Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by JohnBooty 968 days ago
You... don't think that mechanics on a racing team are qualified to know if their current wrenches are sufficient?
1 comments

I suspect that OP thinks, as I did, that you've constructed an inane straw man.
User latchkey, the one you're agreeing with, is the one who very literally claimed that a developer using an Intel laptop is quite equivalent to an F1 mechanic using "shitty tools" or racing the Tour de France in a 30lb Huffy.
I'm not agreeing with latchkey's statement about developers and "shitty tools". I'm agreeing with them that when you say this…

> if their current wrenches are completely sufficient

… you are not making an honest argument, because it is entirely subjective as to whether their current wrenches are "completely sufficient".

The dog I have in this fight is not upgrade cycles or Intel vs. M1, it's "argue the fucking point without descending into high school rhetoric and logical fallacies".

A wrench has a finite set of objective qualities. Grip, length, strength, weight and maybe some special-case properties like being non-magnetic or spark resistant.

It's surprising to me that you think that cutting-edge racing mechanics don't have objective criteria for these things and that it's all some sort of subjective dark art. But it's a bad analogy to begin with and it's not my analogy.

I totally agree it's a bad analogy, and whether I succeed in defending it or you succeed in knocking it down, it doesn't really help us understand each other in greater fidelity.

The one thing I do admire about the person who offered it is that they are at least trying to persuade by offering different lenses through which to interpret their perspective, instead of repeatedly shouting THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO UPGRADE LMAO.

> The one thing I do admire about the person who offered it is that they are at least trying to persuade by offering different lenses through which to interpret their perspective, instead of repeatedly shouting THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO UPGRADE LMAO.

That nails it on the head.