you don't even have your facts right. The submission appears to be as
affiliated with Layervault as any HN submission is affiliated with YC (that
is, not at all).

~~~
schrijver
Of course they are associated. Y combinator gets cred for hosting a platform
for ‘real hackers’, the hacker news users like the association with a
prestigious incubator. The domain name chosen for hacker news reflects this.

Layervault is trying to do the same trick for their brand.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Do other people go around bragging to their friends "Yeah, I comment on HN
stuff all the time!"... or is there some other benefit I have from "being
associated with a[n incubator]" (I'm quite sure HN wouldn't want me to go
around saying I'm "associated" with them.)))

~~~
schrijver
Hacker news reputation means something mainly in the context of the hacker
news community, surely. But the Hacker news community manages to centralise a
lot of discussion in the tech community, and how does it work that people are
attracted to and stay loyal to HN? I do think the Ycombinator / Paul Graham
brand has played a part in that.

------
Irregardless
Sometimes the truth hurts. I think we're all mature enough to handle that. And
I personally prefer when people are blunt/honest instead of sugar coating
everything or refusing to state their opinion because they're afraid it will
offend. There's nothing more annoying than someone who's too weak to speak up
and tell the truth -- they can do just as much harm as the people who are
mean.

For what it's worth, I just re-read the top 5 comments on the post he's
referring to and couldn't find a single one that was mean. Negative, sure, but
mean and negative are entirely different things.

> And why are you making the arrogant assumptions that we want to invest our
> time and energy in reading your comment too?

Well if that's not the definition of irony right there...

~~~
JoCoLa
Reminds me of I saw a documentary that followed students through med school.
One of them was a former mechanic (not to mention a child prodigy and a biker-
interesting guy) but he disliked the approach of med school where he would
give a wrong diagnosis and his instructors would always tip toe around
everyone's feelings and preface criticism with things like 'It's really
interesting how you came to that conclusion..." but when he was a mechanic,
someone would just say "You're doing it wrong - do it this way." And that's
all he wanted - to be told if he was doing something wrong and how to do it
right, but there was always this buffer of bullshit politeness in med school.

------
chimpinee
Asking somebody not to be mean seems reasonable but he only gets mean after he
has already "lost it". He then unfailingly perceives the _other_ guy as the
mean one and himself as the victim. If he had the self-awareness necessary to
monitor his emotional state then he would not become mean in the first place.

Combine this with the fact that most people come to news sites for validation
rather than enlightenment and one can expect mean comments to grow in
proportion to the popularity of the site

------
jtheory
Out of curiosity, where's the discussion the OP is talking about?

I do think meanness is worth calling out, FWIW, though in my experience HN
discussions are better than most I see online (though far from faultless, of
course).

...which in turn gives me faith that when there really are unduly mean
discussions, someone calling them out can actually improve things (whereas I
imagine an article calling out meanness on /. or similar and can't imagine who
would even read it).

~~~
thaumaturgy
Probably <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341679>

~~~
Terretta
Definitely the post in question.

However, what I see in that thread are valid criticisms. The article and
author were self promoting the author's expertise in UX -- with the promotion
rather more prominent than the article content. Meanwhile, aside from the, um,
"self aggrandizement", the site violated cardinal UX rules.

Readers called him on it without using faux polite weasel words, and he says
he'll fix it.

Pretty sure constructive feedback is what submitting _your own_ material to HN
is for.

~~~
huhtenberg
Criticism-shmiticism.

That discussion lacks basic civility. A good half of comments there is not
something that their authors would've been willing (or have guts) to say to
guy's face. Hilariously, they _are_ in fact being mean.

~~~
pessimizer
There's a lot of things that I truly believe that I wouldn't say to someone's
face, depending on the size and belligerence of the someone, and whether I
care at all whether they agree with what I believe to be true.

Using that as a metric is silly. Is that too mean?

------
onze
Ironically this article describes what I started feeling while reading it:

I was wondering myself, why? Why consume time, energy to write something that
adds no value whatsoever. Why consuming that little amount of electricity
required for you to type and that little amount of storage required to host
your (destructive) boring comment. And why are you making the arrogant
assumptions that we want to invest our time and energy in reading your comment
too?"

------
jamestc
I've never seen much ad hominem or meanness in the comments here. In fact, I
think this place is awfully civil. People here have no problem calling one
another out on something that is incorrect or dubious, and I like that. I'd
rather a spade is called a spade than a bunch of people skirting around the
issue in the name of politeness.

------
nikcub
The worst part of HN and the ecosystem isn't being mean, its people reverting
to a meta discussion about how useless and silly HN is when they don't have a
response to valid criticism or argument.

~~~
TillE
That's what drove me off Daily Kos five years ago. Meta responses to meta
responses to petty bullshit. The endless complaining was invariably far worse
than the original issue, and it never resolved anything.

You can't change the behavior of a bunch of strangers with simple argument. If
that's your goal, you need to actually do something more substantive.

------
Tichy
I think people defend the things they are invested in. For example if you have
bought Macs and invested time in learning to use OS X, you are invested in
Macs and will defend them against competition. It is not just about personal
preferences, but about the value of your investment. If nobody uses Macs
anymore, your investment in Apple knowledge loses a lot of value.

