>It is completely inaccurate to call my comments "putdowns" which are defined as "snub, disparaging remark, insult, slight, affront, rebuff, sneer, disparagement, humiliation, slap in the face, barb, jibe...".

You mean like the comments calling other people out for not commenting to your liking, and declaring how you'll "help move [their comment] down the page" in order to curate "the most useful discussion"?

Or the part where you describe another person's perspective as '"pro-privacy" grift', and close by literally telling them to "piss off"?

I'll be very open: I find it unfortunate when I take the time to write out my thinking at length without seeing much result. Maybe it had some effect or maybe not. Either way, so far, you seem stuck on the topic of "was this an insult?". (It seems like a tiny train wreck to me.)

I didn't intend it to be an insult (see other comments, with detailed explanations). You could take me at my word. That would enable follow-up discussion of more valuable things.

I'm not saying I get to nail down exactly what "valuable" means. By valuable, I just mean things that benefit all people involved over a longer term. I intentionally left the details vague.

I'm not asking you to agree with everything I say. I don't want that at all. But I am asking you to go broader and discuss something more. I think we can build bridges. Questioning motives (in the pejorative sense, meaning 'assuming the worst') goes in the opposite direction.

A tiny train wreck may seem unimportant. True. It is nothing to worry about when it happens once. But when you look across human communication, this pattern happens what millions a times a day over textual communication channels. It adds up. I want to do something small to help fix this. It is a "bug" with the software people have in their heads. It is a really big deal; it underlies so many disagreements and misunderstandings. If uncorrected, friends and family members sever relationships, often largely due to this underlying bug. (i.e. "She intended to X, and I can't stand for that.")

I believe we need to socialize that assuming intent is an active contributor to damaging our social connections and therefore world.

Think I'm exaggerating? Tell me. What small changes can we realistically make to many people's worldview that would have as big of an effect? This is one of the biggest ones, and it is a relatively easy sell.

> Or the part where you describe another person's perspective as '"pro-privacy" grift', and close by literally telling them to "piss off"?

I didn't write that or anything like it. Where did you find this quote?

You stated a falsehood and accused me of saying something I did not. I'm hoping it was an honest mistake. Please correct it. Thank you.

>I didn't write that or anything like it. Where did you find this quote?

Apparently you didn't. Somebody named Xeamek did, but your comments were shown next to each other, both with the body hidden and the title only shown and marked "[flagged][dead]", so I accidentally opened his when trying to see what you wrote.

Thank you for checking and writing back. Reputations matter.

> Apparently you didn't. Somebody named Xeamek did, but your comments were shown next to each other, both with the body hidden and the title only shown and marked "[flagged][dead]", so I accidentally opened his when trying to see what you wrote.

I hope you realize that "apparently" suggests uncertainty. I am completely certain I wrote no such thing. I think you are too -- why not say it?

Overall, this wasn't the apology I was hoping for.

For context, here is my entire comment:

> This thread of discussion isn't central to the idea of predictive debugging. In the spirit of my tiny influence on curating the most useful discussion, I'm going to help move it down the page. I'm not commenting one way or the other on the particular claims. (P.S. Having only one ranking mechanism inevitably leads to the conflation of user intentions. There are better ways out there; for example, I recommend the side-walking crustacean forum.)

I can't control your interpretation, but I can assure you I didn't intend to insult anyone. Not all criticisms are putdowns.

Think of my comment this way: it was an explanation of my downvote, which gives the commenter some feedback. Most downvotes don't give feedback. Per the golden rule, I prefer constructive criticism, so I gave it.

Your interpretation (claiming that my comment was a putdown) was uncharitable. Your choice when quoting me was selective and did not give the whole context.

No one acts in isolation. We are part of the patterns of many cultures. I regret that many people, including myself, have a tendency to rapidly escalate a situation. [1] They often jump from a valid feeling of discomfort to an accusation of intended harm. This is unwise, unfair, and destructive. We need to be able to criticize ideas without someone taking personal affront.

You don't seem to acknowledge that I am aiming for a higher principle: useful, on-topic discussion. You don't have to agree with the principle to acknowledge that is the motivator of my comment.

I'm criticizing your ideas. I'm hopeful if we met in person we could have an amicable conversation. If you like, we can do a video call. I'm serious. These kinds of misunderstandings are small but damaging to the fabric of what we have here.

[1] I'm rather liberal when it comes to policy solutions. I say this for people that are swayed by tribalism: in many ways, I'm metaphorically 'on the same team' as people that speak up for the less fortunate. Standing up for civil rights and equality under the law is laudable. But this is quite different from uncharitably assuming bad intentions and "calling out" people. The latter undermines the core principles of civil discussion and probabilistic reasoning. In my view, civility and evidence work together quite well. Here's how: once you recognize the limits of your ability to divine someone else's intentions, particularly with only written text, it becomes illogical to accuse them of malice.