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I'll give you that 75% of this article is unnecessary hyperbole which adds nothing to the central message. The central message is very interesting though.

by mafro 14y ago

pja 14y ago
But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. Now, to some extent that engagement is being sought in order to sell Rolling Stone, but I think that both Matt and the Rolling Stone editors believe that they're talking about something that matters & that people should be angry about. Hence the hyperbole. If they wrote a dry academic paper and published it in some economics journal somewhere it might contain exactly the same information but it would have negligible impact.
- davidw 14y ago
  > But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. As above, "getting people angry" about stuff that is very tangentially related to hacker news is a good indication it's a bad fit for this site. There are so many other sites on the internet to discuss politics, economics and things of that ilk. In the grand scheme of things, those topics are more important than "hacker news" and could easily "crowd out" our "dry" discussions of computers and startups here.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  If they wanted to get people angry, they should follow the money and show where all the money used to build a new hospital goes, but Taibbi's axe doesn't grind that way.
namdnay 14y ago
Bear in mind that RS is a magazine, not a newspaper. It's not just supposed to inform you, it's also meant to be a nice read.
bstpierre 14y ago
"[Top executives were] plunged into years of nut-crushing negotiations [...]" Perhaps unnecessary hyperbole, but entertaining nonetheless. If you want "just the facts" without the hyperbole, read the indictment [1]. FWIW, I find the RS article to be a more pleasant read. [1]: http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm
laserDinosaur 14y ago
Yeah, sentences like "this was like the scam in Office Space, multiplied by a factor of about 10 gazillion: Banks stole pennies at a time from towns all over America, only they did it a few hundred bazillion time" struck me as really poorly written.

I'll give you that 75% of this article is unnecessary hyperbole which adds nothing to the central message. The central message is very interesting though.

by mafro 14y ago

I'll give you that 75% of this article is unnecessary hyperbole which adds nothing to the central message. The central message is very interesting though.

pja 14y ago

But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. Now, to some extent that engagement is being sought in order to sell Rolling Stone, but I think that both Matt and the Rolling Stone editors believe that they're talking about something that matters & that people should be angry about. Hence the hyperbole. If they wrote a dry academic paper and published it in some economics journal somewhere it might contain exactly the same information but it would have negligible impact.

davidw 14y ago
> But without the hyperbole, people won't get engaged, they won't get angry. As above, "getting people angry" about stuff that is very tangentially related to hacker news is a good indication it's a bad fit for this site. There are so many other sites on the internet to discuss politics, economics and things of that ilk. In the grand scheme of things, those topics are more important than "hacker news" and could easily "crowd out" our "dry" discussions of computers and startups here.
tedunangst 14y ago
If they wanted to get people angry, they should follow the money and show where all the money used to build a new hospital goes, but Taibbi's axe doesn't grind that way.

namdnay 14y ago

Bear in mind that RS is a magazine, not a newspaper. It's not just supposed to inform you, it's also meant to be a nice read.

bstpierre 14y ago

"[Top executives were] plunged into years of nut-crushing negotiations [...]" Perhaps unnecessary hyperbole, but entertaining nonetheless. If you want "just the facts" without the hyperbole, read the indictment [1]. FWIW, I find the RS article to be a more pleasant read. [1]: http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f261600/261602.htm

laserDinosaur 14y ago

Yeah, sentences like "this was like the scam in Office Space, multiplied by a factor of about 10 gazillion: Banks stole pennies at a time from towns all over America, only they did it a few hundred bazillion time" struck me as really poorly written.