Comment by jsmthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsmthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's a capital crime in Chicago, if you do it in public.

That's where the joking about it comes from; ketchup on hot dogs is one of those things that people take jestingly serious with tongue firmly planted in cheek at all times. Nobody actually cares, nobody's actually going to kill you in Chicago despite my joke, but people interpret the joshing as caring and demeaning because nobody can actually take a joke any more, as evidenced by GP (and which is far more often the problem). And yet here we are, lamenting the downfall of society.

I can't even fathom a world where someone giving a friend crap over lunch for their choice of condiment is enough to start a Serious Conversation about Culture. That's funny in itself, honestly, but I don't want to live in that world. That's why I eschew social media altogether.

I remember when I was a boy, laughing was something to be celebrated, because sharing something funny with your friends was one of the high points of life. Actually cutting loose and laughing with your friends about the stupidest things is easily one of the best feelings you can experience, but now every time I genuinely laugh at something that I find funny, I often have to look around and be worried about who saw me do it. It's genuinely depressing, the older I get. I don't even have humor any more. Now I just have liquor.

See, you're part of the problem. You think you understand my friend's tone better now that I'm relating it to you better than I did at the time that I experienced it. You don't believe my version of the story, even though the only evidence you have is my telling of it. You've treated me as if I'm lying to you, yet you don't just come out and say it. This is the very definition of passive aggressive behavior.

Just because something is post hoc declared as a joke doesn't mean it was a joke. And just because something is styled as a joke, doesn't mean it is funny. I don't have a problem with taking jokes. Most people just suck at humor. It's not an easy thing to tell a joke. And besides, most people are just using "it was a joke" as an excuse to cover up for some serious comment they made that went over like a lead balloon.

Actually, I believe your version completely and don't think you're lying at all from your perspective. What makes you think I feel otherwise?

This is an odd, and overly defensive, reaction to something that you've clearly misinterpreted. (That sounds familiar.)

How could I have so clearly misinterpreted "GP can't take a joke" to be a refutation of my assertion the guy wasn't joking?

Must be you were also telling a joke and I just don't get jokes.

See, you think it's personal and that I've made some kind of determination on your character based on my conclusion. You've totally come off the rails and started attacking me personally at the mere suspicion (not even to you!) that you might have misinterpreted things. I've merely read and worked with the information that was made available; you call this person a friend, for example. You were having lunch with this person. This person felt comfortable enough with you to remark upon your condiment choice. I've observed many, many people remark upon the same choice in a jesting fashion.

Now, which is more likely from my perspective: that a misinterpretation by you is at work (and which is spilling over here, since you clearly don't have closure on this egregious scenario), or that your friend is the one person out of millions who actually cares about ketchup on a hot dog and was ready to fight with you about it? Someone you identify as a friend chose ketchup on a hot dog as his Maginot Line in your relationship and demeaned you over it. Okay, maybe that did happen (in which case you should think long and hard about who you identify as friends), but my point was it's extraordinarily unlikely, and you cannot fault me for concluding that in my own time and with the facts given.

You can't relay a story and then expect everyone to blindly accept your interpretation without reading objectively. That's unfair. I think you very likely misinterpreted things, yes, and I base that on the entire story including believing your perspective entirely. I don't think you're lying at all. That's the entire point, that I think you're telling the truth from your perspective, and your perspective might be a little bit off. It's nothing negative. I don't think less of you. I see misunderstanding like this all the time.

Yet you felt passionately enough about it to go after me personally and call me part of the problem, simply because I didn't subscribe immediately to a half story. I feel I'm exercising the better option: I'm reading objectively and drawing my own conclusions rather than immediately buying into a single-sided narrative. That's what we should do when confronted with unfamiliar situations relayed by people we don't know, because it's the fundamental brick in the foundation of avoiding mobs, rash conclusions, beheading people over blogs, and so on.

