Of course, that document was written by another VC who likes to run his mouth on Twitter. So there's a legitimate discussion to be had about whether that document is poisoning the well of criticism.
Marc Andreessen is an extraordinarily influential person in tech, and that influence is based on his reputation. If a nobody like me tweeted something dumb, everyone would just ignore me. Nobody ignores Andreessen, though. Maybe it would be better for the world if his Twitter feed and mine were treated similarly, but that's not how the world works, and we have to respond to the world as it is.
Furthermore, part of his continuing influence, 20 years after Netscape, is the continuing impression that he is a clear thinker about issues facing the tech world. (See, elsewhere in this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072721 .) There are two valid discussions at play here. The first is whether Free Basics is a good idea; the second is whether Andreessen is in fact the insightful thinker he appears to be. (The specific subdiscussion about whether rejecting Free Basics is a form of anti-colonialism, incidentally, is only valid if we take it as a given that Andreessen's ideas are worth listening to in the first place.) For the second one, a record of him just not being a good or well-informed thinker is in fact refuting the central point of that argument.
>Of course, that document was written by another VC who likes to run his mouth on Twitter. So there's a legitimate discussion to be had about whether that document is poisoning the well of criticism.
This comment itself is further argument that more people here could stand to read it. You've literally ignored the ideas within and just made an ad hominem argument based on the author instead.
He's questioned the judgment of the person writing the document based on his position which can introduce the bias similar to what we see in Andreessen. Not using the ideas described by said document would be the first step when discussing/critiquing it. Otherwise it would circular, no?
If for example you wanted to discuss The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the first step would not be to "not use the ideas described within (e.g. genetics and biology research)". Ignoring the topics within and attacking the author for what he later wrote about Atheism or how he behaved in interviews would a mindblowingly terrible way to critique his book about biology.
When discussing or critiquing an essay, the first step is to actually address the ideas inside of it. Attacking the character of its author or other things they may have said about unrelated topics is not a rational substitute.
In this case, geofft's comment is flawed on multiple levels. Aside from making a purely ad hominem argument against the 2008 essay How to Disagree, its specific attack was the author's twitter usage that occurred more than five years later.
Did you read the remainder of my comment past the first sentence, or did you get distracted by the ad hominem? I admit that there is one, but it wasn't actually presented as an argument. The rest of it refutes the central point of the claim at hand, namely geomark's claim that people in this thread are violating DH0. They're not, and in fact I go on to agree with pg's framing of the hierarchy of disagreement in order for me to argue that the thread is at DH6.
If you think that anything I say is invalidated because I put ad hominems at the top of my comments, well, uh... I'm not sure how to explain this to you, but....
I read your comment in its entirety and didn't see any defense of the How to Disagree essay. The only mention I saw you make of it was the first paragraph with the ad hominem attack.
To answer your question, no I don't think your usage of ad hominems invalidates everything you say. It does detract from the quality of the discussion and the pleasantness of the site, though. It also detracts from your ability to communicate effectively.
I completely agree with geomark's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072755). There are a lot of comments on this article that are little more than name calling, personal attacks or uncharitable assumptions.
>Marc Andreessen is an extraordinarily influential person in tech, and that influence is based on his reputation.
And that reputation is based on his position as an early luminary that made direct and real contributions to the progress of the field, and his continued ability to make great picks for VC. Andreessen, like Paul Graham, is one of the few VCs who actually understands the technical underpinnings of what's going on, which seems to seriously enhance a VC's performance.
Andreessen's political beliefs are totally irrelevant. Frankly, it wouldn't matter if he were a neo-Nazi.
Depends on what "matter" means. For the goals of the individual VCs making themselves more money, sure, agreed. And perhaps also for the goal of making as many (financially) successful tech companies as possible, without regard to what those companies do.
But for the goal of improving society by this investment, instead of worsening it? A successful neo-Nazi VC would be terrifying.
Marc Andreessen is an extraordinarily influential person in tech, and that influence is based on his reputation. If a nobody like me tweeted something dumb, everyone would just ignore me. Nobody ignores Andreessen, though. Maybe it would be better for the world if his Twitter feed and mine were treated similarly, but that's not how the world works, and we have to respond to the world as it is.
Furthermore, part of his continuing influence, 20 years after Netscape, is the continuing impression that he is a clear thinker about issues facing the tech world. (See, elsewhere in this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072721 .) There are two valid discussions at play here. The first is whether Free Basics is a good idea; the second is whether Andreessen is in fact the insightful thinker he appears to be. (The specific subdiscussion about whether rejecting Free Basics is a form of anti-colonialism, incidentally, is only valid if we take it as a given that Andreessen's ideas are worth listening to in the first place.) For the second one, a record of him just not being a good or well-informed thinker is in fact refuting the central point of that argument.