Stop Contradicting, Start Refuting.

And other lame limp responses we see to articles.

Aphinya Dechalert wrote an interesting little article addressing one of the many “me too” one line wonder-ermagahd aherpaderp responses you commonly see on articles. The “I’ve been doing this for 200 years” claim as if that magically dissects the article instead of being anecdotal.

I admit I’ve done this myself being I’ve been programming for 40 years, but there’s a difference in how I use it! IF you use it, you have to do it with a degree of self-awareness and to back it up with facts.

This is actually the propaganda technique of “speaking from authority” — an aspect of both “plain folks” and “testimonial” — which is oft used to “contradict without facts”. People will flaunt their credentials to try and gain the upper hand, when they lack an actual rational counterpoint you can back with facts.

You often see the religiously devout use this same technique, using the their belief in the divine as justification for their immoral hate-mongering. It’s ok to hate homosexuals, my Evangelical preacher said the bible says so thus I have the moral high ground. Jesus loves me this I know, group psychosis tells me so… BARF!

My article on the propaganda techniques is highly applicable here:

Another flavor of this is when younger dev’s say “oh you’re stuck in the past”, or “well that’s just because you don’t work with large groups”. Comedy gold when they’re defending a mid ‘90’s markup mindset and/or practices that hobble collaboration.

The key failing in all of these statements is that more oft than not they are contradiction, responding to tone, and in no way, shape or form a rational counterargument or refutation.

What Aphinya wrote about is actually a form of passive-aggressive “inversion” of the ad-hominem attack. By playing themselves up with their “years of experience” they are calling you an inexperienced know-nothing. Attempting to claim a moral high ground without putting in the effort to earn it.

It is nothing more than an attempt to discredit the source without presenting facts. Usually because they have none.

But note that this is only true when they say these things WITHOUT backing it up with examples, explanations, and so forth. If there is actual meat to the counterpoints it’s not an attempt to discredit you as a source, but to improve the credibility of their claim and discredit your information.

It’s the difference between:

Name-calling: “Bootcrap and Arsebreeze are stupid because I — an expert with 40 years experience — say so”

… and the Counter-argument: “Bootstrap and Tailwind are ignorant incompetent junk because they sabotage caching models, are focused on visual presentation only telling non-visual users to sod off, and in the process destroying or ignoring proper semantics much less the separation of concerns. They are clearly created by people unqualified to write a single line of HTML as evidenced by their outmoded outdated examples, resulting in using two to ten times the markup needed to do the job and ten to twenty times the bandwidth on deployment. With presentational classes like “text-center text-white” you might as well go back to using FONT/CENTER tags like it’s 1995. Worse cryptic trash like “col-4-s col-6-m py-0” it sure as shine-ola isn’t simpler, given that once slopped all over the markup you might as well go back to using the hackish mental midgetry that was tables for layout. Even their trying to encourage the antiquated “grid” nonsense results in overthinking every aspect of layout design; fighting the simplicity that flow and wrapping behaviors can give you. For these reasons they are in no way easier, simpler, or better. Any such claims is unfounded propaganda used to prey on nubes and rubes alike.”

Sad part is, most people are more offended by the latter because it actually sticks in the knife and twists up the vitals. That or you get the nose-breathing half-tweet illiterates who scream “AAAH!!! WALL OF TEXT!!!”. Such twitter generation TLDR morons needing to sod right the **** off.

See what I just did there? That was intentional.

I’m reminded of something I once saw a novelist say to a “fan” at a book signing, where said “fan” kept misinterpreting or misrepresenting what was being said by said author.

“I think you’re an idiot. The reason I think you’re an idiot is you respond to tone and not what’s being said. You’re letting your feelings change what you’re hearing into what you want it to mean, not what it actually says!”

I see this a good deal in society as a whole. You can lay out a string of facts, show the work, create examples, and the result is always a bunch of “Wah wah is not” moronic butt-hurt “one line wonder posts” of gaslighting and ad-hominem attacks in the comments.

’Tis why we oft see even the meatiest of replies boiling down to little more than “well if you only heard so and so talk about it at this developer conference”. A total classic reply and example of feeling instead of thinking.

Prompting the question: “Well what did ‘so and so’ actually SAY?”

