Huh, it’s almost like he has no fucking idea what he’s doing.
The illustrative Calvin and Hobbes comic at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IMeantToDoThat demonstrates the principle rather well.
Then he realized it was not in fact a good idea and backed out of it.
I think that's a more likely scenario: much like the hypothetical football fan, in a fit of zeal he said, "I could run this better!" If the goal were simply to flex his bank account, there are so many better ways he could have done that that I think we could safely assume he would have picked one of those instead. He may not be as smart as he thinks he is, but he isn't stupid.
So my point is not that he doesn't want it to succeed, it would obviously be a great personal embarrassment. It's that the risk of destroying a community of millions of people was clearly lower on his mind than the power trip of how cool it would be to own Twitter. He can afford to not care, and that's a deeply depressing situation.
HN does sometimes position itself in opposition to Reddit. Nothing wrong with Reddit, of course, just that Reddit does thing sone way and HN does things another. And snarky low-value comments are one of the things that Reddit does and HN does not.
But: because HN doesn't generally do them, you can sometimes get away with the odd one, if it's timed right. Personally, I upvoted this one.
I feel like I should hit the 10k karma point and bail out of here. I definitely do not fit here ideologically, politically and intellectually anymore.
I personally stopped using Twitter, try to limit the scope of my engagement on Reddit, and am trying to read more of what I would consider reputable sources of information instead of ‘going to the comments to get the real facts’. I’ve found using RSS and just reading articles (rather than going into the comment section to get takes) has been somewhat helpful.
Also just disconnecting every once and I while is helpful. But it kind of feels like I personally am addicted to the information…so that can be hard.
Sorry for the rant, just wanted to share what I have found somewhat helpful. Cheers
For people that are captured by this form of thinking, everything is framed in for or against terms. If something or someone can be placed, even conceptually, as against their side; they fail the purity test or make a decision that isn't strictly kosher, well then every single thing they do needs to be hyper analyzed, then framed in a dispassionate if not fully negative perspective.
Like you, I'm getting very tired of this discorse. I'm sure for people who view things this way it can be exhausting, as you constantly have to be reframing everything in ever evolving terms of political doctrine. I don't think this will last. Ordinary people are getting tired of it, and I think these puritans are starting to get real pushback in the open. A totally anecdotal opinion, but hopefully one that resonates a bit.
In anycase I think the best thing we can all do is try our best to be objective, compassionate, and nuanced when evaluating people or events. Life is complex and its elements don't fit into a binary of good and evil.