Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Some rules are best left unstated. By formalizing them everybody is incentivized to stretch them. By formalizing them we fool ourselves into believing that they're more objective than they really are.

A [poor] analogy would be false precision. By stating something in overly specific terms we can communicate something completely opposite of what we mean.

In the case of something like "naughtiness" there's really no decent way to communicate what the author has in mind, not even in an approximate fashion. It's not reducible to a term divorced from the messy details of real-world context. And that presumes what the author has in mind is at all consistent. Better leave it unstated and leave one's actions to speak in their stead.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: