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Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

This story was submitted[0] four days ago, but got no traction and sank without trace. The only comment[1] was mine, and I repeat it here:

    I know this is something of an internet meme, and hence
    somewhat out-of-place here on HN, but, in short:

        This is why we can't have nice things.

    It would be really cool if we didn't need passwords.  It
    would be really cool if we could have globally editable
    documents that stored and connected all our knowledge.
    It would be really cool if we ... well, you get the idea.

    What if clever people, really clever people, stepped up
    and started to think at a level higher than the single
    point fixes and managed some sort of meta-fix.

    How clever can people be? Anyone care to speculate?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7687378

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7687637

Edited to correct tpyos.

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Well... wikipedia. The essential idea is revertability.

So, after hearing of something rotten in Minecraft Denmark, you delivered an anguished soliloquy wondering whether it's nobler to suffer these slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?

Very interesting.

This incident is also suspiciously like the plot of "The Lego Movie". Are those sneaky Danes doing some metadiegetic guerrilla marketing in advance of the DVD release?

> This story was submitted[0] four days ago, but got no traction and sank without trace.*

I'm surprised you didn't notice [0], which was posted a day before the article you mentioned.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679516

Completely independent of your post, I thought and posted the exact same thing :) see below.

Why does it matter that some specific server has been vandalized? Can't other people just spin up a different server with an earlier copy of the dataset?

Why complain about people being creative in a creative environment? Is there no place for fun?

Exactly. This complaint cuts both ways. I often expressed a very similar sentiment but in defense of the "perpetrators". Remember all that kids who get expelled/prosecuted for playing around their school/university network and pissing off their lazy/clueless sysadmin? All that science stuff you could do then but you can't do now because terrorism (or because helicopter parenting)?

Where's the place for creative pranks? Practical jokes? In today's society, exploring, poking around, doing things for laugh seems... forbidden.

So wading in to someone else's construction and destroying it counts as "fun"? Kicking over someone else's sandcastle counts as "fun"? Kicking someone else's car to put a dent in the door is "fun"? Torching someone's house is "fun"?

Slippery slope, drawing the line, yadda yadda yadda, I'm interested to see what people think is "fun" and where they would draw the line. Given that it had no protection, how does destroying it gain or prove anything?

Finding weaknesses in a system that's intended to be secure is different, destroying something simply because you can is something I genuinely don't understand. No challenge, no victory, no benefit. I someone can help me understand the mindset of the griefers I'd be grateful.

They did something, and a bunch of people noticed it. You're their victory.

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