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> There's literally no content to this sort of discussion other than yay-celeb vs. boo-celeb Being proud of Elon Musk and my country is not 'ubsubstantive'. It

> There's literally no content to this sort of discussion other than yay-celeb vs. boo-celeb Being proud of Elon Musk and my country is not 'ubsubstantive'. It points out the greatness of immigrants, capitalism, technology, entrepreneurship, and everything else that makes America GREAT. > Just look at how vacuous this subthread is. So it is my fault what other's choose to post on HN? Got it!

dang 6y ago
Actually yes, there is a sense in which a comment is partly responsible for the subthread it leads to, because reactions to certain things are so predictable on the internet. That's why concepts like 'flamebait' and 'trolling' exist. Your comment wasn't flamebait, exactly, and definitely not trolling, but it did have the property of being much more likely to lead to a vacuous subthread than a curious one. (Btw, I rotated between 'dumb', 'vacuous', 'lame', and a few other adjectives in the GP before returning to 'dumb'. You saw it in an intermediate state.) Edit: one way of putting this is that the value of an HN comment is the expected value of its future subthread: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That includes the original comment since a root node is part of its tree. I realize you're just being enthusiastic and am sorry to pee on the party.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  > Actually yes, there is a sense in which a comment is partly responsible for the subthread it leads to Ah ok, just like people who dress scantily are partly responsible for being raped. /s Solid logic.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    I appreciate that you're frustrated, but rape is a pretty monstrous crime to compare yourself to the victims of.
  - macinjosh 6y ago
    @happytoexplain hence the `/s` i.e. sarcasm.
    - happytoexplain 6y ago
      I wasn't accusing you of thinking that rape victims are responsible for how they dress.

dang 6y ago

Actually yes, there is a sense in which a comment is partly responsible for the subthread it leads to, because reactions to certain things are so predictable on the internet. That's why concepts like 'flamebait' and 'trolling' exist. Your comment wasn't flamebait, exactly, and definitely not trolling, but it did have the property of being much more likely to lead to a vacuous subthread than a curious one. (Btw, I rotated between 'dumb', 'vacuous', 'lame', and a few other adjectives in the GP before returning to 'dumb'. You saw it in an intermediate state.) Edit: one way of putting this is that the value of an HN comment is the expected value of its future subthread: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That includes the original comment since a root node is part of its tree. I realize you're just being enthusiastic and am sorry to pee on the party.

macinjosh 6y ago
> Actually yes, there is a sense in which a comment is partly responsible for the subthread it leads to Ah ok, just like people who dress scantily are partly responsible for being raped. /s Solid logic.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  I appreciate that you're frustrated, but rape is a pretty monstrous crime to compare yourself to the victims of.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  @happytoexplain hence the `/s` i.e. sarcasm.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    I wasn't accusing you of thinking that rape victims are responsible for how they dress.