"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I do agree that I see that comment a lot on here. However that seems to be a pretty uncharitable reading of the parent comment, as it seems they were more expressing surprise that burning the explosive is a legitimate means of defusing a bomb.

There’s nothing wrong with pointing out that a standard technique for disarming a bomb seems counterintuitive to a layperson. That’s the sort of observation that fuels curiosity and interesting discussion. I don’t think the OP was suggesting that it was the wrong technique.

I think it was self-aware a joke referencing that very thing...