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Comment by csallen | Hacker News Reader

This is a super disingenuous take. He was very obviously making a specific point, not try express a perspective on the value of humanity.

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I understand he’s making a technical point about efficiency, but language isn't neutral and I think it betrays something deeper. It's such a glib and shallow point too that I think it should be called out since he has a track record of saying some incredibly shallow things about AI, people, politics, and everything really.

The meaning of a message is what has been understood.

Can you please make your substantive points without being snarky or condescending? Your comment would be fine without that last bit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The meaning of a message is what is intended + communicated, assuming those intentions were communicated clearly.

Willfully interpreting otherwise (especially uncharitably so) is the very definition of being disingenuous, which is pretending to not know what was really meant.

I disagree: if a message is open to such disingenuous interpretations, then its meaning has not been formulated clearly enough. I use the: (1) say what you will communicate, (2) communicate, (3) say what you have communicated rule, also the six W's...

No one communicates that way. It's not practical. Almost all expressions can be uncharitably interpreted by a listener who doesn't like you, and thus has a motive to quote your sentences and disingenuously pretend you're saying something much more dastardly than you clearly intended.

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