butter999

You are applying standards only to my comments. Your statements are just as "sweeping" and "silent". We're both just asserting stuff based on our experiences, but it only seems to be a problem when I do it. I'm doing my best to have a productive discussion, but I don't think it's possible under the circumstances.

Don't we all have a lot to teach and a lot to learn?

Same to you, have a good one.

By "appropriate" I meant "fitting" or "suitable". Just in case you took my meaning as "inappropriate in conversation," I could have been more clear, my mistake.

My supposition about the necessity of ground rules is precisely as supported as the alternatives offered in this discussion. Poorly supported by the standards of rigorous debate, I agree, but supported enough for casual discussion. No one has offered any evidence CoCs are caused by busybodies. ("Silently" seems unnecessary, it wasn't silent, I stated it aloud and described why I thought it was so. I can't help but point out again, you go on to dispute it, but not with any evidence. I think that's fine for casual discussion, but it's not meeting the bar you're setting.)

"Scheme to elevate property values" is a shared interest if all of the homeowners primarily view their homes as financial instruments. People get bent out of shape with HOAs because they want their home for other things. Some people would rather put up radio towers or paint their house a garish color or park a truck on their lawn than maximize their property value.

CoCs are as old as dirt. I signed one every single year in elementary school, decades ago. They've been a norm in workplaces for a long time. They're more recent in open source projects, and they started because of problems projects were having - people being creepy at conferences, people starting drama on mailing lists, etc.

What's recent is the politicization of CoCs.

If it helps, I would agree that busybodies might abuse both of these mechanisms to impose themselves on their neighbors and colleagues. I disagree that that is the root of why they exist, on the basis that they can be explained by incentives and pragmatic considerations. On an Occam's razor basis, if I don't need to assume busybodies are the motivating force to explain the existence of these things, then I won't, until such a time I receive evidence I can't explain without them. Were we colleagues, and I were involved in drafting a CoC, "I don't want a CoC because I'm worried it will be abused by busybodies" is a concern I'd take seriously.

The motivations seem pretty plain. They were anticipating the question, "why did you host this site yourself?" I don't think there's any need to read further into it. You seem to have come to that conclusion yourself.

The HOA analogy would be appropriate if HOAs were about conduct among colleagues. It's pretty obvious why you need to set ground rules when you have a huge number of people collaborating - you get incidents of people behaving inappropriately, and if that behavior proliferates, you will create a hostile environment where it's difficult for work to be done. (See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43147705)

HOAs are a problem because there is very little shared interest in regulating the size of hedges or the color you may paint your house or whatever. It's a scheme to keep property values elevated.

There is no connection between these phenomena. One of them addresses pragmatic and real problems, however flawed the implementation may be. The author is a scheme to manipulate property markets. There is no shared cause between them.

I believe you when you say you made no error and that it was part of your rhetorical strategy. The problem is that your rhetorical strategy was to mischaracterize the author's statement in order to weaken it. That's dishonest. Saying "that was merely rhetorical" doesn't magically make it not dishonest. (This is on top of your earlier mischaracteiztion that they were "surprised" a project succeeded without a CoC, which I presumed was a mistake caused by a game of telephone in this discussion until you implied that wasn't the case. I can't take you at your word when you have mischaracterized the author multiple times then doubled down.)

If you had said, "oh, that was a mistake, I didn't mean to imply they had extrapolated from a single instance," then I would've believed you then, too.

They made a side note in an "about" page. You're making a mountain out of a pebble. The author made a minor note about their thought process, you have been complaining about it and have now crossed into personal attacks on them. "Whining" is not a stone you ought to be throwing.

You weren't speaking rhetorically, you were mischaracterizing what the author said to weaken their statement. That's the most charitable way to describe it without parting from the facts.

> If the author doesn't want to dive into the mailing list then good for them. Leave it at that.

They did leave it at that.

The source of petty disagreement, in this instance, is that you went to this website, clicked on "about," found an offhand mention of CoCs, which you took out of context to derail the conversation and start an argument. You complain that the author is injecting their "feelings" into a discussion, but you're clearly going out of your way to inject your anti-CoC politics into a discussion of an operating system. You complain that CoCs are tools to exclude people, meanwhile you are attempting to dissuade people from engaging with this author's work because an offhand remark rubbed you the wrong way.

Physician, heal thyself.

If you read the page then I don't understand why you continue to mischaracterize what it says. Eg, the page offers multiple examples of de Raadt swearing at people, which you characterize as "swearing at one person." Frankly, it makes me doubt your candor.

