Pg's Hierarchy of Disagreement Represented Graphically | Hacker News Reader

Pg's Hierarchy of Disagreement Represented Graphically

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18 pointsedw51911 comments

The pyramid representation is possibly misleading - at first glance I took it to mean that DH6 arguments stand on a foundation of ad hominem and name calling :)

Yeah, I think that's exactly right: I think a pyramid naturally expresses a hierarchy of categories, with the category at the top being inclusive of the lower categories (think Maslow's hierarchy of needs: the higher needs are only relevant once the lower needs have been satisfied). That's clearly not the case here.

A misleading diagram is worse than no diagram at all.

Is it just me, or do other people have a nearly uncontrollable urge to respond to DH postings with an argument that uses all 7 categories?

I think I could succeed on this one, except for DH2. Still awaiting my perfect opportunity.

I don't think you could succeed. First of all your self-abasing statement that you could succeed except for DH2 is an obvious ploy to catch us off guard. Nice try.

Secondly, I don't like your tone. Not one bit, sir. Who, exactly are you to try arguing using all 7 categories? Oh, you're a hacker you say? Well, of course a hacker would think they could argue using all 7 categories! I stand corrected!

p.s.ur gay.

(I think you might be right, it IS hard to use all 7 categories and remain coherent).

Real hackers do it in ascii.

                      /\
                     /  \
                    /    \
                   / DH6. \
                  / Refute \ 
                 /   the    \
                /  Central   \
               /    Point     \
              /----------------\
             / DH5. Refutation  \
            /--------------------\
           / DH4. Counterargument \
          /------------------------\ 
         /    DH3. Contradiction    \
        /----------------------------\
       /    DH2. Responding to Tone   \
      /--------------------------------\
     /         DH1. Ad Hominem          \
    /------------------------------------\
   /          DH0. Name Calling           \
  /----------------------------------------\

Unfortunately, the average Digg poster will see this and apply the 'Food Pyramid' rules - 'Today's posts will contain at least 15 DH0s, 8 DH1s,...' and so on. DH6 will be used sparingly, since it is at the top of the pyramid.

Actually, the USDA revised the Food Pyramid so that all the food groups are vertical slices, and there are steps up the side for jogging:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyPyramid

I suppose you could do the same for the Disagreement Hierarchy, but it would be harder to draw in ASCII. On the other hand, you could have a diving board sticking out of DH0 for jumping to conclusions.

Oh my god. That is just comical. They took the food pyramid and, to my utter amazement, made it WORSE than before.

Real hackers write a program that takes a description of the pyramid as input and produce two output backends (ascii, image).

Can it possibly be true that it's more substantive to comment on the tone of an argument than the authority of the the arguer? Most arguments have coded appeals to authority in them.

"You should trust X's judgement because X is an expert in his field" and "You shouldn't trust Y's judgement because Y is acting like a crank" are both, given the right context, completely reasonable arguments to make. They have no place in a mathematics proof or another exercise in pure deductive reasoning, but very few real-world arguments involve pure deductive reasoning.

More on this from an old classmate of mine: http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/cyberia-l/msg19080.htm...

See also "Flamer Bingo": http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009186.html

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