They may not know that this dude was an anti-masker (with nuance) for example. This could really make them decide not to even spend too much time thinking about the passage which in theory is profound for 10 seconds but no further.
As much as ad hominem attacks are not great approaches, the one scenario I feel it's justified is in cases like this.
Why are we supposed to care about that? There was a time when "masks do not work" was very much the conventional wisdom.
And that reduction was there to give healthcare workers a chance to not be overwhelmed as they were for a large part of the initial pandemic.
It was obvious nonsense, and did not comfort me as I watched an avoidable catastrophe become, day by day, an unavoidable one; politicians caring more about pacifying the populace with platitudes than about taking measures to render SARS-CoV-2 extinct in the wild – measures which would have been several orders of magnitude cheaper than the extended pandemic lockdowns, disabilities and trauma, loss of life, and now a new disabling endemic disease we're going to have to fight the hard way, for centuries, until it can finally go the way of smallpox.
So you must be careful to do everything they tell you.
But do not do what they do, for they do not practice
what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads
and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they
themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move
them.
Everything they do is done for people to see: They make
their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their
garments long; [...]But I guess people can get pretty much to the same conclusion by reading any of the blog post, I had the same idea just by reading the title here
If you're going to ad hominem, at least give a citation.
>As much as ad hominem attacks are not great approaches, the one scenario I feel it's justified
Because reasons?
You do realize that masks would help prevent you from getting covid if other people are wearing the masks, right?
The comment just talked about masks, not whether you are the one wearing the mask.
Some cloth masks can (when dry) also trap small particulates through electrostatic interactions, although they are less effective as a mechanical filter than surgical masks; and many washing methods destroy this effect.
But seriously, I think the level of discourse has gone down considerably on HN in the last few years. I know people always say this in their forum but I think it's true.
For instance, you'll see a post about GPT. Top comments are often "I use Claude", completely irrelevant. And then when [political thing happens] you get these passive-aggressive submissions with a lot of upvotes "how to switch to Claude". It's all just so exhausting. Constantly this moral grand-standing. Here is an example:
> I switched not because I thought Claude was better at doing the things I want. I switched because I have come to believe OpenAI are a bad actor and I do not want to support them in any way. I’m pretty sure they would allow AGI to be used for truly evil purposes, and the events of this week have only convinced me further.
Sir, this is a Wendy's
I get that it's just a reflection of cultural change and (over)reactions to anything adding friction. But for a forum dedicated to the "hacker" lifestyle, it's disappointing to see so much gatekeeping and FUD. I really wish this audience could start swinging back towards a response style that contains nuance and recognizes nuance.
I find myself opening this site less and less each week.
The upvoting for political tribalism (whole political spectrum) is so truly mind bogglingly unintelligent and unoriginal. Its just brings the bar down.