I wrote a long post refuting your points, but ended up erasing it because I don't think you can reach sociopaths. Let's just leave it as sometimes shit happens to people in life, and folks with money and financial resources have a much easier time of it. Also, you're an asshole.
A lot of what was said was right. Don't buy expensive, name brand cereal...it doesn't matter if you're Bill Gates or Tiny Tim, spending more than you have to on food is just stupid. Now, Bill Gates can afford to be stupid. He can float around on a boat that is made for 200 people, he can drive around in a race car, he can fly around in an airplane made for the same 200 people, and he can spend far, far more than he should be on food.
Don't keep people who would steal from you as friends, spend time reading books instead of watching TV.
1) the subject is politics. People have such strong feelings about it that HN policies about downvoting and name calling aren't followed as usual.
Compare to discussions about, say, web design issues, programming languages or copyright law. While articles on these topics tend to lead to heated debates, most people still follow the policies.
2) the majority of HN readers have liberal-leaning beliefs, and being judgemental about certain topics is frowned upon.
2) the majority of HN readers have liberal-leaning beliefs
Really?
What I tend to see around here is that people are liberal socially (homophobia, anti-drug sentiment, religious fundamentalism and bigotry seem to be mostly absent here), but rather conservative economically - most people are very free-market, in favor of lower taxes, and believe that almost all government meddling is bad. Classic libertarian stuff.
And they're doubly conservative when we get to personal finance, which is especially surprising to me - based on the investment advice most people around these parts give (which tends to be vastly more conservative than even the stuffiest investment adviser would suggest), you'd think this was a community of 75 year codgers, not risk-seeking young'ns shooting the moon with their crazy business schemes.
Maybe this is just a nit, but calling someone a sociopath isn't necessarily calling them 'not a true human being,' so I wouldn't put words into his/her mouth. Saying, "You can't argue with a sociopath," could simply mean: "Any argument that I could pose, couldn't be rightly understood by the other party, so I would be wasting my time."
