[hungariantoast]

I agree with you completely. This blog post could be useful and informative, but its writing is weirdly aggressive and annoying that it becomes way harder to read rather than just roll my eyes at and move on with my life.

It's this kind of writing that is unfortunately endemic in the "internet rationalist" space, which doubly unfortunately has a lot of crossover with users on hn. Hence why you're being dogpiled by the most annoying people online.

More importantly though, writing like this is self-defeating, for the author, for wirecutter, and for everyone else who has to inflict it upon themselves just so the author can get to the point.

There are much better ways to communicate about issues, about anything, if you're actually interested in helping an organization do better ("Wirecutter, let me help you.") or even just want to inform people that wirecutter might not be the most reliable source for product recommendations.

This kind of writing though is about the same tier of bad as the loud and annoying youtube takedown videos where they put somebody "on blast". It doesn't surprise me at all that such writing is equally popular on hn. Outrage drives engagement, no matter how far up their own asses your audience is. (Example one: me and my comment).

> I am not the subject of this ridicule yet I am somehow the recipient of it.

This line though is really what I wanted to write a comment about. I love this. Some weirdos will try to twist this feeling into being "personally offended by reading" but no, your feelings are valid. This kind of writing is exhausting. It's a waste of my time. The author clearly has a point to make, and everyone would be better served if they would just make it and leave the shitflinging out. Could you imagine having to be around someone who communicated this way irl?

All that to say, thanks for sharing. I'll take my beating now.

[ink_13]

You could tell a rationalist wrote it from the title alone. No one else writes blog entries titled "Contra X".