Tom Wijsman posted on Thu, 06 Feb 2014 03:53:24 +0100 as excerpted: > On Thu, 6 Feb 2014 03:12:54 +0100 Jeroen Roovers <j...@gentoo.org> wrote: > >> On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 10:07:22 -0600 Steev Klimaszewski >> <st...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> >>> I'm attempting to have a discussion with a brick wall. >> >> I hit that problem immediately in another sub-thread. Are we on to >> something here? > > Yes, we are; for more details: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Thanks for the link. Certainly thought provoking and I agree. With it nicely laid out like that, I can now more concretely try to up the DH level of my own replies in the future. =:^) (OTOH, acknowledging that this is in itself DH2/tone or DH0/name-calling, tho with a counterargument to a slightly different point so I guess it's DH4, I'm compelled to observe that repeatedly asking "Why?" as a one-word reply calls to mind the young child's constant "Why?" stage... a bit after they get past the earlier constant "NO!" stage... As about any parent or children's care giver can certainly attest, it /does/ get frustrating at some point. Perhaps you were simply trying to up the DH level, but in that case, something beyond "Why?" could have been useful. Arguably simply and repeatedly asking "Why?", without any indication even of what particular bit you're "whying", must be a parallel form of DH1 or at best DH2, ad hominem or tone. Once was arguably useful, but after seeing it used multiple times in multiple replies, the usefulness was entirely gone and the single word question was no longer a useful contribution to the discussion. Please reconsider that technique in the light of your above link before repetitive use in the future, and at least make it a useful sentence, not simply the one word, because especially when repeated, that single one word really does look childish and tends to increase frustration and reduce the quality of the discussion.) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
