5 ms·

While I agree it probably never ends well, this is hardly off topic in this case.

• dang 8y ago
  I see your point. There's a subtle assumption in what I said that was probably unclear, so I'll try to explain. Generic discussions, especially generic flamewars, lead to the same things being said over and over. These topics are important and people feel very strongly about them, and because their passions are so engaged, they stride into the threads with tried-and-true weapons (talking points, prepared statements, and so on) to smite their enemies with. The enemy responds in kind, and off into battle we go. In addition to being violent by internet standards, such discussions are also predictable. That's where the point about off-topicness comes in. Predictability is what this site exists to avoid; its core value is intellectual curiosity (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and that lives at the opposite end of the topic spectrum. So when I say that an argument like this is off topic, I mean it's off topic for Hacker News as a whole, even if it's related to the story at hand. Tons more explanation of this can be found via https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20generic https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if anyone wants it.