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Comment by sakunthala | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, you start to think, wow, some criticism I hadn't considered before, then you see the word "VC-istan" and move on.

It doesn't bother me when people think I'm wrong or disagree, but just because I use "VC-istan" doesn't mean my ideas are wrong.

VC-istan is the perfect descriptor for that ecosystem. "VC-funded world" is too many syllables, "VC-land" sounds like a theme park, and Silicon Valley is a geographical location more than an economic sector. Nothing works as well as "VC-istan".

I meant that you're only person who uses that phrase, and it means I've read the same argument before.

No, this time he added in some vaguely homoerotic insinuations. His rant is evolving; maybe in another year or two it will reach full fledged conspiracy theory status.

Judging from these comments, it's already there.

It's clear you use the suffix '-stan' in a pejorative sense. As though simply adding a -stan is sufficient to describe the terrible, backward, self-serving state of things. It's not even comedic, as you clearly think this term is the right one. This has always bothered me as this approach is insulting given the many countries around the world who use the suffix [1]. They're conveniently far away from the US so I doubt you've ever considered this.

I'd ask you to stop using this phrase but it seems you're attached to it (for no good reason).

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan

No, -istan is not always pejorative. See, Nassim Taleb's concept of Extremistan. I've used "Nerdistan" positively.

People find "VC-istan" pejorative because they're all aware of (as you put it well) "the terrible, backward, self-serving state of things."

I've heard people read into the term, as a comment on VC-istan as somewhat like a feudal, ex-Soviet state. That works, but it wasn't what I intended. I was just using "stan", originally, to describe something in few syllables.

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