[eridius]

What op said:

> the most important company

What you said:

> the most fundamentally necessary company

You just changed the entire argument right there, and yet blithely went on as if your counterpoint had any relevance to the original assertion. "The most important company" could be taken a lot of ways, and I highly doubt op was intending that to mean "fundamentally necessary".

[vacri]

Actually, speaking of changing meanings, the OP said "the most important company in existence", which is a different claim to the one you're trimming it down to. Next time you're admonishing someone for changing the argument, don't do it yourself.

[eridius]

You're just being pedantic. Adding the words "in existence" to my quotation would have changed nothing at all about my argument. I left it off precisely because it wasn't relevant to the point I was making, which was that you were attacking a very obvious straw man.

[vacri]

Speaking of attacking very obvious straw men, you ignored that I was quoting two parts of the OP. I'm not here to rank companies in a line and award one as the winner, because that's a silly thing to do given the complexity of the human experience.

I was saying that the term "the most important company in existence" is the kind of thing that comes out of the mouth of someone with "misplaced nerd allegiance". That was the point of juxtaposing those two snippets. What makes an important company? It depends on what you're talking about, hence the reference to transport or essential services. And if we're talking 'in existence', then that really widens the field. But it's the 'misplaced allegiance' people that come up with phrases like the OP did.

Basically I was calling the OP a hypocrite, deriding others for the same thing the OP is doing. And now you've responded twice, committing the same sins as you accuse me of... changing arguments, straw men, and pedantry.

[eridius]

If you wanted to argue against what the op was saying, then you had no reason whatsoever for putting brand new words in op's mouth and attacking those words. But that's what you did, which is why your entire argument is a meaningless straw man attack.

And now you're trying to tell me I'm doing the same thing to you? That's preposterous. Stop trying to be evasive and just admit you committed a rather obvious and stupid logical fallacy and move on with your life.

(don't expect any more responses from me on this thread, since you only seem interested in being defensive)

[vacri]

since you only seem interested in being defensive ; just admit you committed a rather obvious and stupid logical fallacy

The very first thing I did was accommodate your complaint, and change the words to what you wanted (and clearly mark it as an edit). That it didn't change the semantics of what I said at all suggests that it wasn't a logical fallacy.

And given that all you've done here is attack, attack, attack, what do you expect me to do other than be defensive? What have you said to me that I could take somewhere else?

And now you're trying to tell me I'm doing the same thing to you? That's preposterous. ; your entire argument is a meaningless straw man attack. ; Stop trying to be evasive ; stupid logical fallacy

Since you like logic, you'll like this: if you don't understand what I'm saying, then it's not a straw man on my part. It's a straw man in your head, based on your misunderstanding. My 'being evasive' is me trying to better explain what I meant, but you only know attack, attack, attack, and you won't accept anything but complete and utter submission.

and just admit ; don't expect any more responses from me on this thread

Not once have you 'just admitted' that you might have been off-kilter, not even an "I still disagree with you, but yeah, I could have behaved better". The mere thought of such an event is 'preposterous'.

And frankly, a promise not to engage in more blind offense devoid of self-reflection... isn't exactly a negative to me.

[eridius]

> The very first thing I did was ... change the words

You did not mention that you had changed the words, and Hacker News does not present me with older posts in the thread, so I literally had no idea you did that. Since you changed the words, why didn't you just say so, instead of trying to defend your straw man?

Also, now that you've changed the words, I still disagree with what you wrote, because you're making an implicit assumption as to what it means for a company to be important, without defining that assumption. And without defining that assumption, you don't really have a basis for claiming that the op is wrong. Obviously op is wrong by your definition of important, but not wrong by their definition of important.

But at least it isn't a straw man anymore.

> And given that all you've done here is attack, attack, attack, what do you expect me to do other than be defensive?

I told you that you were committing a very obvious logical fallacy, and instead of simply saying "you're right, I've now changed the wording so my argument is no longer depending upon that logical fallacy", you started trying to accuse me of what is ultimately a meaningless non-semantic distinction in an attempt to trivialize and discredit my original response.

> Since you like logic, you'll like this: if you don't understand what I'm saying, then it's not a straw man on my part

That's bullshit. I do understand what you're saying. It may not be what you meant to say, but I can't look inside your head and figure out what you meant to say, all I can do is respond to the actual argument you write down. If that argument is wrong, the fault does not lie with me in pointing out the straw man, the fault lies with you in not expressing your argument in a manner that can be understood correctly and without logical fallacy.

> Not once have you 'just admitted' that you might have been off-kilter, not even an "I still disagree with you, but yeah, I could have behaved better"

What? What is this, kindergarden? Do I have to apologize to you for disagreeing with your argument and pointing out a logical fallacy? That's ridiculous. Nothing I have said in this thread is needlessly antagonistic or rude, or otherwise uncalled-for. The fact that you went on the defensive instead of appropriately responding to my criticism does not make my criticism something that I need to apologize for.