Likewise, if you have invested in building a Facebook network, you have an
interest in Facebook remaining useful to you. It's more than just personal
likes and dislikes, it's long term investing.

------
ak39
What's worse than people "wasting electricity" making ostensibly mean
comments? I know. It's writing an entire blog post about it!

The anti-dote, usually, for a "Don't be mean ..." request is "Don't take it
personally".

To defend HN comments ... The comments are the reason why I, and I'm sure
many, come here to read. Most times HN comments far out-value the original
articles posted.

------
edem
I tried to register on DN but it is invite only. I can understand that but
they don't even have a "Contact us" link so I can ask how to get an invite or
ask any question for that matter.

I remember reading the HTML Hell page: <http://catb.org/esr/html-hell.html> It
is really annoying when someone (or groups of people) wish to be heard (that
is the reason they are on a publicly available site right?) but they don't
give a damn about their visitors' opinions.

I can't call a site like that friendly either. Correct me if my point of view
is flawed.

------
nasir
In terms of mean comments, I think that's just a way of people to express
themselves in something they don't agree in order to seek some attention. A
person who has high amount of knowledge in different areas it does not matter
what newbies use and probably they even encourage them with positive opinion
because they don't need an approval from other members of the community.

The main problem is that every community gets biased toward certain trend or
way of thinking and they suppress opinions against them. HN is less biased in
this sense but still that exist.

------
josscrowcroft
Nice attempt to deflect their current DMCA clustercuss. Makes good points but
this is rather poorly written and not well–considered... and seems kind of
unnecessary for a company blog.

~~~
argonaut
Umm... Are you even aware that the submission is a forum post on "Designer
News" (a Hacker News for designers) by someone who does not appear at all to
be affiliated with Layervault. It's basically the Designer News equivalent of
a Tell HN post.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Not that I commented, but, no, I didn't know that. "news.layervault.com"
sounds official to me.

Also, Is this a rip off of the HN visual redeux extension that was posted, or
vice-versa, or is it the same person?

edit: Well, I feel sufficiently stupid after thinking this through: I'm
posting a comment on "news.ycombinator.com" after all...

~~~
schrijver
Well, at any rate it is a ripoff of Hacker news :) They do the same as
ycombinator..

Which in itself of course is a perfectly valid course of action but it makes
their outrage over a supposed clone of their work a tad less convincing :)

------
friendly_chap
I don't know which is the older, Hacker News or that Designer News forum, but
I think the similarity is striking:

Both sites are on a company domain, added a "news" subdomain, and named the
forum "XYZ News", where XYZ is a description of their audience, a positive
one, to appeal to industry members.

I hope Hacker News was first, because if not, they will start harass this
board over the naming thingie...

~~~
Pent
Good observations! Hacker News was indeed before Designer News, but there have
been many iterations of this style of social news over the years.

------
hakaaaaak
"Whenever you are thinking about writing a comment ask yourself, is this
helpful, is this funny or is this a question? If you get no positive answer
don't post it."

Yes, but take out the "is this funny". I've been funny many times and gotten
downvoted. By the way, a penguin, a priest, and a rabbit went into a bar and
ordered a drink...

------
SethMurphy
Coders attacking designers attacking coders ... this happens too much. I often
wonder if the underlying problem is the rift between designers and coders
constantly reinforced by pure business people who keeps us at a distance and
call us each the most important in private. Can't we all just get along?

------
pascal07
A Hacker News comment thread about a post about Hacker News comment threads.
It's meta all the way down.

~~~
lurkinggrue
It's So Meta, Even This Acronym

------
hso9791
So, people who are mean - by this person's judgement - are stupid?

For fear of being mean (and stupid) I shan't put words to what I think about
this.

------
jstrate
Not much to this post for being on the front page, I guess I'll follow up with
grow some thick skin. It's stupid not to.

~~~
jtheory
This isn't a thin skin problem.

Mean comments are a waste of space; they take up the space on the page where
actually valuable content should be.

I've always hated the "grow a thicker skin" comment, regardless -- it shifts
the blame onto the victim, and is simply impossible for some people and some
situations -- but the problem here is that one person gets hurt (more or less,
depending on thickness of skin), and lots & lots of readers get crap instead
of brain food.

~~~
jstrate
<https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75>

I reckon this is 'mean and a waste of space' then?

~~~
jtheory
That's debatable, to be sure, but do you have a similar example from an HN
discussion?

I don't think I've ever seen a mean post in the context of an HN discussion
that wouldn't have been improved by removing the meanness, or simply deleting
it.

------
taligent
No we shouldn't be personal. Period.

What I've always thought set HN above other sites like Reddit is the quality
of the arguments. At the end of the day we all learn and grow by putting
forward our positions on various topics and issues and seeing what comes out
of it. And those positions can and should be aggressively defended as need be.
If you take it personally then clearly that is your problem and no one else's.

When we start attacking the person everyone loses.

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Buzaga
This reads like a child's rant to me.

It misses all the fair points everybody is arguing over and jumps to his
conclusion that 'being mean is always bad :( why is there conflict in the
world?'

pff, yes, I'm mean.

