[tptacek]

I perceive this as one of a species of comments that is well-intentioned and valuable in isolation, but that when introduced to the thread has the effect of making it harder to discuss the article on its own terms.

It's easy to see the subtext of the article that indicts unrestrained economic competition. So it's hard to ding a comment for surfacing that subtext and engaging with it.

But at the same time, having been on HN for a long time, it's also easy to see how the result thread will simply litigate capitalism, and how unlikely it is that anyone will learn anything from the ensuing debate.

[dang]

I agree. Comments like this are stronger when they stay with the specific content of the article. They're weaker when treating it merely as a platform for some generic position ("obsession with the free market").

It isn't that the rhetoric is false, it's that it's impossible for it to be substantive here. Grand claims need grand substance, which there isn't room for in a mere comment post. People compensate for this with ersatz things like getting louder or angrier.

Tangents don't have to be bad. Ira Glass-style "I had an uncle who wore that kind of hat" tangents can be great. But generic tangents go somewhere uninteresting. The gravitational pull of the large, familiar topics has to be resisted because once the discussion gets stuck on one of those planets it is never getting off.

[calibraxis]

I don't care to post this, but meta begets meta...

Your (and tptacek's) meta comments seem unhelpful and clearly favor HN's status quo.

I've successfully demanded a shorter workweek from capitalist bosses, and helped coworkers fight theirs. And that comment you both meta-criticize is pretty sensible, in my view. If you're going to hack a system, it's worth getting familiar with the subversive lit.

(Though their last paragraph may indicate a lack of familiarity with that subversive lit. Because politicians will naturally fight/coopt revolutionary changes to the system they administrate. Post-capitalism is a revolutionary change, and a capitalist state would attempt to respond violently. But whatever.)

[tptacek]

The story about how you helped workers organize shorter work weeks would be interesting.

The framing of advocacy for post-capitalist society isn't, because of the nature of the site.

The only people who will pay attention to the latter conversation either (a) are doing so because they are intractably opposed to your idea and enjoy pushing back on it or (b) are already on your side.

That doesn't mean there's no group (c) of receptive, persuadable people, just that the venue you've chosen doesn't reach them effectively.

[chillingeffect]

> I've successfully demanded a shorter workweek from capitalist bosses,

Can you please explicate a bit? I have tried and failed. I tried to move to four days @ 8 hours/day from a a five days @ 8 h/d.

[TeMPOraL]

> but that when introduced to the thread has the effect of making it harder to discuss the article on its own terms

That isn't neccesarily a bad thing. I'm personally fine with a comment thread debating things unrelated to the article itself, as quite often articles aren't half as interesting and valuable as things that appear in the discussion thread.

> and how unlikely it is that anyone will learn anything from the ensuing debate

I'm not so sure. Yes, some debates are being rehashed, but I'm pretty sure that barring few HN-ers who like a particular topic and chime in every time, we see the same arguments being brought up by new people. I suspect that at each iteration some people learn what they were supposed to learn and leave the conversation.

[psychometry]

That's a fair point, but I don't think asking the question "Why don't we have a leisure society yet?" is subtextual. I think the question follows immediately from the article and my commentary follows immediately from that.