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Comment by seadan83 | Hacker News Reader

Can you provide citations/links and references?

Though, I'm afraid this will be hard to quantify for you. You will also need to satisfy the burden of proof that those links/citations are prevalent ideas and constitute a representative sample of more than just a few individuals.

What's more though, such a representative sample only just informs us about the population of HN commentators. I don't think that is a particularly interesting sub-population, very little (if anything) can be extrapolated other than: "there were a lot of comments on HN stating Y." Doesn't really mean much for me - to be blunt, nobody really cares what random groups of HN commentators think. It doesn't represent very much.

On the other hand, perhaps we can look at actual studies that use statistical techniques to in fact make somewhat more interesting inferences, eg:

- https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2023/06/07/17-studies-plus-...

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LOL

Cool deal dude. Confirmation bias and false extrapolation are common tools of the human mind to avoid the fact that very little is known for certain. Which is to say, humans are often uncomfortable acknowledging profound ignorance, and for most things - that's exactly what we are.

Therefore, stating that a bunch of people on hacker news wrote something goes on to say absolutely nothing more than just exactly that.

This is to point out the extrapolations you made are totally unsupported without more than anecdata. The very well sourced article linked would indicate you are cherry-picking and/or misrepresenting.

Minor mea culpa, I realize now the population you are extrapolating to is all HN threads regarding Twitter/Musk and not more broad. I apologize for misreading and inferring you were extrapolating to all of media and more. Nonetheless, the point of unsupported (or false) extrapolation stands.

Go and read those threads.

Burden of proof is for you to find specific examples, quote them, link them, then find data that those items did not come to pass. Following that, find more quotes that are similar, enough so that it's a persistent and significant percentage to constitute an actual trend. Until then, it's anecdata. You are the one making the claim, it is up to you to provide the evidence to back it.

Let's say I did read "those thread". If I were then to come back and say "nope - it all checked out, the histrionics were in your head." I'd wager you would respond by saying I read the wrong threads. I doubt you are willing to engage in a good-faith discussion further at this point. I'm not sure exactly which point you are making, which threads you are thinking, and I'm certainly not going to go try to find the evidence for a very vague claim that you are making.

I suppose we can probably end the bad faith argument here pretty readily.

Your claim is that there is at least one internet commentator who made a prediction in potentially bad faith, pearl clutching, where that prediction did not bear fruit. This is based on examples which you recollect.

Can you claim that this is a phenomenon that is a majority opinion, or even widespread? You would be doing so based on examples, which is cherry-picking. In addition, using human recollection only introduces confirmation-bias.

In contrast, an article that sites something like 20 different studies, which shows that indeed a number of negative outcomes did occur is a very different basis for making statements.

Rule of thumb, unless you have data - you don't know, and if you think you do, you're probably wrong. Therefore those that claim big things without giving data...

Given the number of downvotes you seem to get.. The HN community favors and rewards discussions that are based on data, and not just feelings or "I saw 5 people write X and from that I extrapolate X to be true for tens of millions of other people."

Please review, these guidelines are what keeps this site different from Reddit or Twitter, or any other trolly comment section of just about any other website: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously;"

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."

Follow your own rules when it comes to subjects that trigger you and all will be well.

If it is not clear, I find the histrionics a form of performative trolling.

It's not about me here. You violated several of those discussion guidelines. Do better.

You do better.

The old: "I know you are, but what am I." - well done.

If you can point out where I am cherry-picking data, please do so. If you would point out exactly how I have violated the HN discussion guidelines, please do so (arguably this is turning into a flame-war, mea culpa again for entertaining a bad faith argument for too long)

Otherwise, at this juncture your claim, "at least one pearl clutching internet commentator turned out to be wrong" is not super interesting and your incorrectly extrapolated opinion that "all of them who said X were wrong" is unsupported, debunked by previously cited data, and is a good example of cherry-picking data. You were asked to provide citations and/or backing data for your opinions, and it seems the best you have mustered is: "I'm rubber and you're glue"

Just do better.

Not triggered, just pointing out anecdata. Your previous statements were unsupported. The reference I cited gave some examples of how those statements were inaccurate.

Last thought, when others disagree with me - I do spend a bit more time on the subject to double check my thinking and to assess their opinion in greater detail. Finding places where oneself was incorrect is a good way to grow.

Unfortunately, chat communities on the modern internet are more about performative trolling (as you would put it), rather than ever admitting mistake or being wrong. It's about noise generation and not much more. With luck, hacker news can be a last bastion where the noise is unwelcome, whereas facts, data and analsyis are welcome. That is a difference between reddit or Twitter & here.

The point in contention "I find the histrionics a form of performative trolling."

- others have pointed out that the histrionics is your perspective. You noted statements like "the site will be down all the time", others have corrected that they have seen statements like "greater downtime" - and the data does back that up.

- therefore, what are you talking about exactly? This is why I'm saying you have the burden of proof to show exactly what you are talking about, with quotes, links, citations, data. Otherwise it seems that you're making a mountain of a mole-hill from cherry-picked data that likely fit your own confirmation bias. Which is not really a useful insight when someone is just saying: "see, gee, that one person over there - they exaggerated!" Is it really a large number of people that were making incorrect statements, enough that you're not just cherry-picking data? Hopefully you got the point, that nobody's word is really just taken at face value here, and those that are - are opinions and are not worth much (which goes for my opinions too, and anyone else's here.)

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