Comment by ineptech | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ineptech | Hacker News Reader

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I'm sorry dude, I definitely meant at least 200k, not no more than 200k. Source: I am the world's leading expert in what I meant. I honestly can't see how that can be misunderstood, either. You said SC2 gets 25k views, and I said, "The reason LoL gets 100-200k is..." and then went on to talk about how much better funded LoL is. How can you read that any other way than, "The reason LoL gets so many more viewers than SC2 is..." ?

> ...by an entire order of magnitude...

I chose such a low number, ironically, to avoid a conversation like this one. When you're suggesting that a number is high (as I was), it makes sense to choose a lower bound because it makes your claim stronger. Suppose I had said that LoL events get 5M - then you could've replied, "Nuh uh, here's an event that only got 1M views!" If I had said 1M, you could've said, "Well here's one that only got 500k!" I chose the lowest number I could that would still support my point (which, again was that LoL gets a lot more viewers than SC2), to be more confident no one could argue with it.

If you respond, could you please clarify what you think my argument was? You said I made up a number to make my argument more legitimate. What argument? What could I have been arguing that would've been strengthened by suggesting LoL's viewership is lower than it really is?

>I chose such a low number, ironically, to avoid a conversation like this one.

Don't invent numbers or facts to mislead people into thinking you know more about this topic than you do. If you don't want to discuss specific numbers, then don't state specific numbers, say that "More people do X than Y" without trying to get specific about how many people do either.

When you invent facts to justify your position, you mislead people who don't otherwise know any better and misrepresent yourself as being more of a knowledgeable authority on a subject than you really are. This is how misinformation gets spread.

Finally, when someone calls you out on incorrect facts, instead of playing the victim card and getting all defensive about it, own up to the mistake and use it as an opportunity to learn something new. As humiliating as it seems right now, I assure you not even one week from now you'll forget all about this bickering between us. The worst thing that can happen is you decide to continue believing incorrect facts all because you were too embarrassed to admit you were wrong about something that can be independently verified.

This is how we end up with people believing all kinds of wrong and harmful ideas, because they're just too proud or embarrassed to simply admit they got something wrong.

I've said all I care to about this topic, you can have the last word and all the best to in the future.

> If you don't want to discuss specific numbers, then don't state specific numbers, say that "More people do X than Y" without trying to get specific about how many people do either.

No. It was a fleeting thought in a casual conversation about video games, not a wikipedia entry. Read more charitably. Assume good faith. And maybe consider not arguing with someone unless you understand their point well enough to be confident you disagree with it.

> I've said all I care to about this topic, you can have the last word[s]

Nerf Zerg!

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