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Comment by harryh | Hacker News Reader

The author of this essay is a college undergraduate[1]. He has never had a real job. He has never raised children. He has never really been responsible for anything. He's never been tired (no, staying up all night to finish a school assignment doesn't count).

His opinion on how adults spend their time is meaningless. Flagged.

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/leopold-aschenbrenner/

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Whoa, please don't post personal attacks to HN. That's not cool at all, and adding a link to an outside personal profile is crossing a line.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

>His opinion on how adults spend their time is meaningless. Flagged.

I'm sorry, but in my humble opinion, just because you don't agree with the content of a linked post, it doesn't mean it's not worth of a constructive discussion here on HN and should be flagged. This is ad hominem.

Well, I'm an adult who's had those experiences you mention, and my experience has led me to similar conclusions to those of the author. I don't think it's fair to discount what he's saying by referencing his identity rather than the content of his ideas.

I find it quite unfortunate that an ad hominem attack has removed this post from public discussion (due to the flagging). I thought HN was above such things!

It is not an ad-hominem, ad-hominem is a personal attack on your character, ignoring the argument. All of those things the parent posted are accurately used to discredit your argument.

Saying "you have bad hair therefore your argument is bad" is ad-hominem.

Saying "This person has never worked a 9-6 office job while supporting 2 kids, a stay-at-home-partner and a mortgage; therefore they are unqualified to make such statements on how adults should spend their time" is a completely legitimate argument to make, it is not a personal attack.

It is only a fair response if you think having a 9-6 office job while supporting two kids necessitates, as a matter of course, an over-reliance on Netflix. (It does not.)

You are making sweeping generalizations in your article, and are trying to say "this is what everyone should do". Your article was flagged (by multiple people including myself) because it's massively, incredibly pretentious; not because one commenter is making ad hominems.

>You are making sweeping generalizations in your article, and are trying to say "this is what everyone should do". Your article was flagged (by multiple people including myself) because it's massively, incredibly pretentious; not because one commenter is making ad hominems.

Imho, I don't think flagging should be used as a tool for silencing content that you disagree with.

There's a lot of articles on HN I disagree with, I'm not flagging them. I flagged this one because it's especially trash, and cannot lead to useful discussion. The comments were immediately heated, too.

I guess it's uncomfortable to accept that all choices you make DO have some sort of opportunity cost, and I guess I am not too surprised by the backlash against this 'college kid' on this thread. But I think the point he makes is worth raising and reflecting on (and maybe if you focus on temperance and not abstinence, it's a little easier to consider).

I think one could complain that the author doesn't credit some of the positives/educational or artistic value in video media (then again, netflix's 'hit engineering' is not necessarily optimizing for those if they don't increase addictive engagement) and that maybe he should consider reading and reflecting on things like Bertrand Russell's essay, [In Praise of Idleness](https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/)

But anyhow, after you finish the Mandalorian, reflect on how much you liked it maybe, and then reflect on what it cost you. If you aren't working on a cure for cancer or something, maybe it was in budget, but asking the question either way seems like a good practice to consider adopting

I'm willing to bet that an undergraduate can study adults more than I can. I am after all tired and busy, so my self-reflection is limited to oppining on HN.

In terms of intellectual maturity, undergraduates are no different from older adults, and the outside perspective can be valuable.

Some have the experience of undergrad as one of whimsical lack of responsibility (myself included), but there are many students out there juggling classwork, jobs, families, etc. It can also be very stressful in the moment, whereas hindsight paints a rosier picture (myself included).

I'm 31 now with two small children and a wife. College still stands as the most stressed out period of my life. I got shingles in the final months leading up to my graduation.

Downvoted your comment because I disagree with you and apparently that's how you think this works.

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