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by zepto 2050 days ago
Very positive response! It sounds like you don’t think there is any truth to what he is saying. That seems interesting given that he is not the only one saying it.
2 comments

There's no way for me to know what happened without being part of the team back then. What I'm certain is that he had a bad experience which impacted him negatively and I'm sorry he had to go through this.

The only thing I'm saying is that it is not correct to generalize, giving myself as an example for someone who haven't experienced anything similar.

Yikes. Blink twice if you need someone to send help.
> It sounds like you don’t think there is any truth to what he is saying

I've no idea how you reached that conclusion given that the comment you're replying to says

>> I'm sorry he had such experience and I'm not saying he does not have the right to be upset. He knows the best what he went through and how he feels.

It’s very quite simple - Mgchev is careful to validate only Jeff’s feelings, and absolutely nothing else about what he says.

Indeed he goes on to make this clear: “The only thing I'm saying is that it is not correct to generalize”

This invalidates everything about Jeff’s piece except for his feelings, since the entire piece is an argument that there is a systematic problem with the team that other people have experienced too. There are tweets and quotes to support this.

Jeff does generalize, and he does reference other people who had similar experiences. Jeff’s entire reason for writing the piece is to generalize. He doesn’t say ‘I’m sure this is just me’. He argues quite the opposite.

If it is ‘not correct to generalize’ - as Mgechev says, then Jeff must be wrong about there being a problem with the team, therefore Mgechev does not believe Jeff.

You’ll notice that Mgechev repeats this ‘not correct to generalize’ here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25072705

Mgechev also says they “can't relate to his experience”. They also make no reference to (or validate) any of the other people who apparently had similar experiences or views of the team.

It’s pretty reasonable to conclude that Mgechev doesn’t think there is a problem with the team and wants to convey that to us.

"I did not have that experience" in no way implies "No one had that experience."
No, but repeatedly saying “it’s not correct to generalize”, does.
Generalization literally means to apply the point to all involved. So no, it's quite appropriate for mgechev so reject generalization if the point doesn't apply to them. And that in no way a rejection of the facts presented. The same way that the generalization "apples are red" can be rejected by the presence of green apples without denying the existence of the red apples.
Outside of a mathematical context, you are not correct about the meaning of ‘generalization’:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/generalize

It has nothing to do with ‘applying to all’

It means ‘to draw a general conclusion’.

Mgechev is telling us not to draw a conclusion from Jeff’s piece.

It is completely reasonable to assume that Mgechev doesn’t believe Jeff’s conclusions, and is asking us not to either.

No, it really does not.
It does unless you take it out of context.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073264