Please note that I'm not saying HN is turning into reddit - I don't believe my score is high enough for me to be allowed to make that claim. (I do believe HN would benefit from a measure of reddit-style levity: right now it's all Serious Business, all the time.)
What I'm saying is that real constructive critical debate requires strong-willed, pedantic, even curmudgeonly debaters. The marketplace of ideas doesn't work without the push and pull of challenges, refutations and even meta-refutations ('You're asking the wrong question').
If Paul Graham wants good answers to his question, the price he has to pay is an allotment of bad answers - answers that are revealed as such on the marketplace of ideas. You can't get the good stuff without also allowing the bad stuff (and having reasonable filters to distinguish them).
P.S. Not sure why I was downvoted for my comment above.
What I'm saying is that real constructive critical debate requires strong-willed, pedantic, even curmudgeonly debaters. The marketplace of ideas doesn't work without the push and pull of challenges, refutations and even meta-refutations ('You're asking the wrong question').
If Paul Graham wants good answers to his question, the price he has to pay is an allotment of bad answers - answers that are revealed as such on the marketplace of ideas. You can't get the good stuff without also allowing the bad stuff (and having reasonable filters to distinguish them).
P.S. Not sure why I was downvoted for my comment above.