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Comment by DenisM | Hacker News Reader

Kindly lay off sarcasm. I understand the temptation, but succumbing to it will cause HN to become a place for wenting anger. I mean just look at the thread of comments below yours. Is that what you want HN to be?

Let's make it a place for civilized discourse instead... shall we?

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Kindly lay off scolding. I understand the temptation, but succumbing to it will cause HN to become a place for silly meta discussions. I mean just look at how much longer you made this thread.

PS there was an actual point there. You can disagree if you want I guess, but meta discussions are always stupid - post the disagreement instead.

You hid your actual point in sarcasm so well, I have no idea whether your point was merely "rah rah American democracy is shit" or something more insightful.

What was it?

That we as techies have a fundamentally different view of this than legislators, and legislators typically are going to listen to whoever pays to play. Honestly listen, as in they know what they don't know and are trying to learn. But they only hear part of the story.

I don't mind the occassional visit to sarcasm and humor on HN, especially when it is relatively high-brow, poignant, and relevant.

Not that I would claim I always manage to instill poigniancy into my jibes.

Is satire, which often makes very heavy use of sarcasm, to be considered uncivilized?

In this case it just wasn't funny.

(Yes, I know, subjective, blah blah blah. I don't care.)

Unless it's exceptionally good then we're better off without it.

The problem with sarcasm is that it insulates you from having to make an argument yourself. All you have to do is mimic your opponent and make them sound ridiculous. It's almost inherently a straw man fallacy unless it is exceptionally careful.

If you can't use sarcasm you're forced to state what you believe in positive terms, which makes for much more fruitful discussion. It's like the "passive voice" of argumentation. There are some cases where you just have to, but your writing gets better if you categorically avoid it.

there is no room for satire on HN.

Hacker News is a bit like KAOS. Unless you're at the North Pole, there is no joking here.

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