[kalid]

Agreed. There's often a pedantic need to point out some structural "flaw" in a statement and dismiss it, vs. making an effort to gain insight from its message.

"All Cretans are liars" - Epimenides

The logical robot concludes that because Epimenides was Cretan, the statement is a logical contradiction (hah, got you!) and nothing can be learned. A wiser man realizes he should be wary when in Crete.

[Karunamon]

Consider your example in the context of a HN topic.

    ^  All Cretans are liars
       7 points by Epimenides | 5 minutes ago | flag | 2 comments

Consider your audience: Programmers, startup entrepreneurs, in other words people who deal intimately with logic on a daily basis.

I'd expect this article to be flagged into oblivion, both by Cretans who are not liars, and by people peeved by the obviously incorrect absolute in the topic.

Doesn't it bug you at all when people engage in these kinds of fallacies to further a point, when they should damn well know better?

Would it have really have killed the submitter to reword as "Be wary in Crete" instead of knowingly posting something false? Would it really kill someone who's making an absolute statement, (a knowingly false one, mind) to reword it into something that still gets their point across, is actually correct, and won't lead to endless corrections in the comment thread?

To me, it shows a certain disdain for your reader when bait like this is written.