Not just the argument itself. One asshole I could deal with. The fact that people upvoted them...
Like, there’s nothing that particularly stands out to me about /r/programming readers. As far as I know they’re generally fairly normal humans. And a bunch of generally fairly normal humans apparently thought that those comments were good?
I think the direct reason for your disappointment is simply that the people that would have upvoted you just didn’t find the conversation interesting enough to follow. Or to put it differently, they’re mistake theorists and didn’t see anything there to learn or fix. The other guys don’t have to be worse people or less intelligent—just more conflict theorists, which I think they probably are. Ergo more upvotes, even deeper in conversation.
As an example: I realized I didn’t even upvote you. I agreed with you, thought your points were perfectly sensible, enjoyed the occasional inadvertent humour … and closed the window. It didn’t even occur to me to “help” your side in the conflict… because I wasn’t there to fight a fight. (Took me a year off reddit and on SSC to get to this point, and I’m still more combative than I’d like to be).
Conflict theorists, cashed out as something like “people who saw the article as an attempted power grab and so upvoted the person attacking it” feels like it fits, but… I dunno, I try to be hesitant to use conflict theory as an explanation, because it’s so easy to make it fit. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I appreciated your words more than I would have done upvotes; thank you.
Perhaps, but… I honestly can’t tell what opinion that would be.
Like, a thing I appreciate about the commenter is that they’re admirably straightforward. They say what they think and don’t try to weasel out of it later. I don’t love that they’re deliberately trying to hurt me (seemingly without checking if they could accomplish their goals some other way), but at least they’re upfront about it. It seems to me that there’s unusually little room for misinterpretation here.
And yet, so much of what they’re saying is completely out there, and I just don’t believe that most people agree with it.
I could believe that most people agree, at least unreflexively and perhaps after consideration, with “OSS maintainers have no responsibility”. (And possibly even with “no responsibility at all without consent”.) But I think most of them would not bite the bullets that this user does.
Like, I could see someone saying “they don’t have a responsibility here, but they still shouldn’t deliberately introduce bugs to brick people’s OSes, and it’s totally reasonable for people to complain if they do”. And then there’s a conversation about what does responsibility even mean, and maybe it turns out we don’t mean the same thing by it and don’t really disagree that much, or maybe we actually do have some important disagreements. But that’s not at all where the conversation went.
I don’t believe most people agree with “If someone deliberately bricks a bunch of people’s OSes, and then stops doing that, you call them generous”. I don’t even believe most people agree with the earlier bit about deliberately bricking OSes not being something to complain about.
I could believe that most people agree, at least unreflexively and perhaps after consideration, that I’m being too demanding. I included a list of quotes to say “no, really, I’m demanding very little”, but I could see someone thinking I’m demanding more than I realize, or thinking I’m being dishonest about how much I’m demanding, or something. But that’s not where the conversation went either. That user doesn’t obviously think either of those. They call me a narcissist, but not a liar. They don’t say that the opt-outs I offer are burdensome.
I don’t believe that most people agree with the thing about “if I have a habit of offering to vacuum for people and not showing up, no one has the right to ask me why”.
So to the extent those comments express an opinion held by /r/programming at large, I think they also express much more extreme opinions that /r/programming doesn’t hold.
(I could be missing something, of course. I don’t trust myself to see clearly here.)
Lately it’s a reddit argument I had recently.
Not just the argument itself. One asshole I could deal with. The fact that people upvoted them...
Like, there’s nothing that particularly stands out to me about /r/programming readers. As far as I know they’re generally fairly normal humans. And a bunch of generally fairly normal humans apparently thought that those comments were good?
:(
That was instructive.
I think the direct reason for your disappointment is simply that the people that would have upvoted you just didn’t find the conversation interesting enough to follow. Or to put it differently, they’re mistake theorists and didn’t see anything there to learn or fix. The other guys don’t have to be worse people or less intelligent—just more conflict theorists, which I think they probably are. Ergo more upvotes, even deeper in conversation.
As an example: I realized I didn’t even upvote you. I agreed with you, thought your points were perfectly sensible, enjoyed the occasional inadvertent humour … and closed the window. It didn’t even occur to me to “help” your side in the conflict… because I wasn’t there to fight a fight. (Took me a year off reddit and on SSC to get to this point, and I’m still more combative than I’d like to be).
Conflict theorists, cashed out as something like “people who saw the article as an attempted power grab and so upvoted the person attacking it” feels like it fits, but… I dunno, I try to be hesitant to use conflict theory as an explanation, because it’s so easy to make it fit. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I appreciated your words more than I would have done upvotes; thank you.
They’re not good comments. But maybe they express an opinion held by r/programming.*
*The members that read that post. (It’s a shame that the number of people who voted isn’t available there, just the sum.)
Perhaps, but… I honestly can’t tell what opinion that would be.
Like, a thing I appreciate about the commenter is that they’re admirably straightforward. They say what they think and don’t try to weasel out of it later. I don’t love that they’re deliberately trying to hurt me (seemingly without checking if they could accomplish their goals some other way), but at least they’re upfront about it. It seems to me that there’s unusually little room for misinterpretation here.
And yet, so much of what they’re saying is completely out there, and I just don’t believe that most people agree with it.
I could believe that most people agree, at least unreflexively and perhaps after consideration, with “OSS maintainers have no responsibility”. (And possibly even with “no responsibility at all without consent”.) But I think most of them would not bite the bullets that this user does.
Like, I could see someone saying “they don’t have a responsibility here, but they still shouldn’t deliberately introduce bugs to brick people’s OSes, and it’s totally reasonable for people to complain if they do”. And then there’s a conversation about what does responsibility even mean, and maybe it turns out we don’t mean the same thing by it and don’t really disagree that much, or maybe we actually do have some important disagreements. But that’s not at all where the conversation went.
I don’t believe most people agree with “If someone deliberately bricks a bunch of people’s OSes, and then stops doing that, you call them generous”. I don’t even believe most people agree with the earlier bit about deliberately bricking OSes not being something to complain about.
I could believe that most people agree, at least unreflexively and perhaps after consideration, that I’m being too demanding. I included a list of quotes to say “no, really, I’m demanding very little”, but I could see someone thinking I’m demanding more than I realize, or thinking I’m being dishonest about how much I’m demanding, or something. But that’s not where the conversation went either. That user doesn’t obviously think either of those. They call me a narcissist, but not a liar. They don’t say that the opt-outs I offer are burdensome.
I don’t believe that most people agree with the thing about “if I have a habit of offering to vacuum for people and not showing up, no one has the right to ask me why”.
So to the extent those comments express an opinion held by /r/programming at large, I think they also express much more extreme opinions that /r/programming doesn’t hold.
(I could be missing something, of course. I don’t trust myself to see clearly here.)