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> No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that "Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's a ridiculo

> No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that "Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's a ridiculous statement. Many "rational economists" have made that statement. Even the head of the Bank of Canada himself has suggested it is regrettable that our currency is so tied to oil. He can't openly criticize gov policy and so that's about as close as Poloz can get to condemnation. Classic hacker news comment. "I must disagree with whatever the post says and declare that no rational person could disagree with my criticism."

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
I love how disingenuous people often use the term "rational." Like anyone who disagrees must be some irrational loon and there's no room for debate here. Its sad that even on HN, such namecalling is convincing to many with the upvote button. Anytime I see commentary that include words "rational," "logical," or the term "man of science" I know I'm at least dealing with someone reductionist, pedantic, and usually extremist or marginalized.
- she_moves_on 11y ago
  I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing I think a rational person probably wouldn't do is use the words "no rational person" so easily. (yes I know the contradiction I just made)
dang 11y ago
> Classic hacker news comment. "I must disagree with whatever the post says and declare that no rational person could disagree with my criticism." That is even more of a "classic hacker news comment", in the bad sense, than the one you're objecting to. I've noticed that generalizations about HN in arguments always degrade the quality of the discussion. The trouble is that community members (on all sides of any divide) tend to extrapolate whatever they notice and dislike into an image of the community as a whole, which then resembles the image of their adversaries. This is bad for the community, especially because we have no face-to-face contact to mitigate it. I don't mean to pick on your comment in particular. It's a pattern that comes up a lot when commenters diss the community. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10887769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10887769 and marked it off-topic.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

I love how disingenuous people often use the term "rational." Like anyone who disagrees must be some irrational loon and there's no room for debate here. Its sad that even on HN, such namecalling is convincing to many with the upvote button. Anytime I see commentary that include words "rational," "logical," or the term "man of science" I know I'm at least dealing with someone reductionist, pedantic, and usually extremist or marginalized.

she_moves_on 11y ago
I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing I think a rational person probably wouldn't do is use the words "no rational person" so easily. (yes I know the contradiction I just made)

dang 11y ago

> Classic hacker news comment. "I must disagree with whatever the post says and declare that no rational person could disagree with my criticism." That is even more of a "classic hacker news comment", in the bad sense, than the one you're objecting to. I've noticed that generalizations about HN in arguments always degrade the quality of the discussion. The trouble is that community members (on all sides of any divide) tend to extrapolate whatever they notice and dislike into an image of the community as a whole, which then resembles the image of their adversaries. This is bad for the community, especially because we have no face-to-face contact to mitigate it. I don't mean to pick on your comment in particular. It's a pattern that comes up a lot when commenters diss the community. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10887769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10887769 and marked it off-topic.