Comment by itafroma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by itafroma | Hacker News Reader

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It's somewhat apt that a snarky, non-factual comment attacking the author like this has risen to the top once again.

> One of the annoying parts of this article was that the author dismissed the comment as "non-factual" without providing any evidence or explanation.

He didn't dismiss the comment as non-factual without providing any evidence or explanation. If read carefully, he:

* stated the other commenters called it out as non-factual (it appears at least one commenter did do that[1])

* claimed half of the dispute could be attributed to not reading the post carefully

* provided an example of where the top comment was mistaken or misread (commenter focused on Bangkok when the original story explicitly stated Bangkok was a bad place to live)

* offered up an example of a comment that he believed to be factual (the second-to-the-top one[1])

> Apparently whenever someone writes something that the author disagrees with, it is automatically categorized as snark.

No, it isn't. But this sentence here—where an author's attentions are sarcastically and baselessly mischaracterized off of a misreading (or lack of reading?) of his or her post would definitely qualify as snark.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541956

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540371

The original comment wasn't attacking the author, it was simply stating that while many people seemed excited at the prospect of flying off to Thailand (one person even emailed the author after booking tickets) that they should slow down and consider the expenses and lifestyle changes involved. His response was clearly intended to be humorous, but that doesn't mean that it was intended to reflect negatively on the author. His experience was that Thailand was an expensive place to live, I don't understand how you interpret that as an attack against the author. Like other people have mentioned, Thailand is a rather large place.

>He didn't merely dismiss the comment.

In his article, he only mentioned that he and many others felt that the comment was inaccurate. That doesn't constitute evidence or explanation. If you are stating something as a position in an article, it makes sense to present at least a modicum of support for that position within the article itself. Sure, you can cite sources, but in this case, his citation amounts to "some other people said that the statement I'm about to make is correct."

It didn't "simply state", it used snark to do so. The tone was awful and it wasn't necessary.

If it was simply stated, then it could have read something like this:

"Thailand has a number of issues, of which cost of loving is the main problem. Etc."

I agree that it wasn't written in a formal, etiquette-laden tone, but I didn't find it to be malicious or insulting. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

We can certainly agree to disagree. But as has been pointed out, the following wasn't really necessary:

> Before your pop your Macbook Air in a backpack, read my points.

> Yes, you can live in a concrete block with plastic furniture and eat noodles on the street every day.

> Once you're sick of your local noodle vendor you'll find food prices quite high as well.

> If you can stomach the local swill (think Budweiser without the quality control) knock yourself out.

> When you're sick of taking taxis and the BTS/MRT, have fun buying a car at 50% - 300% above US prices.

> If you really want to fake it here it means constantly traveling in and out of the country.

> To not do it properly means breaking the law in a country where you most likely don't speak the language. Have fun with that.

> If it's not someone you've known for a decade then, well, good luck with that.

I think it's worthwhile quoting the HN guidelines, because they are simple to follow and increase the quality if discussions here:

Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." [1]

1. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

His experience was not that Thailand is an expensive place to live, his experience was that Bangkok _can_ be an expensive place to live

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