undefined | Better HN

0 pointslisper9y ago0 comments

> I encourage you to not stop reading after he called you a loon. He dedicates a few paragraphs to explain what he feels is wrong with your talk.

What makes you think I stopped reading? How do you think I knew that he was attacking a straw man (and hence making a fool of himself)?

> read the comments

Well, that's nice. I feel vindicated. But that doesn't change the fact that he published a totally unwarranted ad hominem attack directed at me based on incomplete information and never retracted it, let alone apologized for it. (Sorry, but a comment doesn't count. Most people don't read the comments.) So I stand by my position that his behavior was unprofessional to say the least.

0 comments

cgvgffyv9y ago

> What makes you think I stopped reading?

Well his complaints about the talk are after the "loon" bit, and you didn't say anything to the effect of, "well he called me a loon but did explain his position", so I figured.

lisperOP9y ago

I explained it as clearly as I could: he called me a loon because I said something that was wrong. And he was correct: the thing he claims is wrong is indeed wrong.

What he failed to notice (or at least failed to mention) was that the wrong comment was preceded by me saying, "I am about to tell you something that is wrong because it makes an interesting and illuminating puzzle to figure out why it is wrong." And it was followed by me saying, "Obviously what I just told you can't be right (because if it were I would at the very least have won the Nobel prize in physics), so there must be a flaw in the reasoning. But where is it? Well, it's here..."

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse