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Comment by voodooranger | Hacker News Reader

if everything is a debacle then nothing is a debacle. what word are journalists going to use when there’s an actual debacle?

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This one is certainly a debacle. Uber was the 1 unicorn left. There is no other darling startup that's gonna be scratching $100b anytime soon. This IPO failure ended the crazy run of cash since the '08 crisis.

It was also a debacle because anyone who is not an idiot sees that Uber is doomed. You think their little GPS app is actually an advantage with respect to self driving? There is no barrier for entry, none. They are as likely to lose as they are to win, if full automation is actually a viable technology in the next 10 years (it isn't).

I thought "unicorn" referred to anything >$1 billion. Slack IPO is rumored to come soon, their last valuation was >$7 billion.

I have heard that but it is my opinion that companies valued >= $1B are becoming a dime a dozen. I work at one climbing that ladder and we could be displaced in 6 months by a better implementation.

In IPO terms, and given the huge amounts of money and valuations involved -- not to mention all the VCs nervously watching and wondering whether they'll get to pass their own cash-burning investments off to public investors -- this is unquestionably a debacle.

>if everything is a debacle then nothing is a debacle.

Most things appear to be in a bit of a debacle right now. Also, to my understanding of debacles, if everything is in a debacle, then everything is still in a debacle, as a debacle is more of a state than a relative term.

>what word are journalists going to use when there’s an actual debacle?

fiasco.

Based on past events, likely some pun or other spin on the word "recession" or "apocalypse". I've begun to think that if the media doesn't try to make up a new word or otherwise get you to laugh, it's not yet that big of a story.

Is there an objective sliding scale that journalists can refer to to avoid making this heinous error? Maybe one that goes like this:

- gaffe

- snafu

- debacle

- fiasco

- ?

clusterfuck

debacle-gate

Way OT, but that's one of my pet peeves: stop sticking "-gate" on the end of every scandal. Watergate was called "Watergate" because that's the name of the office complex that was broken into. Sticking "-gate" on the end of unrelated words very literally, and perhaps also because it's become such a tired cliche, makes you sound less credible and intelligent.

I’m not OP, but I’d still argue that was meant as a joke. OP was riffing on the media’s sudden overuse of debacle.

Now there’s your comment. You missed the point and chose to tell OP they seem less credible and intelligent? That’s not very kind and frankly, people remember kindness far longer than pithiness.

> You missed the point and chose to tell OP they seem less credible and intelligent?

Yes, it was a joke, and I think you missed the point. I was agreeing with the poster I responded to, not insulting them.

> Sticking "-gate" on the end of unrelated words very literally, and perhaps also because it's become such a tired cliche, makes you sound less credible and intelligent.

If that’s the case, this sentence is very poorly written.

Eh. There’s no such thing as “chocohol” or “workohol” but you know what chocaholic and workaholic mean.

Top 10 debacles of 2019.

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