Hacker News Reader

Comment by sureglymop | Hacker News Reader

What difference does it make here?

It undermines their credibility when they can't get a simple fact correct. If an article led with "the earth is flat", it may not relate to the article but it nevertheless makes me less likely to believe the rest.

Okay, that makes sense. But I mean semantically speaking if it was the second richest or even the tenth richest person, doesn't really matter. The question is whether the SEC can go up against an insanely rich entity. I get it though, the title was click bait.

1) It's not incorrect just because there may be other ways of calculating wealth. 2) It doesn't matter if he's actually 1st, 3rd, or 10th in terms of wealth. Him being literally the richest is not a necessary assumption or premise of the rest of the article.

"Can the SEC stand up to this random rich person" doesn't quite have the same punch as the current title. It's a hook to get you to read it, which is apparently something they do. This is a practice you should not reward with attention, in much the same way as you should not give a lot of attention to pets doing bad things.

a) The point is, it's not a "random rich person", and we all know it's not. He's not some random guy with 200m net worth. He one of the richest and most powerful tech entrepreneurs in the world. Like among the top 5 in that category.

b) The rest of us can accept the incentive structure that induces publications to write clickbaity titles like adults, rolling our eyes, and seeing judging the article on its merits. The publications aren't going to miss your attention anyways.

They would change who the "richest" people are?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com