I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think this comment shows a slight lack of... something... hmm...
This is a bit disorganized, but I'll try to lay out how the gears are turning in my head:
When you implicitly call out a community or someone very admired in that community (whose also running things for free for a lot of people's enjoyment), it's courageous but it burns some of your future ability-to-speak-out-and-others-will-listen-edness.
If you were to make similar comments frequently, eventually people would just shrug it off instead of burning the mental energy to apply difficult critical thinking.
Now, I was one of those disagreeable kids who used to argue with teachers when they got their math or chemistry wrong, and eventually I stopped doing that and started thinking:
"Do I want to burn some of my speak-out-and-people-will-listen-edness on this particular topic?" Because you only have so much, and you might want to use it on something important later.
Does the tree submission get submitted and voted if it's not Paul Graham or another very admired poster? Probably not. But it's a minor thing to take a banner up against, and it just oh-so-slightly decreases the resources you have by taking up that banner. And maybe it minorly gets on the nerves of a few people, and they don't like it, and so you get oh-so-very-slightly less attention/goodwill in the future.
You have to think about your goal. Is your goal to get the teacher to correct their mistake and move forward? Or is it to boost your ego?
If it's the former, it's probably better to approach them later, in private, and point it out politely. They will correct the problem next session, or send out an email between sessions.
Either that, or be very polite, e.g., "Excuse me, Mr. Smith, but you wrote down <wrong stuff> there. Why isn't it <right stuff>?"
If you say, "Mr. Smith, you're wrong. It should be <right stuff>, not <wrong stuff>" you are strictly speaking correct, but you'll humiliate them. It feels good for your ego -- I'm smarter than the teacher! -- but probably won't advance the class.
This isn't about the "sorry state of education," it's about knowing what people feel when you blurt shit out in class.
Why is it the student's responsibility to protect the teacher's ego?
Here is the admittedly unusual way in which I look at it: In most cases, the school system (including the teachers) is implicitly claiming that students are better off in school with them than anywhere else. When a ludicrous claim like this is being made and enforced, I don't see why they should be cut so much slack.
It's not the student's responsibility to protect the teacher's ego, it's the student's responsibility to be reasonable. Standing up and yelling because the teacher forgot a semicolon in some example code, for instance, is a waste of everyone's time, not just the teacher's.
Your somewhat extreme example notwithstanding, are you saying it's unreasonable for a student to point it out when a teacher is giving incorrect information to the class?
I'm saying "It depends." My experience with that behavior indicates that it's usually counterproductive- either nitpicking like my previous example, or axe grinding that isn't really helping. Think an Ayn Rand follower interrupting a class on Marxism every few moments.
The problem, really, is that it's impossible to make a fully qualified statement and still be engaging. As a speaker, you have to skip over some detail somewhere, thus there is always going to be a place to jump in and act an ass.
Interesting post, but since a lot of people here seem to make a big deal about their objectivity, I can see why this would annoy TriinT enough that he'd post about it. As you imply, he might've thought about it and decided it was worth risking some of that goodwill.
I stand by my comment. My opinion is based on evidence: some high-karma members can get away with stuff other members can't get away with. If a newbie posted about oaks getting hacked, the post would be flagged right away. Of course, since PG runs HN, the community should indeed cut him some slack as a token of gratitude.
My comment was an attack on the herd phenomenon, not on PG. It was not meant to offend anyone. If it does offend anyone, well, I really don't care. If it burns some of my future ability-to-speak-out-and-others-will-listen-edness, then I don't care either. Worst case scenario, I can always join with a new username, like IamNotTriinT.
I agree that the comments shouldn't offend anyone.
I disagree with your reasoning, though. This neighborhood is (apparently) pretty well known in Ye Olde Silicone Valley(e). That being the case, I'll bet any number of nerd bloggers or private individuals could have written it up and gotten upvotes; perhaps not as many, but that's not a problem unless you dislike the idea of reputations in general.
The other factor to consider is this: that the people upvoting are aware that PG has more clout than the average poster, are aware that this is a slightly less-hackerly story, and are upvoting it because they approve of the additional attention PG can help bring to it.
Please note that my initial comment was a reply to a comment on herd behavior, not a statement that oak tree hacking in non-kosher. In any case, I would much rather read about oak trees than yet another retarded TechCrunch article...
This is a bit disorganized, but I'll try to lay out how the gears are turning in my head:
When you implicitly call out a community or someone very admired in that community (whose also running things for free for a lot of people's enjoyment), it's courageous but it burns some of your future ability-to-speak-out-and-others-will-listen-edness.
If you were to make similar comments frequently, eventually people would just shrug it off instead of burning the mental energy to apply difficult critical thinking.
Now, I was one of those disagreeable kids who used to argue with teachers when they got their math or chemistry wrong, and eventually I stopped doing that and started thinking:
"Do I want to burn some of my speak-out-and-people-will-listen-edness on this particular topic?" Because you only have so much, and you might want to use it on something important later.
Does the tree submission get submitted and voted if it's not Paul Graham or another very admired poster? Probably not. But it's a minor thing to take a banner up against, and it just oh-so-slightly decreases the resources you have by taking up that banner. And maybe it minorly gets on the nerves of a few people, and they don't like it, and so you get oh-so-very-slightly less attention/goodwill in the future.
Or maybe not. Just something to ponder.