Your criticism is, on the surface of it, very relevant. The superficial hypocrisy of my earlier statement would really serve to hurt my credibility if this were

Your criticism is, on the surface of it, very relevant. The superficial hypocrisy of my earlier statement would really serve to hurt my credibility if this were a willfully polarized ideological bubble. The difference is that an on-topic reply to an on-topic comment on an on-topic post diverges as part of an ultimately topical and natural progression, whereas starting with a polarized and ideological post that has little to do with technology, startups, or spontaneous cleverness only serves as an opportunity to reinforce the poster's ideological outlook as the new normal; that is, to move the Overton window. I myself have been guilty of this. I told a friend of mine that I'd gotten some traction with a blog post about not getting hired by dropbox, and he asked me to share a really juvenile idea he'd had for protesting the TSA. I did it; the post was poorly received, and the community spanking was enough to remind me of what effective participation in a pseudonymous social news link aggregator looks like. That being said, neither did I start this conversation, nor was it the sort of ideological shouting that drowns out the interesting stuff. The grandparent has a good anecdote about the poster's experience with retirement planning and raising a lot of children, and it makes a point with which I happen to disagree. I voiced my disagreement without attacking the comment or the person who made it. Ultimately, I disagree both with your implied disagreement with my original point and with the validity of your rhetorical question, but I don't disagree with the topicality of your attack and therefore I don't think your comment deserves the downvote it has at present.