zlacker

Hating on "nitpicking" is the funniest thing to me. It's a bold admission that one has abandoned attention to detail. Huge red flag.

>>gmd63+(OP)
Yes, correction of a detail is good and not a problem. But using that to mock the central point is a popular strategy in discourse.

In the disagreement hierarchy(https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html) this is level 4 or 5, but pretending to be level 6. Like using a bug to say that the software lacks basic value.

>>gmd63+(OP)
I wonder if this is meant to be ironic because this behavior is exactly what was being criticized. You just picked one specific detail to focus on and ignored everything else.

>>gmd63+(OP)
Really? I see that problem all the time at work.

There is a limited amount of resources (time, people and money). If you have a list of 100 things to fix, you better figure out which of those 100 are going to drive the biggest improvement.

I see teams all the time focused on fixing a problem without stopping for a minute to ask "will fixing this actually make a difference?".

>>the_go+B9
No, a lot of people on this website value very highly their completely irrelevant nitpicks. I’m starting to think it’s just the kind of mind the tech industry attracts, because I’ve noticed it in some coworkers as well.

>>the_go+B9
The anti nitpicking attitude is the core point of the parent commenter's post. I agree with sensible prioritization as exemplified in the linked article, as should everyone. But the author of the comment I'm responding to is expressing discomfort with a culture that identifies holes in their reasoning. They're so uncomfortable with having details of their arguments challenged that they aren't saying what they really want to say.

I know an "anti nitpicker" who is entirely opposite to that attitude when it comes to their social appearance and perception. One hair on their tie is catastrophic. One publicly searchable webpage that shows a decades old picture of them is an extreme problem that warrants hiring a company to clean up. It's interesting how, in matters that are important to some of these people, seemingly inconsequential and irrelevant details suddenly matter to an extraordinary degree.

The anti nitpicking stance is a byproduct of the extreme overvaluation of social perception. Often these people do not like to look like they have made a mistake. And thus they avoid conflict or paint it as irrelevant in belief that it will save their appearance.