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It's not that people disagree entirely, it's just your tone.

I hacked in SoCal for a few years, and I can't remember seeing any of the "getting stuff done" attitude during my time there.

My comment is very tribalist in nature( e.g. my region is superior to your region ), and I fully expected the downvotes.

Regardless, it does reflect much of what I see in the insular SF startup culture, even if it's based entirely on my anecdotal evidence.

If you knew you were phrasing it unproductively (if the way you phrase it causes a valid point to get downvoted, that's unproductive), why not change the phrasing? E.g. "That mentality may be trendy these days, but I've found that the open office space approach can make it hard to find time to really focus and get things done."

Still gets your point across, but presents it in a less antagonistic way, leading to productive discussion rather than downvotes.

Shock value. Anger causes people to think.

1) Hacker News is not about getting people to think through shock value. And I think a lot of us would leave if it were.

2) Anger about grave moral atrocities causes people to think. Anger about someone antagonistically phrasing a denouncement of their working style causes people to write you off as a troll and move on with their lives.

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