I agree, I think any test that gets you a meaningfully different result if you take it twice or are coached beforehand isn't measuring something intrinsic or meaningful, I'm just trying to help bridge a miscommunication.

a.) They found it off-putting that OpenBSD was "proud" not to have a CoC, in the context of whether they would choose to work with them or to host the website themselves. Consider taking a moment to read the passage in question: https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/

This idea they were surprised a project succeeded without having a CoC is an artefact of this particular discussion, not something the author ever said or implied. It was in the same category as de Raadt swearing at people over email - they didn't anticipate a productive exchange if they reached out. That's it.

If someone declares they reserve the right to treat people however they please, and then you observe them treating people in a way you don't want to be treated, and your conclusion is, "I don't think emailing this person is a good use of my time, I'm just going to host this website myself" - I find it hard to understand how anyone would find that objectionable, that seems simple, common sense, and largely neutral.

b.) Whenever you have a large group of people collaborating for an extended period of time, you have incidents. There's drama. There's inappropriate behavior. It's just how it goes. It's a Murphy's Law thing.

Eventually people sit down and say, "we've gotta set some ground rules." You probably signed a code of conduct at every school you attended and every job you've accepted. I know I have.

You can disagree with that without viewing it as a conspiracy. It's a predictable result of being in a large community, and about as ideological as traffic lights.

You probably meant that there doesn't exist a total order for comparing intelligence and/or that it isn't a scalar quantity like height, but "linear" didn't convey that meaning.

Granted. However, the quote at issue doesn't come out of left field. It is natural to consider the internal politics of an open source project when writing a wide ranging, in depth critique of the project. Plenty of projects don't have a CoC, it is idiosyncratic to be "proud" not to have one, and that does reflect on the project (I leave it to you to decide if it's for better or worse).

Dogs who hurt people are put down. Every municipality employs people for animal control. We have "dog control" already.

I honestly can't fathom suggesting people don't pay attention to teen drug use. It takes up a lot of oxygen. Every school has some kind of drug awareness program.

Suicide prevention and mental health outreach deserve more funding and attention, but it's also incorrect to suggest they're wholly ignored.

These are also things which can be addressed by individual action. A parent can intercede if their child starts using drugs or becomes depressed. Gun violence can only be addressed collectively. By the time a child is shot, a parent can do nothing.

The usual suggestion for individual action is to become armed, but I don't think it's really a good idea for most people to own a firearm. Owning a firearm is a huge responsibility that many people aren't ready to handle. I think we all know someone who had a negligent discharge cleaning their weapon, or who struggles to control their anger. Indeed, you mentioned suicide being an issue - access to a gun is a risk factor in suicide, and most gun deaths are suicides.

You must know some very particular people, because I have met a lot of people who want gun control, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone suggest we might ban pitbulls.

The onus is always on you to figure out what information is and is not reliable. People who haven't stated their feelings still have them. They might still be pursuing an agenda other than being informative. If anything, someone stating their reservations should make you feel more comfortable, because it gives you a better lens to view their statements through and judge what parts you trust more or less.

Personally, what makes me discount a source as unreliable is when they don't state clearly what their problems are but instead make it known through vague insinuations or by a litany of tangential complaints. When someone says "I'm uncomfortable with X" I respect their candor, regardless of how I feel about X.

I think it's strange to assert that LDS is the only subject worth studying in this regard, and it's less that I'm disinterested than that I don't want to say something I don't have full confidence in about a very touchy subject, but okay, have a good day.

In every cult I've ever read about, it's pretty clear that the person at the center was creating a structure that enabled them to abuse people. I'm sure there were people involved who were true believers. But the cult leaders were engaged in something closer to cold reading than good faith philosophical inquiry, figuring out what lands with an audience and then leaning into it.

Your question about LDS is fair, I'm just not knowledgeable enough about LDS that I feel qualified to address it. What "successful ideologies" do you believe came out of cults, and why do you believe that?

Cults are scams designed to entrap and abuse people. Everything else is window dressing; their ideological positions will ultimately be changed or abandoned to consolidate the cult leader's power (ie Synanon spent years espousing a commitment to nonviolence, only to turn on a dime and begin arming themselves and carrying out assaults). They're not the nucleolus of "successful" ideologies any more than pyramid schemes are the nucleolus of successful businesses. Some of them will succeed in that they survive and spread, some of what they preach will be reasonable, common sense stuff. But ultimately they're an engine to abuse people and they will create much more misery than anything else.