And see? Now we're arguing about this. About ketchup on a god damned hot dog. Remember how I didn't want to live in this world?

(Edit: Also, please, please, please tell me you didn't compare your choice of condiment to the plight of minorities in an upthread comment. I will conclude something about your character after reading something like that, if you mean it.)

> Someone you identify as a friend chose ketchup on a hot dog as his Maginot Line in your relationship and demeaned you over it. Okay, maybe that did happen (in which case you should think long and hard about who you identify as friends), but my point was it's extraordinarily unlikely, and you cannot fault me for concluding that in my own time and with the facts given.

I'm just going to assume you don't have many friends or don't see them on a regular basis. It seems extraordinarily unlikely you would have many friends you see frequently and not have a weird argument with at least one of them.

See how that works? It's this very sort of "extrapolate on my own, dismiss things that don't fit my worldview" that is where this comes from.

Holy shit you put a lot of thought and care into deconstructing that situation logically and rationally. You would probably make a great super-forecaster. Head over to Slate Star Codex!

Thanks for doing such a thankless job. It made me smile on many levels.

But that's just it: it wasn't logical or rational. It was irrational and biased, because he wasn't even present at the event in question. He dismissed the only actual evidence available (the first-hand witness account) and fabricated his own story out of thin air based upon his own life experiences. Then he accused him of misinterpreting and overreacting. Mind-reading is bad enough second-hand, but third-hand?

And this passes for objectivity, logic, and reason? And this makes you smile?

Of course, the joke's really on all of us, because this kind of human interaction/communication/judgment/reasoning failure has been going on since the begnning of time. It's not as if I'm not guilty of it, too. And by the time we overcome it (if anyone ever does), we die, and people who haven't overcome it take our place.

Perhaps the ultimate lesson is to lower our expectations. Haha.

I understand what you're saying, but I think moron4hire has a very good point here.

There is no objective reading to be done here. You have available a single account from a single source. Despite having nothing but his account to go on, you think your interpretation is more correct. Despite him knowing this other person personally, in real life, and having been there in-person to witness body language and tone-of-voice, you think you are a better judge of that person's intent.

At the same time, of course, to you, moron4hire is just as random of a person as moron4hire's lunch companion, and equally likely to be the socially inept one of the two. So it's fine that you are skeptical of his interpretation; it's fine that you think he probably misinterpreted his friend's jesting.

But out of about three choices of how to respond, you chose the worst one.

a) You could have said nothing. Mildly amusing anecdote, skepticism registered, moving on.

b) You could have said something like, "I wonder if he was just kidding." Skepticism expressed without implying fault or incompetence, while leaving the door open for further, neutral discussion and elaboration by moron4hire.

But instead, you chose c) Explicitly accuse him of overreaction and misinterpretation, implying that you know better than him, despite his being there and your only reading his account, while also engaging in armchair psychoanalysis ("odd, and overly defensive, reaction...").

And that's just plain rude, as well as arrogant. It's basically the same as the "you put ketchup on your hot dog?!" reaction.

> I'm reading objectively and drawing my own conclusions rather than immediately buying into a single-sided narrative. That's what we should do when confronted with unfamiliar situations relayed by people we don't know, because it's the fundamental brick in the foundation of avoiding mobs, rash conclusions, beheading people over blogs, and so on.

Actually you're jumping to your own conclusions based upon a dearth of evidence. That's one of the causes of mob mentality. You think you're being objective, but you're actually just discounting his experience and drawing exclusively upon your own. And by accusing him of being wrong, you assert your own correctness and superiority, thus reinforcing your bias.

And this is the whole problem! People think they're being objective when they're merely replacing one subjective bias with another. No wonder there's so much arguing and misunderstanding in this world. :(

No one thinks you're lying, however your perspective on your friend's statements is a bit absurd. It at the very least can be described as culturally ignorant -- the hyperbole built on top of that ignorance is what makes it absurd.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com