Hey now, leave my Ayaya out of this.
Here is my point -- the potential losses are bounded. They can't unteach you what you've learned in 30 years of work, so you can probably earn income even after losing the biggest lawsuit EvilCorp can muster. Or go work at Starbucks if you are somehow banned from using computers, which is not really something that can happen for violating a software EULA. Compare this to driving to work -- you could get in a car accident that leaves you with a permanent brain injury. You'd never work again. You'd never recognize your family again. It's a big downside! And yet we drive.
Furthermore, I would be a little surprised to be reading "Extreme Car News" and seeing the first comment say "wow, you shouldn't modify your car to have that kind of acceleration, you could die!" People are aware of the risk, as they are experts in the field, and we are here to learn what we can from their experience without taking the risk ourselves. It therefore surprises me that everyone on a forum called "Hacker News" is speculating about the worst case outcome for writing a single mailing list post. The discussion has devolved into a trainwreck of "look at what could happen to that guy, I'm glad that's not me," which I think is pretty nasty to the author of the mailing list post, and kind of against the hacker spirit. He took a risk. Let's learn what we can.