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I've lost quite a bit of respect for some of the HN community here - this should be obviously wrong, we obviously aren't buying 86% less today than we were in t

I've lost quite a bit of respect for some of the HN community here - this should be obviously wrong, we obviously aren't buying 86% less today than we were in the past. The title's premise is so outlandish it deserves at least a little bit of critical thought... But because it confirms some previous biases (even if at a completely different and more extreme scale), more than I expected are acting as if this is true.

nerdponx 4y ago
Why should hackers have any idea about economics? Not everyone can be a subject matter expert on everything, and it's easy to be swayed on topics like this where emotions run high (rightly so) and anecdotal evidence is everywhere. As for the actual number being outlandish, I don't think most people have a sense of what "86% less purchasing power" even means. People see "<surprisingly big number> + less purchasing power" and that gets the eyeballs. "Hackers" are just as susceptible to this as any other non-experts. Plus, plenty of people here do know what they're talking about, enough to call out the obvious problems in the article and charts.