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Ironic post, since yours has the less substance and the grandparent was on topic with a meaningful point.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
I agree, OP was simply illustrating how much of this seemingly scary "debt" is really fancy financial maneuvering rather than something with a strong basis in physical reality/resources. Like when the stock market crashed in 1929 and suddenly (most) everyone lost everything, even though no real disaster had occurred, and all the factories and farms were still in the same condition they were before.
- dang 9y ago
  If we take a closer look at your comment, it also seems to be to be problematically obvious. I mean by that a point so obvious that it partly refutes itself, since if it's correct, too much would follow. You appear to be hand-waving away the entire Great Depression. For a good HN comment, we need not to stop at the first reflexive response that comes up, but wait until we get past that, at least till the second. If you do that, you'll usually notice an obvious counterpoint to the obvious first point, and then you'll take a bit longer to sort through your thoughts before posting. That's when you're more likely to make a contribution that's useful to others.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    >seems to be to be problematically obvious. Agreed, it's so painfully obvious it's problematic. Human psychology has an interesting habit of ignoring obvious painful truths, as Margaret Heffernan details in Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril[1]. "We turn a blind eye in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, to reduce anxiety, and to protect prestige. But greater understanding leads to solutions, and Heffernan shows how-by challenging our biases, encouraging debate, discouraging conformity, and not backing away from difficult or complicated problems-we can be more mindful of what's going on around us and be proactive instead of reactive." >if it's correct, too much would follow Precisely why we subconsciously ignore difficult truths, because confronting them would require surmounting seemingly insurmountable obstacles. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Willful-Blindness-Ignore-Obvious-Peril/dp/0802777961 https://www.amazon.com/Willful-Blindness-Ignore-Obvious-Peri...
dang 9y ago
It's true that such moderation comments break some of the same rules they're advocating. But this a necessary evil, for the same reason that many medicines are toxic. If it's any comfort to you, I can tell you after writing 20,000 of them that they are more tedious to write than to read. Interpretations differ, but mine is that the comment is unsubstantive because it is in equal parts obvious and dismissive. This is the sort of thing whose general purpose is to make the writer, and some readers, get a cheap hit of smart-feeling, while alienating the frankly more valuable part of the audience. You're right, though, that it really wasn't that bad a case, especially relative to other top comments in this thread. I wouldn't have singled it out except that it was the first one posted.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  I agree with most of what you're saying. In this case, I think it's an intellectually meaningful position to point out the fundamental problems with the premise of the initial article. The idea of summing "global debt" as though it means something really is something worthy of that sort of critique and dismissal. A bad comment would be "this is dumb" or "total debt is a stupid concept". The OP in this thread gave an intellectually clear and logic basis for dismissing the article.

I agree, OP was simply illustrating how much of this seemingly scary "debt" is really fancy financial maneuvering rather than something with a strong basis in physical reality/resources. Like when the stock market crashed in 1929 and suddenly (most) everyone lost everything, even though no real disaster had occurred, and all the factories and farms were still in the same condition they were before.

dang 9y ago
If we take a closer look at your comment, it also seems to be to be problematically obvious. I mean by that a point so obvious that it partly refutes itself, since if it's correct, too much would follow. You appear to be hand-waving away the entire Great Depression. For a good HN comment, we need not to stop at the first reflexive response that comes up, but wait until we get past that, at least till the second. If you do that, you'll usually notice an obvious counterpoint to the obvious first point, and then you'll take a bit longer to sort through your thoughts before posting. That's when you're more likely to make a contribution that's useful to others.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >seems to be to be problematically obvious. Agreed, it's so painfully obvious it's problematic. Human psychology has an interesting habit of ignoring obvious painful truths, as Margaret Heffernan details in Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril[1]. "We turn a blind eye in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, to reduce anxiety, and to protect prestige. But greater understanding leads to solutions, and Heffernan shows how-by challenging our biases, encouraging debate, discouraging conformity, and not backing away from difficult or complicated problems-we can be more mindful of what's going on around us and be proactive instead of reactive." >if it's correct, too much would follow Precisely why we subconsciously ignore difficult truths, because confronting them would require surmounting seemingly insurmountable obstacles. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Willful-Blindness-Ignore-Obvious-Peril/dp/0802777961 https://www.amazon.com/Willful-Blindness-Ignore-Obvious-Peri...

dang 9y ago

It's true that such moderation comments break some of the same rules they're advocating. But this a necessary evil, for the same reason that many medicines are toxic. If it's any comfort to you, I can tell you after writing 20,000 of them that they are more tedious to write than to read. Interpretations differ, but mine is that the comment is unsubstantive because it is in equal parts obvious and dismissive. This is the sort of thing whose general purpose is to make the writer, and some readers, get a cheap hit of smart-feeling, while alienating the frankly more valuable part of the audience. You're right, though, that it really wasn't that bad a case, especially relative to other top comments in this thread. I wouldn't have singled it out except that it was the first one posted.

quadrangle 9y ago
I agree with most of what you're saying. In this case, I think it's an intellectually meaningful position to point out the fundamental problems with the premise of the initial article. The idea of summing "global debt" as though it means something really is something worthy of that sort of critique and dismissal. A bad comment would be "this is dumb" or "total debt is a stupid concept". The OP in this thread gave an intellectually clear and logic basis for dismissing the article.