Comment by claudenm

Thanks for this reply.

I think the part that tells the real story here that I forgot to add in that wall of text most won't read is that each of those links came up in the first 5 results for the simple searches I ran on DDG.

If any effort had been expended at all in attempting to understand whether anything in musk's post was accurate then they would easily have been able to find several high quality breakdowns from non-partisan sites.

Instead they made a choice to echo something, incorrectly too, that they thought they read somewhere. Didn't even provide a link.

I think if HN was to modify any rules that would improve the quality of discussions on contentious subjects that frequently devolve into unproductive political arguments then the posting rule could be changed to require posting of links to arguments that you are trying to make so that everyone can see the supporting data behind your beliefs and judge for themselves whether they should change their own beliefs or poke fun at the poster for believing nonsense.

Back when reddit was still a one-pager they tried to maintain a standard of backing up claims with data to support the claims. Over the years it has devolved into the site we have today where most posters do as this guy did and post simple one line replies to everything.

It's a hit and run way of trying to bring someone around to your way of thinking without giving them a reason to do so.