Earlier quoted context omitted.
No tangential flamewars on Hacker News, please. Perhaps there's a substantive point to be made about California and Texas, but flat-out tribal/ideological provocation is the opposite of that, and not ok here.
My comment wasn't meant to be tangential or start a flamewar. I think the article hits upon one of the most important issues of our time, namely how we want to structure our most important urban centers moving forward. There are very real quality of life issues at stake. Like many others here, I don't think of myself as Californian or Texan but as an American who has lived in various places at various times and who v…
> I used a bit of tongue in cheek snarkiness to drive the point home
But the dynamics from the outside are different. The snark doesn't "drive the point home"; it calls attention to itself, obscuring your point.
Of the people who read that, some will not experience it in a tongue-in-cheek way; of those, some will feel hurt and angry; some will typically respond with incivility—feeling justified, since they were provoked. These provoke others, and down the tedious spiral we go. Maybe it's their problem for being offended, but when is that not the case? The thread goes up in flames anyway.
This problem is intrinsic to a large semi-anonymous internet forum. Think of it like a campground in an area that's high-risk for forest fires. You'd automatically be careful there, to protect the shared space.
HN's solution to this problem is to require comments to be civil and substantive. A thoughtful comment like your reply here raises the whole quality of the discussion. You obviously have some nuanced things to say about this topic. Please give us the nuances.