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by dang
4335 days ago
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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. |
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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.)