You seem to be new here. Let me give you a tip: you will be hellbanned very shortly if you continue commenting on the site the way that you have been doing so far. Please read the guidelines:
You responded to my post about the law of large numbers and utility functions?
That is actually a good and appropriate observation.
Of course, some mods came along and down voted it. I doubt that they understand either the law of large number or utility functions. Of course, the law of large numbers is a crown jewel of 20th century probability theory, and utility functions are one of the better contributions of von Neumann.
For being HELL BANNED, sure, that is the shame of HN. I no longer care about HN. I've had it.
I long ago read the 'guidelines', and I've done nothing wrong. But HN is run by some arrogant, nasty people. To HELL with HN.
I responded to your post about large numbers and utility functions only because it was your most recent one. I would've sent you a private message had the site supported PM functionality or if you had some e-mail address in your profile.
The point that I am making is about your general behavior in this thread. You have broken multiple guidelines:
'Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.'
'When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."'
'Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.'
'Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.'
I was attacked strongly for no good reason. Basically this UID was ruined because I am now an enemy of the HN mods. In the future, they wouldn't let me comment in positive terms about apple pie.
The main reason for the attack was clear: I was commenting on how venture capital could do better, and that is a sensitive subject on HN. Further, the VC community is wildly arrogant and just insists on pretending to be the smartest guys in the room. So, no way do they want public comments on their work, comments that presume to tell them better ways to do their work. And, since the venture partners are rarely significantly technical, they are insecure and defensive about their qualifications and, thus, especially fear and resent a technical Ph.D. commenting on their work. Especially the VCs don't want comments that go around them to their LPs, who now are unhappy with VC returns. So, in the end the issue is VC and HN ego.
The HN mods are hot on slapping down any commenter who fails to bow deeply enough before the VCs. So, they slapped me down. In the end, that is the shame of HN and its mods and a display of their absurd ego. I did nothing wrong but defend myself.
The world is what it is. It's too bad that HN is run by some nasty people. But, so be it. Users can read this thread and draw their own conclusions, at least while my posts are still available and not yet 'hell banned'.
I've got nothing to lose here. But HN and PG have lost, and by attacking me for no good reason they deserve to lose.
0) It's very nice to see you change your position. First, "you did nothing wrong". Then, after I pointed out that you did, indeed, do something wrong, turns out you did it because "you were attacked strongly". This is a common behavior in elementary school, and not an acceptable mode of conduct in adult age, especially from a technical Ph.D.
1) There are plenty of people on HN who don't bow down before VCs. See patio11, mechanical_fish, tptacek etc. They are not voted down into oblivion, so it is likely that the reason why you are being downvoted has nothing to do with your particular opinion of VCs.
2) I looked through your comment history on the site. You tend to write long, rambling, stream-of-consciousness walls of text - this is true not just of this thread, but of many others over the last two months. Different commenters have pointed out that they do not enjoy reading your posts precisely because of that reason. Frankly, I don't either. So, I'm pretty sure that's why you were, as you say, "strongly attacked". It is perfectly acceptable to downvote comments for presentation rather than substance, and that happens on HN quite often. If you think that the substance of your comments is so important that presentation doesn't matter, you and HN are both better off if you leave.
My first comment on this thread was down voted to -4 quickly. That post did nothing seriously wrong on the HN rules. Since only a few users are able to down vote, that down voting had to be heavily or entirely from HN mods.
For more evidence, the down voting was well before any responding comments. That is chicken sh!t behavior from the mods.
So I was attacked, and not for anything I did wrong. Then I responded and defended myself and called names, and that was justified.
For your claim that later I violated the HN rules and, thus, engaged in childish behavior, here is a close analogy: It's against the law to hit someone on the street. But if you do hit someone, then they may hit you back just in self defense, and then they are not violating the law. All I did was to defend myself against a wildly unjustified attack.
It was the HN mods who misbehaved and started the fight, not me.
For my writing, it's clear enough and well organized, for a technical Ph.D. or anyone else. But most blog comments are just really short with little content. Many of my posts to HN have had some content.
And my main post here was of length comparable with the PG post I was responding to.
For making my posts shorter, responses on this thread have shown that even when I explain carefully, number points, give headings, give examples, provide summaries, etc., still many readers don't get it. In part the problem was mentioned by PG in his post -- people can willfully respond critically. Then, as PG mentioned, it can be good to have written enough to be able to point to the part of an original post they just didn't read.
In being so critical of me, you are just doing a playground thing of joining with the majority to form a gang to attack me as a group. It's mob behavior. The posts have not been at all thoughtful about what PG talked about and I responded about on evaluating projects and, instead, have just been gang hostility.
So why was I down voted? Not for length, some use of all caps, some use of sarcasm to try to raise interest and avoid being boring. No, I was down voted because I presumed to mention research to venture capital and, thus, rubbed the ego the wrong way on the VC community and, thus, also the HN mods.
If you don't want to read what I write, then don't.
But HN and I are done. HN is run by some nasty people, and I've had enough. PG has already indicated that he believes that HN has become too big to be easy to manage.
In particular, my UID is dead: The HN mods are angry with me, hostile, making me a target of gang hostility, and down voting just anything, e.g., my little line on the strong law of large numbers and utility functions you responded to.
The shame here is HN's. I'm leaving nothing of value.
But on leaving HN, sure, it's run by some nasty people. That's the shame of HN, YC, and PG.
> Since only a few users are able to down vote, that down voting had to be heavily or entirely from HN mods.
This site has been running for more than five years. Trust me, the overwhelming majority of users who can downvote aren't mods, they're not even regular participants in the conversation; they're probably mostly lurkers who submit decent articles.
Your comments are mostly flip, and provide little value. That's why they get downvoted; you're trying to be funny and by the community standards you're not.
