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Hello Gentlemen, are thesaurus-frickers prima facie suspect? Or indeed is the isolated demand for rigor elitist, and dare I say, cringe? - A small hackernews slapfight in the language of their people

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40407831

Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

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I think it's pretty elitist to judge the quality of a content via whether it's in a book/journal or not. In fact, the recent wave of scientific fraud discovery shows that one can hide data manipulation pretty effectively in an academic journal. I'd much rather scientists spend their time making eli5 videos. :marseyclueless:

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Just curious, why do you write like that? Reminds when I was 11 and wanted to sound smarter on the internet.

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My reply is an attempt to address the original comment with precision. To diagram its intended meaning:

alternative theories of consciousness

"Any body of academic thought" [I accede the scientific legitimacy of the domain of discourse, rather than dismissing it.]

know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic.

"whose paradigmatic communication medium" [This is the beginning of my challenge to the Original Commenter, by granting the information provided authoritative status, which they perhaps cannot fully defend.]

On YouTube you can find plenty of discussions

"is video rather than text"

it's particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity.

"is prima facie suspect" [The Original Commenter has asserted that discourse and engagement are important, yet provided only time consuming, low signal-to-noise sources of information.]

As Christopher Hitchens reminds us in his legendary oration on John Stuart Mill and free speech [2]

"Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?" [The only written citations are 1) generic and 2) ancillary to the core topic. I invite the Original Commenter to further his argument more substantively, without demanding exhaustive citations.]

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OK, let me rewrite it:

Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

Academic content is usually in text, not video. Do you have links to written work from them?

Shorter and the exact same meaning. Also doesn't sound like you've been perusing your thesaurus all day.

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No, the second approach's meaning is more obtuse. What does "usually" mean? Are there acceptable alternatives? If content is in an alternative mode of communication, is it acceptable?

These vagaries permitted in your revision are clear and inherent in the original commenter's motion. Therefore, I submit your adjudication of "shorter and the exact same meaning" is woefully superficial in it's drive for simplicity, to the point there is no thought left that is clear in the original garden. Further, exact and technical communication is what separates Hacker News commenting from the hordes of subreddits that thrive on imprecise babble.

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At minimum, this does not capture that I _am_ challenging the Original Commenter ("prima facie suspect") to more rigorously defend his position, but doing so respectfully. "One salient" written source is a carefully chosen framing: the OC cannot meet it by replying with support peripheral or meta to the main argument, but neither can he dismiss my request as burdensome, demanding multiple links.

The proposed revision suffers from its terseness, losing both nuance and completeness.

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Communication is about being understood. Not about crafting the perfect sentence. Even if you craft the perfect sentence, that will be the perfect sentence _for you_, and it might be completely lost on many people, some perhaps even more intelligent than you.

The subtext of "Academic content is usually in text, not video" is "I don't trust this because it's in video, not text". Now if you say that is not clear, sure, but the subtext of your comment is "I opened a thesaurus and tried to seem smart", which is why this conversation derailed here. You can't ignore the subtext to craft a mathematically perfect sentence..

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Communication is about being understood.

The subtext of "Academic content is usually in text, not video" is "I don't trust this because it's in video, not text". Now if you say that is not clear, sure

Indeed, relying on the implicit when the explicit is sufficient [0] does a disservice to one's readers, in whose ability and charity to comprehend my surface text, without presuming confounding subtextual meaning, I have every confidence.

[0] It is not always; some things can only be gestured at, not grasped.

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I hope some day you realize how cringe your comments are.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17161541169444141.webp

There's more in there... !clinklickers but I got sick of trying to copy the formatting right because the HNewses also love their >

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