[4773ueudjj]

This line of online questioning is the lazy dismissal of the 21st century. This comment has a positive score and even a child that agrees with it and yet it's akin to asking any theorist "do you have sources for that?" in response to them saying something wildly uncontroversial within their domain. It adds nothing to the discussion and only shows that the respondent is so wildly out of touch with the relevant mainstream that they're not worth answering because the challenge is going to be one of persuading them rather than informing them.

Minimum wage is a widely studied issue with well documented pros and cons. It's weaknesses, when addressed in isolation, are so well understood that most discussion at a high level on the topic is not whether it has pros/cons but what instruments it should be combined with to mitigate its cons (the mainstream answer is usually tax breaks of various kinds, often targeting the employee and not the employer.)

Would you ask a Gender Studies professor to defend the assertion that the feminine gender construct is typically defined by its submissive traits or would you ask how these observations are used to make observations and proposals about the real world?

Would you ask a mathematician their sources when they begin to explain linear algebra or would you ask questions that help to understand their perspective on the matter?

Hacker News supposedly has a rule against shallow comments and yet for some reason knee jerk requests for sources with no additional substance to drive the dialogue forward are considered 'reasonable'.

[h0l0cube]

> Hacker News supposedly has a rule against shallow comments and yet for some reason knee jerk requests for sources with no additional substance to drive the dialogue forward are considered 'reasonable'.

Their statement begged the question, and it was asked.

I wasn't asking out of hostility, but out of curiosity. If the point can be made, and as you say, there is overwhelming evidence, I'd like the self-described expert of their field to provide an authoritative source. That's to the benefit of all readers.

Instead, we have a bunch of hand-wavey replies on both sides with dubious back-up, balanced with maybe a more illuminating discussion about the intersection of morality and economics, specifically regarding slavery and minorities - which I feel somewhat swayed by.

> Minimum wage is a widely studied issue with well documented pros and cons.

Throw us a bone then :) There are many countries around the world that do have a minimum wage, surely there's some data out there we can grok. Perhaps a minimum wage to quality-of-life measure? Inform this naive individual.

[p1necone]

As far as I can tell from reading the (very well sourced) Wikipedia article on minimum wage, the general consensus amongst economists on the pros and cons is not at all what user "notidentified" to is claiming, and is backed up by plenty of actual studies.

[pmachinery]

> Hacker News supposedly has a rule against shallow comments and yet for some reason knee jerk requests for sources with no additional substance to drive the dialogue forward are considered 'reasonable'.

There's also a rule that you are aware of, having read the rules, about not creating throwaway accounts routinely. Though to be fair to you, it doesn't specifically say don't create a throwaway because you don't want to abuse other posters under your regular account.

That seems like a strange thing to do, though, when your side of the argument is "wildly uncontroversial".

[p1necone]

The parent said unequivocally that minimum wage is a bad idea (and compared it to eugenics of all things), not that it has cons that need to be mitigated.

This is not an uncontroversial opinion, even among economists.

[4773ueudjj]

It is though. Most economists will advocate a mix of minimum wage and EITC (Earned income tax credit). Few will say that minimum wage by itself is a good thing and those that do will typically qualify it by saying that it's a good thing if you're only concerned with optimizing particular metrics, the persuit of which will likely have unintended consequences if chased with tunnel vision.

[p1necone]

Again: parent said that minimum wage is a bad idea period, compared it with eugenics and added nothing else to clarify. They didn't say it's a bad idea if chased with tunnel vision, or that it's a bad idea if used in isolation (I don't think that statement even makes sense - having a minimum wage is always going to be one decision amongst the context of a lot of other decisions being made).

I am questioning the particular way they worded their comment, I thought I made that obvious.

[4773ueudjj]

They didn't actually compare it with eugenics though, they compared the nature of the discourse around eugenics to discourse around minimum wage with the penultimate point of explaining a mix of why/how they distrust economists, specifically economists, to handle discussions about ethics. They weren't making a direct comparison between the topics themselves and yet most of the replies are reacting as if they had, illustrating why these sorts of talks with laymen are bad ideas.

[h0l0cube]

> these sorts of talks with laymen are bad ideas

Condescension by experts is one means by which bad ideas can promulgate, and lead to bad policy. Everyone you speak with is a potential voter, and at the end of the day, badly or uninformed voters are bad for democratic outcomes.

To go back to your original criticism, asking for background information is a lazy dismissal wasn't a fair assessment. Is wasn't a dismissal but a request for more information. It's important than when you make an assertion that a lay-person might have some misgivings, that you provide some real evidence, or qualify your statement as opinion. An appeal to one's own authority isn't enough, at least it ought not to be in HN, where it would seem many people really care to know more, and want to engage in real discourse.

Edit: qualified some statements..

[p1necone]

This tiresome blatant gish galloping conservative bullshit has been getting more and more common on hacker news lately. I wonder if it's because we're getting close to a US election. I find it deeply concerning because hacker news is generally a bastion of intellectually honest discussion (at least relative to the rest of the internet).

[vl]

Wait, we haven’t talked about UBI yet.