[yowlingcat]

I think it speaks volumes that your comment is more about a "rude" tone than substance -- neither you nor GP directly address the lede of the story, which is the fictitious construct of "Scissor statements" and what they mean. The whole idea of some trees being bigger than others or that the question of whether something a "scissor statement" being secondary is the whole idea behind using "Scissor statements" to turn identity politics into a lucrative media business, and it's an idea as old as time. The Southern Strategy, at least, is at least as old as the 60s.

How do you defeat the Southern Strategy? Well, it's not by calling it rude, or talking about how one of the parties pitted against the other is fighting for equal treatment. That's playing right into the strategy itself, which is to talk about the same things from different perspectives, or micro analyze perceived slights so you can never have class consciousness or coordination.

[asdkfjasl]

> neither you nor GP directly address the lede of the story

I didn't intend to address the lede of the story. I intended to address what I viewed as an important, common, and contextually incorrect viewpoint in your comment. :) If I wanted to address the story as a whole, I would have engaged in the form of a top-level comment.

> your comment is more about a "rude" tone than substance

This characterization of what I wrote is factually inaccurate. I addressed the rude tone in a single sentence, and the substance of (a specific part of) your comment in multiple paragraphs.

Also, from newsguidelines.html:

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

The specific applicability of this to your comment is to delete the first, rude sentence. Your whole message is conveyed much better without it!

[yowlingcat]

What is the first principle from the guidelines?

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

When I say "what a strange lack of curiosity" I meant it literally -- it goes against the spirit of this forum, and furthermore I find it intellectually dangerous. I find that as dangerous as your own admission that you "didn't intend to address the lede of the story." Curiosity, as pertains to these stories (and I would say regarding most dystopian fiction in general) allows you to fully engage with the world that is being constructed.

Its opposite, which is a reactionary kind of incuriosity, allows you to project a presumption into a full response without fully engaging with what it's trying to say. To cherry-pick broad "Alexanderisms" that could equally apply to any other elements of Alexander's work is to risk missing specific details or the point of the specific piece. Sadly, your admission that you didn't intend to address the lede of the story indicates that this might be exactly what's happened.

[asdkfjasl]

> Sadly, your admission that you didn't intend to address the lede of the story indicates that this might be exactly what's happened.

Here, and throughout, I think you're confusing two different things. One is choosing a specific, objectionable point to discuss. The other is being unable to engage with the story as a whole. You are assuming, as far as I can understand what you've written, that because I disagreed and focused on a specific thing you said, I was unable to engage with, understand, or appreciate the story as a whole. I don't think that assumption is well-founded.

Dystopian fiction often serves as a critique of the real world. In this case, it's pretty obvious what's being critiqued, and there is certainly some merit to questioning aspects of cancel culture, furious debates over ever more marginal aspects of identity politics, etc. On the other hand, critique invites response. It's totally in bounds to respond negatively to aspects of a given critique. That's part of what comment sections are for. As far as I can tell, you accused someone of incuriousity essentially for responding to a critique with further critique.

As for how you meant that first sentence, I can only tell you how it came across to me. (As an unnecessary, insulting interjection.) That's all I have to say about it.

[yowlingcat]

Thanks for clarifying what you mean. That's helpful.

> Here, and throughout, I think you're confusing two different things. One is choosing a specific, objectionable point to discuss. The other is being unable to engage with the story as a whole. You are assuming, as far as I can understand what you've written, that because I disagreed and focused on a specific thing you said, I was unable to engage with, understand, or appreciate the story as a whole. I don't think that assumption is well-founded.

I don't think I'm assuming you're unable to engage with the story, but more that your actions and what you choose to discuss are placing emphasis in one area, and your lack of actions or discussion are conversely placing no emphasis there. You've placed a ton of energy into responding to this entire thread. Why put that energy into responding to this thread but put so little into responding to the topic post itself?

> Dystopian fiction often serves as a critique of the real world. In this case, it's pretty obvious what's being critiqued, and there is certainly some merit to questioning aspects of cancel culture, furious debates over ever more marginal aspects of identity politics, etc. On the other hand, critique invites response. It's totally in bounds to respond negatively to aspects of a given critique. That's part of what comment sections are for. As far as I can tell, you accused someone of incuriousity essentially for responding to a critique with further critique.

I don't think it's at all obvious what is being critiqued, and that delightful ambiguity is part of what I like about it. The scissor statement is a Pandora's box -- who is being critiqued, exactly? The characters who stumbled on to it? The ones that understood what it was capable of and enriched themselves from it? Society within the story for being so easy to game? The colonel that unleashed it on Mozambique? One could make a compelling case for some or all of them. It feels much more open to interpretation than I think you may be giving it credit for.

> As for how you meant that first sentence, I can only tell you how it came across to me. (As an unnecessary, insulting interjection.) That's all I have to say about it.

It's ironic that you say that it's "all you have to say about it", because you expounded upon it for an entire thread, while still spending comparably little time commenting on the ideas in the topic post. My question is, why not engage with the topic post? Is it really the case that you're getting more out of critiquing someone's tone than by offering your own thoughts about scissor statements, what they mean, and their suitability as a metaphorical vehicle for digital media in society? I find it puzzling, but also ironic -- again, isn't that exactly kind of derailment the story is trying to point out and warn against?

[asdkfjasl]

You are clearly right that responding to you was unproductive. I had hoped that you would simply see that what you had written was unhelpful, and acknowledge the same. I didn't intend a long discussion. But I can see that my hopes were in vain. I will not make this particular mistake again. :-/

[yowlingcat]

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree there. Whereas you find what I had written unhelpful and I found it useful in communicating specific details, you found what you wrote a helpful critique and I found it the very opposite. I would say that the unproductive part was the presumption, but your mileage may vary.