Naturally the response you ALWAYS get is “I don’t remember the details, but they’re one of the biggest names in the industry spoke with such clarity and conviction you wanted to believe!”

Speaking with conviction in soothing-syrup words, saying exactly what you want to hear is NOT sufficient cause to blindly believe whatever bullshit they’re selling folks. I don’t care if it’s one of those lie peddling “preachers” spewing fairy tales from the pulpit, some orange cheeto-fingered demagogue, a Dixiecrat no better than their predecessor, or some scam artist on stage at a conference trying to sucker you with their latest hot wet mess “framework”. They all use the same techniques for bypassing critical thinking, in order to con you into wanting to believe, even when all they have is lies, ignorance, and snake-oil.

STOP “responding to tone” and pay attention to WHAT is being said. If the message itself is upsetting you, it may be time for self reflection. That so many are conditioned to respond mindlessly with so little meaning is an aspect of how easy it is to play the public. It’s what in Pro Wrestling they call “cheap heat”. It’s easier to get you to feel instead of think.

If you feel the need to reply to something you don’t like, perhaps rather than a butthurt cry-baby one line barely a complete sentence ad-hominem attack reeking of both illiteracy and a complete lack of actual counterpoints, you could get off your arse and attempt to refute the main point! If you cannot provide facts or counter-arguments based in fact, and instead are reacting out of nothing but feeling, MAYBE you need to look in the mirror and figure out why that is.

“Is not, is not” and “you’re an asshole” isn’t adding to the discussion and just means you’re likely the real asshole in the conversation; possibly even a complete sucker — or more accurately what is known as a “mark”.

It’s why whenever someone says “it’s not what you said but how you said it” my immediate reaction is “BULLCOOKIES, it’s EXACTLY what was said, don’t even try to pretend otherwise!”

And more importantly, if you believe something because of how it was said, not what was actually said, dimes to dollars you’ve just swallowed a bunch of lies hook, line, sinker, and a bit o’ the rod.

That said, for other writers here on medium or on other sites, don’t take these reactionary knee-jerk flame-bait troll comments personally. In many cases it is an indication you’ve actually done your job! You didn’t make them think, you made them feel. And when that happens, — as Bischoff said in the video I linked to above — “Business will be good”. Love you or hate you, they’re still showing up to put buns in seats and coins in your coffer.

Most audiences aren’t there to think. The majority of people don’t like thinking which is why they’ll follow the first really good liar who says what they want to hear. The truth is scary, often painful, and as such the “rank and file” have ZERO interest in it. Scam artists have known this forever, which is how predators like Amway and Mary-Kay continue to bankrupt person after person. As I said in a response elsewhere that’s actually their game.

They start out telling you how “easy” it is, and how “it’s an investment” for the startup $$$, and just look at all the successes we have in our testimonials. An endless stream of rosy feel-good glittering generalities, hot button topics, and loaded words. Then once you start to struggle because it’s all lies, they double-down on the BS peddling, but more importantly do everything they can to shift the blame onto you. They say “but look at all the successes”, “you must be doing something wrong”, “you’re not working hard enough”, “come spend more money at our conference and it will help!”. Anything to string you along as long as possible. The simple fact is that most people are more willing to blame themselves than a product or group they WANT to believe or have convinced themselves are a success based in reality. Regardless of how patently and blatantly false that perception is. Again, see organized religion.

Those of you struggling with money-pit failing websites or applications built on these media darling frameworks, any of that sound familiar yet?

These big “successes” can’t be wrong, it must be you at fault! You’re not using it right, you’re not trying hard enough, you’re not embracing the mindset. The tools not at fault.

Whoomp, it there is!

The real truth of such scams — YES I SAID SCAMS!!! — be they multi-level-marketing or web development frameworks, is that the only way to make money with them is to be amongst the “top tier” dirtbags shucking it to the gullible, hopeful, and those who are simply ill informed and poorly educated on the subject matter.

Now I’m not saying “frameworks” and other such web development carny barker fare are a pyramid scheme. They are not, but they use a lot of the same techniques and methodologies in their promotion. Worse, they result in the same “serial victim” mindset amongst those they prey upon! If you start to fail whilst using them, they are able to convince you it’s your fault. It typically is not.

