A properly functioning compass points north.

Everything in this subthread is a demonstration of the fall in quality of discourse on Hacker News.

Because Cushman pointed out that a compass tends to have two points, he has received several downvotes. He's got, surprisingly, more than one person suggesting that he should be fired. Where does that even come from? Why is someone being a little pedantic on a web forum cause to tell them they shouldn't have a job?

Especially when he's right: compasses can point both directions. He didn't attack anyone and say they should be fired, he didn't accuse someone of being a "rhetoric astronaut". What's the value in being so hurtful? Most surprising of all is that so many people jumped in. Like they were just waiting to make fun of someone on the internet.

I'd love to see attacks at people stop happening here, because good discussions do still occur. But my remarks are just more reactionary bullshit, I guess. Maybe I should be fired too.

I appreciate the backup, though I'm not really hurt-- getting downvoted for that is pretty amusing.

It does seems like an interesting little pattern on HN, though. I've found I tend to get the most upvotes for expressing the strongest opinions, even "controversial" ones. Maybe it goes against the conventional wisdom, but usually, when I get downvoted, it's not because I've said something unpopular, but because I've said something mildly challenging, but otherwise completely blasé-- like pointing out that there's nothing privileged about the north pole of a dipole magnet. (It's the sort of thing liberal arts grads love to talk about, I'm not surprised it doesn't play well here.)

Normally, of course, there'll be a downvote or two and that's that. On the extreme end, you'll see this strange phenomenon where something is so insultingly boring that it necessitates a whole comment thread complaining about it. I actually find it really fascinating.

The compass remark was obviously a symbol, and the intent is clear from the allegations made previously.

He is being downvoted because obviously none of this has any to do with an actual compass and is merely adding noise to the discussion.

> Because Cushman pointed out that a compass tends to have two points, he has received several downvotes.

well, that's because his comment, though superficially relevant, was actually pure noise. there was no compass involved to have two points; the term was being used metaphorically, and everyone (cushman included) knew what it meant.

Every mechanical compass I've used has two points. Or none, I guess, on the spherical ones.

This comment reminded me of the "architecture astronaut" post by Joel Spolsky[1]:

"Your typical architecture astronaut will take a fact like "Napster is a peer-to-peer service for downloading music" and ignore everything but the architecture, thinking it's interesting because it's peer to peer, completely missing the point that it's interesting because you can type the name of a song and listen to it right away."

Yes there might be two points on your compass but the "interesting" point is the one that's drawn to the magnetic pole of the planet. Cushman, you're a rhetoric astronaut.

1 http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html

I agree that cushman seems to be being thick, but there are two magnetic poles on all magnets including the Earth, dangit, not "the magnetic pole of the planet". In fact, the part that points north is the magnetic south pole of the compass.

(Now I suspect the bit about the level of discourse does apply; I was well-aware of magnetic polarity in 1st grade, and polarity itself defines there being two ends...)

I was more concerned with expressing a relevant thought I had than ensuring that the phrase I used to sum up the general concept of a compass was scientifically accurate. Because after all, the very thing this entire thread about is that the properties of magnetism and the nature of compasses are irrelevant to the meaning of the phrase, "moral compass."

Nerds, each of us. I say that affectionately but man I regret answering theorique's question.

Nobody is talking about spherical moral compasses.

It remains the case that a compass points both north and south by nature; which is a matter of convention.

Just out of curiosity, how do you manage to converse with other people in the real world?

It varies, but usually I compress my diaphragm to force air from my lungs past a set of vibrating membranes which produce a base tone, then modulate that tone using the various muscles in my mouth to produce a set of distinct acoustic patterns which my conversational partner can decode. If that's working well I'll also modulate the frequency and volume of the tone itself to encode additional semantic information, but that's not strictly necessary for communication to take place.

It's just an analogy, I'm sure everyone understands what he meant.

Ever been fired? ;)

You offering me a job?

>"Every mechanical compass I've used has two points."

And the pedantic-bs-to-save-some-face-of-the-day award, goes to...

Magnetic north, not true north.

In China, a compass is called a 指南针 ("point south needle"). So... I guess it depends on who you're talking to.