You decide what you make public, once it's public you can't close Pandora's box again. That's just the way things are now.
So too I would perhaps also like this website to not contain my thoughts.If it takes a man to go through each of them, then fine. If it takes me going through each of them and deleting them then fine.
Not that I would, but it is in a way a matter of principle. I own all these comments. I should have the right to decide as to which site or which person can view them or otherwise. Not some complete stranger.
I would not for example see how my comment would be any different from any other article which you can not simply post in your blog as it is copyrightable. I do not either see for example how it would be different from say mentioning a great idea I told a friend I was going to implement yet goes on to implement it himself.
The boundaries are yet to be defined for certain, but I do not see how one can reason that others should be freely able to record my speech in a permanent form without making me know so.
If Hacker News in their terms and conditions stated that they owned all that I contributed and made this blatantly obvious, then fine, but otherwise, all that I have stated is mine, and within my authority alone.
Not that I care at all of any of it. I simply want my account to be deleted because I am tired of this place.
Equating a public comment on a public website to a copyrighted article by a professional writer is just naive. If you talked to a copyright lawyer in the USA I'm almost 100% sure that your comments would not clear the bar of what can be copyrighted. Even if it could there are many countries where it would not be protected by copyright and where anyone could reproduce your comments at will.