The problem is that the smaller, curious topics—like puffins—tend to get sucked into the nearest black hole, i.e. the nearest large generic controversy. If we allow this, then the site will consist of the same few comments about the same few topics over and over. That's bad for intellectual curiosity. It also causes the site to burst into flames—not good for curiosity either.

I called this 'dumb' above because you can reliably see such threads deteriorate as you read down and to the right.

> if dang says its off-topic and dumb, well what can I do.

One option would be to listen & learn rather than expressing incredulity, assume that dang knows what he's doing and that you're getting downvoted by others for a legitimate reason.

The topic of American consumption is fascinating and important, but this article is about Puffins in Iceland. @dang didn't say it's dumb, he said it leads to dumb. But he did say it was off-topic, because it is. Don't assume that off-topic means dumb, don't take it personally.

FWIW, I think there are relevant on-topic ways to introduce topics of overpopulation and American consumption into this thread. Those are related to both the climate change and to the tourism and Puffin hunting that is affecting the Puffin populations in Iceland.

If you had tied your comment to something the article said specifically, it would have helped. And, of course, you really could have done without the apocalyptic suggestion for a mass human extinction event.

I definitely didn't mean to pick on you personally and am sorry if I came across that way. For more explanation see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17870574.