I did it, first because I thought the special rules about voting only applied to top-level comments, and second because there’s a difference between contrarian views and Usenet-grade crackpottery.
They lost points because they weren’t rational. The top level post says you should post ideas that you believe that others do not, but I think that implicit in that is that you should post ideas that are reasonably well thought out and supported. His weren’t.
(As a practical matter, ideas that are not only contrary but which correspond either to 1) common misunderstandings, or 2) common crackpot claims are rarely if ever well thought out and supported. Why this is so is another question.)
I actually made a good faith attempt to explain special relativity to him, it was when he shifted from “confused physics student mode” to “crackpot mode” that I gave up and started downvoting.
I asked someone on there to explain two of the views they listed. They declined, because they lost points from another one they explained.
I wonder if it’s due to people just following the recent comments and not realizing it’s on that thread.
I did it, first because I thought the special rules about voting only applied to top-level comments, and second because there’s a difference between contrarian views and Usenet-grade crackpottery.
I believe they do.
They lost points because they weren’t rational. The top level post says you should post ideas that you believe that others do not, but I think that implicit in that is that you should post ideas that are reasonably well thought out and supported. His weren’t.
(As a practical matter, ideas that are not only contrary but which correspond either to 1) common misunderstandings, or 2) common crackpot claims are rarely if ever well thought out and supported. Why this is so is another question.)
I actually made a good faith attempt to explain special relativity to him, it was when he shifted from “confused physics student mode” to “crackpot mode” that I gave up and started downvoting.