You've not really elaborated on how your views apply to this discussion and the original comment. If your commentary is generic rather than related to this particular discussion, then it was already priced into the discussion, and didn't need stating. Generic tangents should be avoided.

Say something provocative, and you'll provoke a response. It's not that deep.

I invite you to elaborate, because because while I see how it's true you should draw conclusions from what you see in general, abstract terms, I don't understand what you mean to imply in the context of the comment I made (eg "don't judge a book by it's cover" or "if you're judging a book by it's cover, don't be surprised or claim victimhood if you get the feedback you've come to errant conclusions").

For what it's worth, I always downvote "I can't speak my mind because my opinions are too controversial" comments, but I don't downvote controversial comments if they're thoughtful.

I think most of the time when people feel they can't speak their mind, the reality is that their opinions are shallow and poorly thought out, and they're not willing to receive that feedback or put more energy into formulating an opinion.

If you're jumping to conclusions by looking at people's photos - you're probably not really coming to a considered conclusion based on the breadth of evidence. The downvotes you were anticipating were probably deserved.

a.) While I can't possibly know, yes, I think there's a very good chance. I think it's the top comment chiefly because it expressed a view that was popular with commenters. It's not like AI is a magic spell that bewitches people into upvoting.

b.) Another way to look at it is, "do you think it would be the top comment if the author didn't solicit feedback and thoughtfully edit their comment?" To which I would say, "who cares? Editing is fair play. Let's talk about our actual points of disagreement."

c.) To be frank I think this response from you is very telling. I haven't seen you engage at all with the substance of the comment. But you press very hard on this "AI" angle. The commenter has now shown us their pre-AI draft, and it's much the same - I think if you had a good-faith concern that it was "manipulated," that would satisfy you. Since it hasn't, I infer that your concern is either puritanical ("no AI must ever be used in any way") or that you are attacking the style of the comment when your real issue is it's substance.

A lesson to take from this is, "if a post expresses strong opinions, and you believe AI was involved in it's generation, then they probably used AI to edit, not to generate whole cloth." A hallmark of ChatGPT is an unwillingness to take a position, and instead to describe what positions it's possible to take. By the time you've prompted it enough to take a strong position, you've probably crossed into "editing" rather than "generating".

You can disagree with someone's view, but editing their words with AI doesn't make them wrong or disingenuous any more than asking another human to critique your post would be. And to imply otherwise is, itself, disingenuous and disruptive.

The exception would be if you thought there was no human involvement in the account at all, in which case, as another commenter noted, the appropriate thing would be to email the mods.

That's pretty weak tea. A retort, not a rebuttal. Since you aren't interested in engaging with the substance of my comment, I'll not engage any further with yours.

At this point this is just a "no true Scotsman." Any counterexample you're offered, you decide doesn't count. I don't know why you're entrenched in this position, but I don't think you're willing to engage with it in a manner compatible with curious conversation. I think you're personally invested in this community and it's guidelines, so I think that's something worth pointing out to you.

Consider that the people who feel most disenfranchised might not be coming to the meetings and such you're drawing from.

I don't really understand your second statement, it would only make sense to me if you didn't consider the homeless to exist as people. But I take the impression that you don't feel that way. So I don't really see why you feel you can discard them and conclude not calling the police is a "message board phenomenon" rather than a "very low on the ladder" phenomenon.

I've met people offline who tell me they don't call the police in a way I find credible, I don't know what else to tell you. I suppose the reason I responded to your comment was because it felt like a "message board phenomenon" to me, it didn't match my experience interacting with people offline.

People claiming on HN they won't call the cops might be all talk, I can't possibly know, but if you don't know anyone who won't call the police, you don't know people low on the socioeconomic ladder. And that's fine, there's no shame in that. But people who are frequent harassed by police - yeah, they don't call the police.

Ask a homeless person how they're treated by police and whether they would call 911.

It does appear in the article.

> The group is a radical offshoot of the Rationalism movement, focusing on matters such as veganism and artificial intelligence destroying humanity.

You yourself seem to acknowledge this as a fact.

Their reputation is being friendly to shareholders.

Shareholders brought a suit alleging Musk's pay package was inappropriate. It came out in the lawsuit that the people charged with negotiating with Musk were actually taking direction from him.

However you feel about that, I think it's easy to acknowledge that if the people negotiating on your behalf were being instructed by the counterparty, you probably didn't get the best deal you could. The court's decision was reasonable and probably would've been similar in any jurisdiction.

This exodus appears to me to be part petty feud and part cargo cult.