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HumanOstrichyesterday at 11:52 PM3 repliesview on HN

If you bother to look at the issue instead of whining and complaining, you will see the evidence.


Replies

sigbottletoday at 12:07 AM

When I disagree with the data: I will nitpick every last detail of methodology, any cross-corroboration is an anecdote, suddenly I demand a-priori levels of justification. All science is flawed anyways, it's not like mathematics, you can't get absolute certainty, so why bother? You're always going to be making base assumptions that can be challenged, you're necessarily going to abstract out the territory, the map is flawed.

When I agree with the data: I will boast about the victories of science and empiricism, we found the perfect set of natural abstractions that are necessary and sufficient to map out the territory that carve at the joints of the problem, any concern about assumptions is rebutted with generic "Well, we're just pragmatists; we're not perfect, but clearly we're converging on the right direction! You're clearly someone who just wants to nitpick and not get any work done."

My experience with certain hackernews commenters in a nutshell.

jatoratoday at 1:26 AM

This is evidence of a bug, not the purposeful enshittification people are referencing

mannanjtoday at 3:52 AM

This reminds me of a time in COVID-health response when certain scientists said their evidence was real evidence and yours was not.

"There's no evidence to prove xyz" then they would say, as your evidence was never as rigorous as theirs. And since they were proclaimed to be the only authorized scientists in the room, by authority of big governing bodies, they were right.

So people will see whatever evidence they want, and whine and complain to dig into their side as tribalistic creatures.