> HN is one of the few places where this feel-good nonsense actually gets rejected

Something I learned a long time ago is that it doesn't matter how well you argue a point with a nincompoop, they will simply shrug and repeat their horseradish verbatim in the next thread, hoping that next time they don't attract an audience with as much critical thinking. Unless you are willing to waste as much time as they are arguing on the internet, it's a fruitless endeavor.

It's really up to the moderators of a social space to keep bad faith nincompoops out, and Hacker News has shown themselves to be complicit and unwilling to do what is necessary to prevent its own enshittification. At this point, this place is just Reddit with a tone policing and a nuclear downvote button.

The way I think about it is that the person I'm arguing with online is not really the person I'm trying to persuade; I'm trying to persuade the rest of the people reading.

The tech community was the source of the largest threat to American science in a century. As cheesy as it sounds, I think its my duty to counter the lazy talking points that otherwise go unaddressed in these circles.

The mods here are worse than complicit. Dang in the past has allowed threats of violence while warning/deleting/banning petty name calling in the responses. It’s frankly disgusting.

Hacker News is Reddit with a tech-supremacy mindset.