That's a perfectly apt description of someone who desires the death of others, especially the death (by extension) of their own parents and grandparents in the name of some vague notion of "progress." And many of these same people then laud a vaccine that will increase the life expectancy and reduce the suffering of millions of people, oblivious to the contradiction.
>In a way, this is a freeloader problem. The richness of the community here comes from people interacting and relating with each other over time. On HN people are welcome to do that anonymously (pseudonymously, for those who speak pedantic), but still need some identity for others to relate to. If you don't contribute that, you're freeloading in the sense that you're benefiting from what other people are giving, without giving anything comparable of yourself.
Dang, as far as I'm concerned, I'm the one who's contributed and asked for nothing in return. I never asked for points (karma), or the ability to censor (flag) others' posts I dislike, or the ability to de-emphasize those posts (downvote). Meanwhile, I routinely see "uberusers" here get leeway, not just from you, but from the flag- and downvote-happy users, that anonymous users like me do not get.
I've used throwaway accounts here for a decade, since I post infrequently and don't care about karma, and it's never been a problem. Further, my comment wasn't flamebait (or anything otherwise objectionable) and shouldn't have been flagged.
While I have you, dang: the flagging on this site is out of control. Why do you allow users to so easily hide from others comments they dislike? The downvoting, I don't care about. But flagging should be reserved for things like spam, racial slurs, and other stuff that obviously doesn't need to be seen.
It's interesting how everyone in this thread (rightly) views this as a promising development, yet whenever articles are posted discussing longevity research, you see ghastly comments like this:
People will eventually die with or without aging. Consider accidents, suicides, homicides, or other non-age related illnesses.
Do you think humanity needs billions of people to eventually develop Alzheimer's or other terminal late-life dementias?