You are not the final arbiter of what is on topic. Topics are subjective and connected cognitively differently by different people.
Also, in my view, my comment is directly on topic to the message it replies to. [1]
I’m curious about your user experience with Hacker News. Do you use the normal web interface or some other UI? I’m sorry to ask the obvious question, but I do want to rule it out: do you realize that comments are situated relative to the parent comment, right? Now, after factoring this in, do you see how my comment is a response to its parent?
If you’d like to think about it mathematically, try this. The original post could be characterized as having a topic vector in a many dimensional space. Each subsequent reply can be characterized similarly. As you get deeper in the conversation tree, the topic vectors diverge significantly. This does not mean a somewhat distant (in topic vector space) comment is “off-topic”. Quite to the contrary, it means the original post has generated a rich variety of discussion.
This said, I take your point that transitory perceptual errors do not explain all UFO sightings, nor do they directly bear on the whistleblower’s main claims.
One can make such a point without being prickly about it. I’m sorry that you seem upset here and in your comments generally across the threads here. I can relate to some degree; there is is a lot to be concerned about when it comes to the topics of evidence and people’s ability to evaluate truth claims.
I can also relate to prioritizing factual assessments at the expense of tact and empathy towards others. For many years of my life I did this, and it did not serve me well.
It is your responsibility to not take out on your frustrations on me or anyone else. Treat us with respect or your reputation may suffer.
If you manage a civil tone, I will engage with you further. Otherwise, I don’t see it being productive enough to warrant the effort.
To be specific, I suggest reviewing the HN Guideliness. In particular, strive to ask charitable clarification questions and avoid emotionally charged claims; e.g. that what I’m saying is bogus.
Lastly, you are making many assumptions which you then use to knock down straw men arguments.
Notes
[1] I say this based on a larger number of upvotes than I would expect on a comment this deep in the tree. This information is asymmetric; I recognize that you do not have access to it. I wonder what your assessment of this will be.
- If you think I’m lying, this would confirm what you want to believe about my comment being off topic and bogus.
- If you think I’m telling the truth, it would challenge your claims.
Sorry for digressing but having a formal tone comes off as predictable and like you've used AI to help you type. The best manipulation tactic when "responding to someone being dumb" is making the response sound like it came from an actual human and not from a professor or robot. And most UFO sightings are classified because other countries will assume that we are lunatics. America must keep the image of "we are strong and intelligent" to the public. Even hallucinating a weird tiktac in the sky without documentation is a UFO due to the acronym meaning Unidentified Flying Object. It's Unidentified. Doesn't mean it's an angel or alien, one could obviously be sleep deprived yet write about it like crazy, it's a flaw of entitlement. People assume they'll be the first to see it, so they start seeing things.
Also, in my view, my comment is directly on topic to the message it replies to. [1]
I’m curious about your user experience with Hacker News. Do you use the normal web interface or some other UI? I’m sorry to ask the obvious question, but I do want to rule it out: do you realize that comments are situated relative to the parent comment, right? Now, after factoring this in, do you see how my comment is a response to its parent?
If you’d like to think about it mathematically, try this. The original post could be characterized as having a topic vector in a many dimensional space. Each subsequent reply can be characterized similarly. As you get deeper in the conversation tree, the topic vectors diverge significantly. This does not mean a somewhat distant (in topic vector space) comment is “off-topic”. Quite to the contrary, it means the original post has generated a rich variety of discussion.
This said, I take your point that transitory perceptual errors do not explain all UFO sightings, nor do they directly bear on the whistleblower’s main claims.
One can make such a point without being prickly about it. I’m sorry that you seem upset here and in your comments generally across the threads here. I can relate to some degree; there is is a lot to be concerned about when it comes to the topics of evidence and people’s ability to evaluate truth claims.
I can also relate to prioritizing factual assessments at the expense of tact and empathy towards others. For many years of my life I did this, and it did not serve me well.
It is your responsibility to not take out on your frustrations on me or anyone else. Treat us with respect or your reputation may suffer.
If you manage a civil tone, I will engage with you further. Otherwise, I don’t see it being productive enough to warrant the effort.
To be specific, I suggest reviewing the HN Guideliness. In particular, strive to ask charitable clarification questions and avoid emotionally charged claims; e.g. that what I’m saying is bogus.
Lastly, you are making many assumptions which you then use to knock down straw men arguments.
Notes
[1] I say this based on a larger number of upvotes than I would expect on a comment this deep in the tree. This information is asymmetric; I recognize that you do not have access to it. I wonder what your assessment of this will be.
- If you think I’m lying, this would confirm what you want to believe about my comment being off topic and bogus.
- If you think I’m telling the truth, it would challenge your claims.