[thaumaturgy]

You're not replying to what he said, you're replying to what you think he said. He didn't say that founders "risk their lives in the same way soldiers in a war do"; he said, "A start-up changes a person in the same way a war does."

Sure, war can change a person in ways that a start-up never will -- if a soldier loses a limb for example. But do you really, honestly think that andrew was trying to imply that start-up founders might lose limbs? Or do you think he could have been just speaking to the point that the constant stress and frequent highs and lows of running a business can have a powerful effect on someone's personality?

There have been a lot of threads recently on how to improve HN. Here's a good one: let's try reading other people's comments as charitably as possible, and respond to that, instead of imagining a point that they weren't making and then arguing with that.

[jebblue]

>> You're not replying to what he said, you're replying to what you think he said.

He said "blood". I think you are not understanding the unfounded discourse of the comparison.

[thaumaturgy]

Look, if you really want to debate this, I could try to defend what he said, but I will have to assume you actually believe that andrew -- a fellow intelligent human being -- was trying to put business owners on an equal footing with soldiers in war. I think that would say more about you than it would about him, and I don't want to think that you're that dumb. I'd prefer to believe that you're much smarter than that, that you recognize how pointless such an argument would be because there's no way that a reasonable person would really believe that business owners are just like soldiers at war.

Or, we can leave my comment to stand by itself as a simple plea for more civility.

So which would you prefer? That we leave this alone and make HN a slightly better place by assuming a charitable reading of what a fellow person wrote, or that we get into a stupid argument that makes us both look increasingly foolish until pg has to step in to admonish us to knock it off?