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Comment by mcguire | Hacker News Reader

Interesting.

Seligman investigated learned helplessness by torturing dogs, and was then surprised to learn that someone else investigated torture by learned helplessness.

Psychologists aren't very bright, are they?

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This comment breaks the HN guidelines in a somewhat interesting way. Your second paragraph is edgy and glib, but still borderline ok—it's possible to see a substantive point there (one that I'm sure has crossed many minds when reading about this topic), even though you expressed it more rhetorically than thoughtfully. On the other hand, your third paragraph clearly crosses the line and points nowhere good. Please don't post like that here.

The third paragraph might have been intended to be humorous rather than hateful.

My third paragraph was intended as a rather tongue in cheek way of pointing out that a major point of the article, as expressed by the second paragraph, was incredibly disingenuous. It is as if one were to ask why the scientists of the Manhattan Project didn't consider that their work would leave humanity under threat for decades, if not forever; they did consider that, they simply decided the advantages were worth the consequences.

I'm not sure how you get "glib" out of the second paragraph; it seems to me to be a fair summation of the original experiment coupled with a summary of the post 9/11 use of the results as described in the article.

Anyway, thank you for your consideration, and I will try to adhere to your wishes.

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