> In politics, it's very common to use phrasing like "he didn't chose his words wisely, but I agree with his point." as code for: "I'm diplomatically saying I agree with what he did".
Now I get it. Dealing with the political world for this long has made you treat everything as political by default. The guy was straight talking with you on identi.ca, not making a political statement nor speaking on camera. He wasn't "speaking in code," as you later deduced after going back and forth a few times. Your assumption was for the worst of his argument, not the best, and that you were presumptuous enough to tell him how to "fix" something that you misinterpreted with an unfair base assumption is even more asinine.
> I again point out that I didn't resort to name calling and I wasn't disrespectful
I know, which is why I ignored this irrelevant statement the first time, because it was a straw man then and still is. I'm not accusing you of name calling nor stooping to the level of those who called you McCarthyists, nor am I accusing you of being disrespectful. I think you shot this guy down fairly hard when he brought up a point with you, and it's that style of argument, the default-hostile world view, that I really get annoyed by out of your camp.
You could say I'm bringing this up because I want to have a reasonable conversation with you, and people like you, without spending a few back-and-forths saying something to you the exact way you want it to be said to you. The technology world is not out to get you. We're not speaking in code at your expense. Most people in this audience here on Hacker News are sympathetic to FOSS because a lot of us build our livelihood on it.
You do have friends in the world, and I think this guy was trying to be your friend. You've either been trained or trained yourself to regard everybody as an enemy from the get-go, and that's what I'm trying to get across to you. I know that running the FSF has exposed you to a lot of bilious argument against your very existence, but this guy wasn't remotely agreeing with Mark or being political, he was just having a conversation. It took a while for him to get that through to you, and speaking for myself, I would have given up long before he was successful.
This is coming from somebody who has built his entire career upon FOSS and believes in its success. You'll often see people say something like "I love FOSS, but its fan club leaves a lot to be desired". Things like this are why.
> This is an example of useful discourse.
It eventually was. It sure as shit didn't start that way.
> I encourage others here to read the whole thread over on identi.ca and decide for themselves which of us is right.
I really hate when people speak past me while replying to me. It's dismissive and belittling.
> I'm about to to go to bed, and I'm sure I won't have time to respond to you further here, as the odds I'll remember to check this site again -- which I don't normally read -- is pretty low. You can email me if you want to discuss it further.
I'm so glad this was edited in after I spent ten minutes carefully crafting a response. What a waste of time.
I was waiting for your reply and couldn't wait anymore. I have to work tomorrow, you see -- I work 7 days a week on Free Software, so I just can't stay up late.
Anyway, I did hit reload one last time and saw your reply, but I assure you this has to be the last one but I welcome you to email me if you'd like.
The reason I used that political way of interacting with him was that I have been one of Canonical, Ltd.'s critics for a long time -- back before it was popular to "pile onto" Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu, etc. (I noted that in my blog post in the section I talk about why I stopped; they'll be more on the next episode of Free as in Freedom audcast [0] released next week.)
I've found that there are a lot of people out there in the Ubuntu community who really do treat Mark like he is, as his title insists, a Dictator for Life and simply are his proxies out defending him. Again, I'm using a politicians' word -- proxies -- and a politician's analysis. But, the fact is, there are a lot of people out there, and many on identi.ca, who proxy for @sabdfl.
I admit that I incorrectly assumed that fellow was one of them. I think you're taking that one conversation and attempting, in a confirmation bias [1] sort of way, to extrapolate that it shows some principle that's always at work in conversations with people like me. Fact is, despite that I suspected the fellow was acting like a proxy, I still engaged with him in multiple threads in parallel, just in case I was wrong (turned out I was), precisely to avoid the very problem you're accusing me of in this thread.
Setting aside the fact that you seem upset that I don't really use this site often, and that I clearly don't keep the same sleep schedule and/or am in the same time-zone as you, it seems we're having the type of conversation and discourse you want. Yet, you've framed the conversation to talk about this meta-issue of "I can't talk to you people" rather than have the conversation about whatever it is you want to talk to Free Software zealots like me about.
I'm sorry you've had bad experiences in communication with some Free Software hard-cores. I hope I haven't been one. I still don't think, for various reasons I've stated (the most important one being the one you keep ignoring: that there were parallel threads going on), that the one I had with that fellow on identi.ca is an example that supports your claim. I completely believe you that you've had frustrating conversations of that nature with others. I know they happen and I will validate that point for you. I just don't think this example was one of them.
I wish you a good $timezone_greeting, but mine is "late in the night" right now for a guy pushing forty-years-old in the US/Eastern time zone, so please do email me if you want to discuss further.
I'm not begrudging you sleep, I was just annoyed it was edited in while I was in the text window replying to you (and not furiously refreshing). You're even mischaracterizing that by trying to say I'm annoyed you don't often use Hacker News, which isn't accurate or logical on any plane of reality.
Now I get it. Dealing with the political world for this long has made you treat everything as political by default. The guy was straight talking with you on identi.ca, not making a political statement nor speaking on camera. He wasn't "speaking in code," as you later deduced after going back and forth a few times. Your assumption was for the worst of his argument, not the best, and that you were presumptuous enough to tell him how to "fix" something that you misinterpreted with an unfair base assumption is even more asinine.
> I again point out that I didn't resort to name calling and I wasn't disrespectful
I know, which is why I ignored this irrelevant statement the first time, because it was a straw man then and still is. I'm not accusing you of name calling nor stooping to the level of those who called you McCarthyists, nor am I accusing you of being disrespectful. I think you shot this guy down fairly hard when he brought up a point with you, and it's that style of argument, the default-hostile world view, that I really get annoyed by out of your camp.
You could say I'm bringing this up because I want to have a reasonable conversation with you, and people like you, without spending a few back-and-forths saying something to you the exact way you want it to be said to you. The technology world is not out to get you. We're not speaking in code at your expense. Most people in this audience here on Hacker News are sympathetic to FOSS because a lot of us build our livelihood on it.
You do have friends in the world, and I think this guy was trying to be your friend. You've either been trained or trained yourself to regard everybody as an enemy from the get-go, and that's what I'm trying to get across to you. I know that running the FSF has exposed you to a lot of bilious argument against your very existence, but this guy wasn't remotely agreeing with Mark or being political, he was just having a conversation. It took a while for him to get that through to you, and speaking for myself, I would have given up long before he was successful.
This is coming from somebody who has built his entire career upon FOSS and believes in its success. You'll often see people say something like "I love FOSS, but its fan club leaves a lot to be desired". Things like this are why.
> This is an example of useful discourse.
It eventually was. It sure as shit didn't start that way.
> I encourage others here to read the whole thread over on identi.ca and decide for themselves which of us is right.
I really hate when people speak past me while replying to me. It's dismissive and belittling.
> I'm about to to go to bed, and I'm sure I won't have time to respond to you further here, as the odds I'll remember to check this site again -- which I don't normally read -- is pretty low. You can email me if you want to discuss it further.
I'm so glad this was edited in after I spent ten minutes carefully crafting a response. What a waste of time.