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Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

I often find that when people start applying purity tests it’s mainly just to discredit any arguments they don’t like without having to make a case against the substance of the argument.

Assess the argument based on its merits. If you have to pick him apart with “he has no right to say it” that is not sufficient.

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They did also "assess the argument on its merits" though?

“He just hates GenAI so everything is virtue signaling/a cudgel” is not an assessment. It’s simply dismissing him outright. If they were talking about the merits, they would actually debate whether or not the environmental concerns and such are valid. You can’t just say “you don’t like X so all critiques of X are not just wrong but also inauthentic by default.”

The part where they specifically address Pike's "argument" [0] is where they express that in their view, the energy use issue is a data center problem, not a generative AI one:

> nothing he complains about is specific to GenAI

(see also all their other scattered gesturings towards Google and their already existing data centers)

A lot can be said about this take, but claiming that it doesn't directly and specifically address Pike's "argument", I simply don't think is true.

I generally find that when (hyper?)focusing on fallacies and tropes, it's easy to lose sight of what the other person is actually trying to say. Just because people aren't debating in a quality manner, doesn't mean they don't have any points in there, even if those points are ultimately unsound or disagreeable.

Let's not mistake form for function. People aren't wrong because they get their debating wrong. They're wrong because they're wrong.

[0] in quotes, because I read a rant up there, not an argument - though I'm sure if we zoom way in, the lines blur

This thread is basically an appeal to authority fallacy so attacking the authority is fair game.

>appeal to authority

How so? He’s talking about what happened to him in the context of his professional expertise/contributions. It’s totally valid for him to talk about this subject. His experience, relevance, etc. are self apparent. No one is saying “because he’s an expert” to explain everything.

They literally (using AI) wrote him an email about his work and contributions. His expertise can’t be removed from the situation even if we want to.

having made Go amd parts pf Unix gives him no authority in the realms that his criticisms are aimed at though - environment science, civil engineering, resource management etc

not having a good spam filter is a kinda funny reason for somebody to have a crash out.

The "attack on the authority" is rather flat though.

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