"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
Here is a choice selection:
"Do the earnest always win? Not always. It probably doesn't matter much in politics, or in crime, or in certain types of business that are similar to crime, like gambling, personal injury law, patent trolling, and so on. Nor does it matter in academic fields at the more bogus end of the spectrum. And though I don't know enough to say for sure, it may not matter in some kinds of humor: it may be possible to be completely cynical and still be very funny."
There's very little to be charitable about when reading that. It shows a profound lack of consideration for the fields and topics PG is dismissing out of hand, to the point where one seriously wonders whether he's actually given any more thought to it than whatever reaction from his own youth he's channeling in the moment.
Then there are the unsupported assertions that litter these essays, and they're all more or less alike in character: "Nerds in high school become Kings in adulthood". It's actually not only trite, but overbroad. In some ways it's true, but in many others it's not, but PG tends to generalize the former in his essays.
It's easy to insist on being charitable, but it's a bit harder when there's just so little to work with.
Btw, pg has been talking about earnestness for years—same with the topics of his other recent essays—and he has always written in this style. I don't think he's changed a bit. People have always gotten pissed off by them too. If there's a difference in public perception now it's a combination of his social status having changed [1] and the online climate having gotten steadily more acidic.
So no plausible charitable interpretation this time? A little bit hypocritical dont you think? I think you are confusing your role of moderator with one of mindless cheerleader. But who knows? Maybe that's part of the job so no judgment there.
I've posted so many moderation comments over the years that I'm comfortable saying "regardless of who the target is". If anyone bothered to look through that backlog (not that anyone would or should), they'd find me responding that way across a pretty full spectrum of positions and views [1], depending on whoever or whatever the commenter breaking the guidelines was going after. I don't see why threads about pg essays should be excluded from bog-standard moderation.
(It's true that I've also been posting some of my personal views in this thread and the last pg essay thread, but those are different from moderation replies. You can tell them apart by whether or not they say "please" and link to the HN guidelines.)
Btw also, please don't copy/paste comments, as you did here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400058. It strictly lowers signal/noise ratio.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...