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sixes_and_sevens comments on A Kick in the Rationals: What hurts you in your LessWrong Parts? - Less Wrong
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I wonder why your comment got deleted. Was it potentially inflammatory? Does the website not like people signing things Summer Glau when they aren't Summer Glau? (Unless you are Summer Glau, of course.) Was there a link in it? I don't want to assume they just don't like dissent, but sadly that happens sometimes. If you still have the comment I'd like to see it.
As for examples, I'm currently taking a class in "Science and Religion" that is full of minor instances of this. Yesterday I got deathism and elan vital, plus some arguing by definition over "life". Deathism is more a kick in the morals than a kick in the rationals, but it's the same feeling of "argh this is bad and there's nothing I can do about it".
I am going to steal this phrase.
Awesome. One more xkcd fulfilled, n left to go.
It was very much of the tone "I am now going to explain to you why you are wrong", but it was still civil. Rough outline:
1) Quantum mechanics does not say that.
2) Strong anthropic principle is a bold claim you've failed to substantiate.
3) Saying "our current theories of the physical world don't work" is outrageous coming from a man who attracts other objects towards him with a force proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
4) The physical processes underlying organic life are perfectly compatible with a lawful physical universe, and fairly well understood by the standards of many academic disciplines (and you should know that, because you're actually an expert on the subject). To date, no mental phenomena have demonstrated properties that violate the laws of physics.
5) "Tree in the forest" is an artefact of the semantic history of our language, and nothing to do with physics.
6) Remaining few paragraphs are presented in a needlessly confusing way to obfuscate some fairly straightforward ideas. Obviously things we label "optical effects" require optical devices in order to manifest in the way we perceive them. The mapping in the analogies is sunlit_droplet -> skyscraper / rainbow -> sight_of_skyscraper, but the phrasing implies it's rainbow -> skyscraper.
7) It's one thing to point to poorly-understood phenomena and go "woooo...isn't it weird and spooky and strange?" but it's another entirely to deliberately and erroneously subvert pretty well-understood phenomena to try and achieve the same effect. Please stop it.
Uh, your mom is so massive she attracts other objects toward her with a force proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
(In other words: You do realize this sounds like the nerd version of a fat joke, right?)
That honestly didn't occur to me when I wrote it. It was supposed to be a riff on an Ad Hominem attack, only with a factual statement about a theory of physical law and how he conforms to it.
Here I thought it was a snarky statement about how we can see the success of physical theories with our own observations, and have never observed them to fail. Triple illusion of transparency all the way across the sky!
Its purpose was to demonstrate how physical theories are demonstrably successful. Its delivery was the Ad Hominem riff.
Also "your face is so massive..." etc.
Certainly comes across as condescending and indignant, thanks to the words like "needlessly confusing way to obfuscate" and "outrageous".