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Comment by hanginghyena | Hacker News Reader

The real irony here is a rant against commercialism that is published on a page with no less than 11 display ads and a "related content" unit....

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>There is absolutely no altruism in Apple’s free kids programming classes. They are a sales engagement.

That's about as ranty as it gets but that's probably what he means.

When does concisely articulating an obvious conclusion become a rant? What makes it a rant? Is it the fact that you disagree? Or the fact that he uses the word "absolutely" ?

From the information available to me, it appears to me that there is absolutely no altruism in Apple's programming classes.

I didn't actually state it was a rant, only that the quoted statement was about as close to a rant as I could find. Personally I didn't find it to be a rant either.

Oh, I apologize. When you said "That's about as X as it gets" I thought you were using the common US idiom conveying an extreme degree of X. (I usually make this mistake in the opposite direction, misunderstanding an idiom by taking it literally, rather than mistaking literal writing for an idiom)

I'm curious how you unpacked this post and came to the conclusion it was a treatise on anti-commercialism?

Yes, I don't see this as a "rant against commercialism" at all. There are some very specific criticisms being made about one company's approach. The author seems to think non-profits do one particular task better than for profits, but that's not criticism against "commercialism" as a whole.

Further, its clear that this is a carefully considered position being presented in this blog. Why would anyone call such "a rant"?

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