And I do mean “serial victim” which is why we have so many developers hopping from one latest hotness to the next every time the wind blows. They not only are the victims of dimestore hoodoo, they are always looking to victimize themselves with whatever bullshit story is the current media darling. All out of hope, ignorance, and wishful thinking. Anything to perpetuate the illusion of it being easy and to stave off having to do actual work or actually learn anything.

And that victim mentality is fed by other mental failings like:

Confirmation Bias — that they got A result, ANY result no matter how broken, it must work and be the right way of doing things.

Cognitive Dissonance — Because they want it to be true, and believe it is true, they reject any fact that contradicts their belief, and it makes them knee-jerk into fight or flight mode when anyone “rocks the boat” with “aggressive”, “controversial”, or worse “constadictory” information.

As I oft quote, it’s Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule”

People are dumb, they will believe a lie because they want it to be true, or are afraid it might be true.

Which is why amongst the streams of lame responses one sees in comments when you dare to speak out against the popular media darlings in development, you always get posts like “you’re using it wrong”, “you just need to accept it and use it”, “don’t blame the tool”, and all sorts of other peer-pressure and blame deflecting fallacies. ANYTHING — any crazy excuse — to not blame the pedantic programming models, obtuse coding techniques, addle-minded library/framework, or any other such tools for the problems . Even when said issues are clearly created BY the tools!

Even more true since there’s clear use of bandwagon, echo-chambers, and the “threat of excommunication” to encourage the suppression of dissent.

Hence dealing with software developers who have their favorite pet editors, pet libraries, pet frameworks, and pet “programming paradigms” is like dealing with cut-rate doomsday cultists or other such fundamentalist extremists. They are literally the “no amount of facts will change my mind” crowd, and it shows in their feeble, laughable, crybaby responses devoid of rational logical counterpoints much less anything remotely resembling facts!

Thus when you try to buck the popular, hot, and trendy nonsense, DARING to point out any shortcoming with rational well formed arguments, the result is a bunch of idiotic ad-hominem one-liners devoid of rational thought.

Quoth: (actual responses to some of my articles)

How do I downclap this post

TLDR; author dislikes everything.

I honestly thought it might be April the 1st in some timezone already

Just say you are a virgin old dinosaur, it’s shorter.

Take a pill man.

You’re just an asshole who refuses to accept change

A little nobody tries to contradict Wathan’s brilliance

Because said respondents didn’t like what was said, but had not one single fact, idea, or concept they could present to support said dislike. Meaningless drivel trolling from feeble-minded illiterate morons, quacks, and fools who cannot spend the time to actually THINK for themselves! Instead they resort to flaccid witless brain-dead responses to cover up for their own impotence and lack of mental fortitude.

As Alice would say in Wonderland:

You’re stressin’ `cause you’re messin’ with a verbal giant sweetie. You wanna mess with someone my size? Eat me!

Anyhow, Aphinya started out with the word “ethics” and that in many ways is what it comes down to. A lot of people seem to think that any behavior that’s not wrapped in soothing syrup words, mindless platitudes, and blindly following the mob is wrong; all because they’ve been brainwashed into mistaking civility for goodness. That’s not an ethical or moral response, it’s the reactionary conniption fits of those brainwashed into thinking that conformity is a virtue.

The simple fact is that following the mob mentality, making unfounded statements, supporting liars, and stamping out dissent is pretty damned unethical. It is for the most part why these one-liners “responding to tone” or just going full on ad-hominem whilst adding nothing of value to the discussion is lame, inane, fatuous, and more an indication of personal insecurity than actual knowledge. Especially when the reply to a mountain of facts is “there’s no actual message or thing for me to reply to” because they stuck their fingers in their ears going “lah-lah-lah-lah” like a cut-rate Vancome Lady. A lack of comprehension or reacting before you even understand the message is getting painfully too common.

And rooted in cognitive dissonance, they don’t want to hear the message, so they refuse to comprehend any of the facts supporting it.

To be frank, the ethical response is to call them out on their bullshit. Even if it means using a few harsh words. Those who demand clean / soft language and that you never say anything controversial are nothing more than enablers for the wolves in the fold, insisting on appeasement at any cost.

Ask 1930’s Europe how well “appeasement’ works.