Someone did something interesting to them and shared it with the world. That you feel is a waste of time does not add to the conversation and more broadly acts as a chilling effect on others who might want to share their interests.
When it comes to something like this, mom's advice is golden: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."
I'm also wonder why, but who cares, it's cool and fun. If someone wants to spend their time doing it, great. It's a lot more valuable than the time you spent writing that disparaging comment.
Tho I also disagree with you, I just want to point out the many HN guidelines[1] you are violating:
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
I don't think downvoting your comment is super useful either but there are elements of how you are interacting that are not related to your argument that you could change to be less likely to be downvoted.
Another great question, and another good opportunity to supply you with true facts and deep knowledge of reality. Here we go.
(This is turning into a real educational opportunity, unexpectedly.)
I have never--not once in my entire life--been so mistreated in person as I have been online, here or elsewhere. It simply does not happen, for some reason. At all. Ever.
This is not to say I haven't ever met any of you online abusers in real life; no, statistically speaking, I'm sure you're out there in the crowd somewhere, presumably within earshot when I speak truth. It's just that (for whatever reason) you simply never, ever think to approach me in the same manner as you do here.
(Maybe you can think of one or two good reasons why this is so. I'm sure whatever explanation you reach will be completely self-centered and self-serving, just like your other justifications and rationalizations about everything, which always reach the same conclusion: that I'm wrong, and terrible, and that you're a Good Person, and it's OK for you to just shit all over me.)
Since there is no such thing as downvotes or flags in real life--and since you don't have any actual rebuttal to offer to what I say, in 95% of cases--therefore your only choice (other than listening and, you know, learning) must be to sit quietly and fume in the corner, were you to suffer the indignity of hearing my horrible and unacceptable opinions spoken in the vicinity. So I guess that's what you do.
If you run into me in real life, feel free to speak up and make yourself known next time. Be sure to froth at the mouth as you call me a lunatic and a maniac and so on. Really, the more hatred you launch in my direction, the more success you will surely have. Everyone who hears will be thoroughly impressed at how right you are and how terrible I am.
> It simply does not happen, for some reason. At all. Ever.
Do you speak the same in-person as you do online? Most people probably could not parse any of what you posted, even with context. The most they'll pull from it is the Nazi correlations, and they probably won't extrapolate nice things from there.
I have thick skin, I dislike copyright and keep the company of all sorts of malcontents. If you lashed out against me for refusing to use your copyrighted code in real life, then yeah I would hold you very deeply in contempt. Or assume that you're an undercover agent of some sort trying to peer-pressure me into crime.
I am a descendant of the man called Sequoyah, if it's not obvious. Writing clearly and expressively is not difficult for me. I do it as easily as breathing. If you can't parse my perfectly clear and understandable language, the problem is with you and not me.
I didn't "lash out" at anyone. I simply asked why waste time on this when you can just use the original source code. It's a valid question, isn't it?
It's also a perfectly cromulent place to express my completely valid opinions about the abomination and complete waste of time and energy that is copyright law, isn't it?
So what is the actual problem here, other than your butthurt feelings, that are in fact a personal problem of your own creation and have nothing to do with me? ... Ah, it seems I answered my own question.
Again and again we come back to the root of the problem: Why are you so determined to find some kind of flaw in me and my opinions? Pull the log out of your own eye first.
Why do you hate me so much that you enjoy censoring and shutting me down at every step, preventing me from expressing my valid thoughts? Isn't that abusive behavior of the sort that one expects from a tyrant, not from a supposedly free society?
Is this the paradise you had in mind to create when you genocided my ancestors and drove the survivors from our land? Well, you did not succeed in deporting or killing me. Nor will you silence me.
If you were truly correct in your own opinions, you could easily outargue me. A look at my post history will show at least one or two examples where I admitted the other guy was right when they clearly were. I guess that's considered an amazing superpower these days, since it never, ever happens anymore. No, you'd rather fight LITERALLY TO THE DEATH in some cases rather than allow for an alternate viewpoint.
And you wonder why people all over the world say your nation is corrupt and full of arrogant criminals. Gee, I wonder how they ever came to that conclusion.
You often call yourself "polite society", but you're not really very polite, are you?
I have no defense for HN; the website is designed poorly, moderated inconsistently, and the YC-affiliated retinue is sketchier than a pencil drawing.
That being said, people who take things personally for no reason is exactly the reason the "flag" button exists. We all know that the Half Life source code is out there on the internet, most of us agree that copyright is stupid, and a good handful of us are probably deliberately violating copyright law. That isn't your excuse to deride people who make things that don't conform to your (literally illegal!) outlook on society.
This is a really cool project that is in no way invalidated by the existence of leaked source code. Your copyright tangent is a non-sequitur and deserves to be flagged.
I maintain my position that this project is a complete waste of time which exists only due to the abomination that is copyright law. (Without that reason, the author would have easily recognized this project as a waste of time, would he not?)
I continue to assert that it's OK to have such an opinion and to express it freely. I reject your incorrect, selfish, and quite frankly evil belief that I deserve to be censored. Nobody deserves to have their honest opinions be censored, ever, especially in what is allegedly a public discussion forum.
(Except maybe you--since you self-identify as a tyrant. I'm OK with you never being allowed to speak again, if you want to shut me up when I have done nothing wrong.)
There are about ten trillion important projects that need to be done in this world, many of critical, life and death importance. Reimplementing a 20-year old game (due to copyright concerns, of all reasons) is a foolish waste of time no matter how you slice it.
If the guy was collecting Pokemon cards or spent all his time watching sports, or blowing his money on hot rodding, or a thousand other foolish things, I'd post exactly the same advice: Stop wasting your time on useless activities and get serious.
Of course, such a sentiment isn't going to be popular in a forum full of so many young (or not so young) "men" and "women" who spend their entire "lives" inside video games, when they aren't doomscrolling on "their" phone. Lots of escapism and avoidance of reality going on around here. Let's just hate and attack the messenger, that's always a great move.
It's pretty sad we have to keep going back and forth about this. All you had to do is just let me express my opinion and move on. But you just couldn't do that; it was impossible. Now we have a giant "discussion" thread in which you are unsuccessfully attempting to argue with a brick wall, after your censorship attempt failed.
Remember what I said above about the GIANT WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY that copyright law creates? I wonder how many watts and calories have been burned and lost forever as a result of this thread, in addition to all that has been wasted on this reimplementation of an old game.
Here's some more life wisdom: Just because somebody says something "negative" doesn't mean they're being an asshole. It is permissable to disagree and to express that disagreement. Stop being so thin skinned, perpetually offended at every word that comes out of my mouth. You will not succeed in censoring me. Period.
