[visakanv]

It's interesting to look at your comment, and look at the nasty comment that it provoked. This is the starting point of a cycle of nastiness.

You could've asked the person to elaborate or be specific, or even contradicted or questioned them- without saying "you lack <important skill>" and "try to <be useful> rather than <being unimportant>".

Why so mean? Was the meanness intentional, or...? Genuinely curious.

[mseebach]

There's plenty of meanness in the GP as well, it's just a lot more subtle, so it's neither fair nor accurate to pin-point that comment as the starting point of a cycle.

"[F]inance/accounting/banking" is not one coherent blob of thieves or parasites or whatever labels otherwise apparently reasonable people get away with attaching to anything in the field. Of course it's not a divinely perfect field either (not that anyone is claiming that), of course it has big and important problems. But especially if you work in or near finance, it gets really annoying just how accepted and endorsed rampant prejudice is in the rest of society.

[davidw]

> It's interesting to look at your comment, and look at the nasty comment that it provoked. This is the starting point of a cycle of nastiness.

One helpful technique is to read what you've written out loud and consider whether it's something you'd say to someone's face.

[deciplex]

Honestly, if you can't withstand a little (in this case, very mild) invective every once in a while, then you probably should avoid discussing politics on the internet - if not in real life - altogether. While I obviously don't agree with him at all, I don't think heuving's comment was inappropriate, even within the context of trying to have a rational debate. And, I would say the same of my own 'nasty' comment as well. You don't have to be courteous and dispassionate to the point of servility to talk about politics or any other topic - and in fact for many people that's quite boring anyway.

Really, grow a thicker skin.

[visakanv]

It seems to me that you think I'm offended, or upset, or concerned about "appropriateness". I don't actually care for any of that!

Here were my thoughts:

1- We could have had an interesting discussion about finance

2- instead, it went "money wonks"-> "you lack critical skills" + "standard claptrap" -> "you lack some important read-a-newspaper-in-the-last-seven-years skills".

3- Back-and-forth snide, snarky attacks are far more boring (to me) than actually discussing points of contention, different points of view, so on.

4- I definitely appreciate that you took the trouble to link to the Emergency Economic Stablization Act, but it feels to me like the conversation had already soured before that.

5- I'm writing what I'm writing not so much because of this particular instance, but because mean comments in general tend to derail otherwise interesting or could've-been-interesting threads. Which feels wasteful to me. A mean comment has a souring effect that's IMHO not worth the short-term entertainment value.

[DanBC]

Heuving's comment is clearly against HN guidelines and as such is downvoted by a few people.