note
cnd
16+ years ago, there was not a 100:1 ratio of opinionated-idiots to helpful experts, like there is today. The "everyone's opinion matters" fallacy and contemporary (deliberately refined) addiction to social-media has spawned a generation of downvote-spammers. The "wisdom of the crowd" is non-existent on all but trivial everyday situations in which all of them are experienced ( [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140708-when-crowd-wisdom-goes-wrong] ) and the best way to weed out the idiots is to remove their voice ( "--" )
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We're all *supposed* to be programmers here, and supposed to understand problems, and how to fix them. Even ones that might not have been a problem decades ago, but are beginning to be one now.
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The best way to work out if any argument you make is correct is as follows:-
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1. Check if your motivation or you yourself are being attacked. If yes - your argument is sound and stand. The attacker, absent any rational way to address the subject, lashes out at you for emotional reasons instead.
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2. Check if distractions, off-topic examples, and troll-like posts are appearing. As above - avoiding the topic is a sure-fire way to recognise that your original argument is right-on-the-money (albeit against some emotional problem your audience suffers).
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3. See if others have raised the same argument before (and themselves suffered (1) and (2) above.)
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Tick. Tick. Tick.
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Perhaps it's time to retire the "--" and see how much that improves the quality of this site?
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We don't go around IRL punching strangers in the face every day because they do/say things we disagrees with, or are idiots - and real-life works pretty well. We should learn from that and try the same thing here.
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