[ruskerdax]

> Show, don't tell.

Sure. Should we start with the estimated 262 million counts of democide committed last century?

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

Or perhaps you're one of those people who thinks mass murder of humanity is a good thing because it reduces the human impact on the environment?

> If you can't explain it adequately to an audience, then you don't know it well enough to to be stating it as fact.

Absolutely untrue. That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition, and that it hasn't been sufficiently biased against or indoctrinated against an opposing view. While I'm sure there is some correlation between familiarity with a given subject and one's ability to explain it, you would be making a gigantic leap in assuming this automatically means a given audience is going to adequately understand the argument.

That is also completely aside from the assumption that my comments were intended to make a compelling case on the matter outside of the person I was responding to. I'm not really convinced that wouldn't be a waste of time, but maybe I'll be surprised.

[titzer]

> Absolutely untrue. That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition

I downvoted this, but now I'm gonna reply to explain why. This is a veiled insult against your audience, and as such it's both a fallacy and a bad-faith argument. The rest of the sentence, too. Let's not do "I'm smarter than you all and you're all biased" here, please. It just makes the forum a shade uglier.

[ruskerdax]

I actually did not intend to specifically insult the audience in this case, but I can understand why it was interpreted that way. I'll make an effort to be more civil in my future replies.

[kbenson]

> That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition

Being able to explain a complex topic simply is the point. Knowing how to distill the concept to essential points is useful, and if you can't identify the essential points, you probably don't really understand it.

> and that it hasn't been sufficiently biased against or indoctrinated against an opposing view.

> you would be making a gigantic leap in assuming this automatically means a given audience is going to adequately understand the argument.

I didn't say convince, I said explain. Indoctrination is irrelevant. Assume your audience is willing to hear you out, as otherwise all you are doing is yelling at people rather than conversing with people, and that's not acting in good faith.

> the assumption that my comments were intended to make a compelling case on the matter outside of the person I was responding to.

Yes, the assumption is that you are trying to contribute with your comments, and not just tell someone they are wrong without explanation, as the site guidelines specifically disallow that.

> Or perhaps you're one of those people who thinks mass murder of humanity is a good thing because it reduces the human impact on the environment?

You seem to be working under the assumption I disagree with you. I don't recall doing anything other than asking you to explain your reasoning. Do you consider that an aggressive argument against your point?

[dang]

Can you please not do flamewars on HN? Such tedious tit-for-tat exchanges aren't of general interest, or even of individual interest once the heat dies down.

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

[kbenson]

I didn't consider what I was doing a flame war. I originally honestly asking for more information, and then considered it a conversation on the merits of explaining a topic to a general audience.

That genuinely interests me, which is why I've gotten into conversations on this topic a few times in the past. I understand that others may be uninterested in that or find it tedious, so I'll try to refrain in the future. My apologies.

[dang]

Thank you for the polite reply. I admit I didn't read it closely enough to suss out the subtleties. In our experience, when people starting arguing "I didn't say that, I said this" with each other, the conversation is close to informationless and tends only to produce more heat.

[ruskerdax]

Cool, you ignored half my comment to engage in dishonest bickering filled with more assumptions as to my motivations. Are you having fun?

[kbenson]

> you ignored half my comment

I originally ignored the portion that mistakenly assumed I had a position against your point that aggressively insinuated I believed mass murder was acceptable. I revised my comment right after posting it to append a clarification on that.

> to engage in dishonest bickering

Please do not accuse me of being dishonest without being sure backing up your words with some sort of reasoning. I'm not being dishonest. I think you are not engaging usefully, and attempted to rectify that by asking for more information, and then to explain my reasoning when it was called into question, exactly as I suggested you do originally.

> filled with more assumptions as to my motivations

I'm not sure I assumed a single thing about you. I couched all my statements generically on purpose.

I think you are stuck in a context where you are interpreting me as attacking you. if you truly think I'm being dishonest or attacking you, don't reply. If you think I'm wrong, explain how I'm wrong. If you have problems explaining why I'm wrong, perhaps reexamine the assertion that I am. I'm fully willing to entertain that I'm wrong, and admit it. It wouldn't be the first time I've done so.

[dang]

Can you please not do flamewars on HN? Incivility like this will get you banned here regardless of how provocative some other comment was.

Edit: I'm sorry to see that you've done this repeatedly before. If you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here in the future, we'd appreciate it.

[ruskerdax]

You're right, I have clearly forgotten the spirit of the discussion here. I apologize for that.