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by throwanem 371 days ago
Yeah, everyone wants a treatise here, always and only on whatever they happen to disagree with. There's no kind of intellectual consistency more consistent than imposing an effectively unsatisfiable bar for standing to dissent, but letting whatever you like to hear slide without a second thought or question. Meanwhile detailed and substantive technical critiques provided by other users - critiques of the sort I learned a decade ago not to bother making - go totally ignored as I knew that they would.

I don't really see why I should take that sort of thing very seriously. Do you?

1 comments

I think if you resort less to absolutist phrasing and knee-jerk insults, you might have more fulfilling interactions with other users. Perhaps that's not really what you're looking for when you post. It's difficult to understand why you post.
I could explain it.
"It was eye-opening to see how little attention was paid to serious [people] vs hucksters," you said in a comment last week. That's a good start, and the right frame of thought in which to try to infer an answer to the question you didn't quite ask.

I also realize the insult you didn't quite offer, but while there are grounds for anyone with a Ph.D. to offer me offense, breadth of knowledge is really none of them. You are an expert specialist and I respect that as it deserves, which is less than you imagine but more than you fear.

I simply gave some pointers on how to use less aggressive language. If you perceived a hidden insult, I'd encourage you to reflect whether that comes from the same place that the aggressive language does.
"Aggressive?" I would go as far as uncompromising, discourteous, perhaps even rude. But aggression? Really. Do me the courtesy of not resorting to the absurd, not at least if you mean me to go on taking you seriously.
Yes; from what I've seen, you can be hostile, presumptuous, belitting, and confrontational. What you just posted is a good example. There's just no need for the section starting "not at least...". It's an intimidating phrase.