Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME

#41

Post by dang » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

johnwheeler wrote: post #25

ABCLAW wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absurd. Obscenely absurd. Rockefeller could literally pay an army of people to fan him with palm leaves, make sorbet from the ol' ice house and make him fresh iced tea as he walked around town if he wanted. What the fuck does Rockefeller care if the carrying capacity of agricultural land increases due to the Haber process if his personal consumption would remain the five-star best-in-class ingredients for every…

hyperbole and nonsense

This obviously breaks the site guidelines and is not welcome here. We ban accounts that do flamewars and name-calling in HN comments so please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.

Re: Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME

#42

Post by dang » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

ABCLAW wrote: post #26

johnwheeler wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hyperbole and nonsense

Vacuous and Naive. Sorry, for that, but is throwing insults really how discussion is supposed to be done?

I'm afraid you threw your share around too. Flamewar is exactly how not to respond to an annoying comment on HN, regardless of how annoying it is. If you can't remain civil and substantive, please don't post. Read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and you'll see what the recommendation is for reacting to egregious comments: flag them.

Re: Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME

#43

Post by johnwheeler » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #40

johnwheeler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, you write this on a Computer, which wouldnt be possible without those fossil fuels that pushed us through the industrial revolution and onto the technical revolution and gave us those plastics. I think it’s crazy to assume we won’t find answers to the problems you bring up and take a sky is falling attitude when you look at the track record of human progress. Even though your friends are struggling to find jobs,…

Many of your comments in this thread have broken the HN guidelines by being flamebait or outright flamewar. It's one thing to express a considered point of view and another to get into ideological mud wrestling. Please don't post like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks from your recent history like you've primarily been using HN for ideological battle. That destroys what this…

My comment is in line with the Bill Gates article and wasn’t meant to incite the response it got. Bill Gates wasn't trolling when he wrote the article and neither was I. The fact that the post and my comment got flagged says something about HN ideology and/or me expressing myself poorly.

The crux of the article was that people, the media, etc always focus on things getting worse while the data shows they’re getting better. I agree with that. In the future, I will be more careful in expressing myself so as not to arouse resentment. I’ll also stop posting about BTC.

Re: Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME

#44

Post by ABCLAW » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 9:30 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #42

ABCLAW wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vacuous and Naive. Sorry, for that, but is throwing insults really how discussion is supposed to be done?

I'm afraid you threw your share around too. Flamewar is exactly how not to respond to an annoying comment on HN, regardless of how annoying it is. If you can't remain civil and substantive, please don't post. Read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and you'll see what the recommendation is for reacting to egregious comments: flag them.

Sorry! Didn't see the flag controls. Thanks for the heads up. Post wasn't intended to insult, just demonstrate how silly it seemed as a response.

Re: Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME

#45

Post by johnwheeler » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #39

johnwheeler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, you write this on a Computer, which wouldnt be possible without those fossil fuels that pushed us through the industrial revolution and onto the technical revolution and gave us those plastics. I think it’s crazy to assume we won’t find answers to the problems you bring up and take a sky is falling attitude when you look at the track record of human progress. Even though your friends are struggling to find jobs,…

they’re likely living better than John D. Rockefeller did This may be true in material terms but it assumes that material wellbeing is all that counts. The reason this comment triggered such a strong reaction is that it dismisses the emotional distress that goes along with being at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile. Factors like student debt, medical costs and the general costs of living in many places put many pe…

Sure, I can appreciate how insensitive that sounded. It was a bad way to come off and that truly wasn’t my intention.