Sad to see so much anger expressed at this couple's financial success and how they decided to use that and then do what I thought was a interesting, fun, and in no way "rub in your face" or arrogant writeup about it. The author even recognized his luck with his financial situation in terms of things like the housing market in California.
I'm not sure what the angry people in this thread want. That they should have donated to charity? That they should not have shared the project? That they should have turned down raises or sold their house below value just because?
There are good arguments that the wealth distribution in our country has some serious issues but I don't think attacking this author is the right way to address that.
It's eternal September but for HN. The relatively small group of HNers that used to inhabit this place has been slowly pushed out by people who are looking for cheap dunks. It's still better than other place but your question is naive: this couple not have done anything to avoid criticism. They are the outgroup, and exist only to be attacked. There's no intellectual argument being made here, just in-group signalling.
It's time for HN to build in blocking capability. It's a small percentage of people and it's often the same people repeatedly showing up making the same points but that's enough to discourage reading and participation.
You can already filter noise out pretty easily when you begin picking up on shared mannerisms. I suggest an extension configured with a mix of keywords and regexes, blocking of very recently created accounts and ones with a high percentage of numbers in their username.
> There are good arguments that the wealth distribution in our country has some serious issues
There are good arguments that as a whole the wealth distribution in your country does not have any serious issues, but this article strongly suggests that it is not true in this particular case.
I mean the author, trying to be as transparent as possible, literally says that he can not say how much money they spent on building of this house. Generally that implies keeping your private lives private, but his article strongly suggests that is not the concern of the author. And considering that, there are only bad reasons remains on why he would want to do it.
1. Tax payment fraud.
2. Government subsidy fraud
3. Income from criminal activities
I'm not sure what the angry people in this thread want. That they should have donated to charity? That they should not have shared the project? That they should have turned down raises or sold their house below value just because?
There are good arguments that the wealth distribution in our country has some serious issues but I don't think attacking this author is the right way to address that.