I was just about to write a comment when I noticed that this article has been flagged to death. Personally, I find this troubling. I thought this was a very good article, well within the scope of HN. I wonder how much other good stuff is being flagged to death. The haters are winning. :-(
I thought it was a really lazy article that fails miserably to sell me on the idea that I've got a better life than a billionaire in 1916, including some really stupid stuff about there not being refrigerators (only iceboxes, on no! Who cares, the staff keeps it iced-up and I never even have to think about it, in fact I may not even know which room it's in, yay wealth!) or vacuum cleaners (I'm a billionaire in 1916, I have hand-knotted wool Persian rugs that the help clean regularly, why do I care?).
George Will had a deadline and was feeling lazy so he repackaged someone else's poorly-argued blog post and sent that to his editor. The only interesting thing here is that George Will doesn't mind putting his name on something like that.
Then express that opinion in the comments. Don't flag it to death so that those who might find value in the article or the resulting discussion never get a chance see it.
BTW, that piece was written by George Will. I'm personally not a big fan, but he is a Pulitzer Prize winner. If you think that one of his articles is "of such low quality" that it deserves to be flagged you might want to consider the possibility that the problem is with your reading rather than his writing.
This piece is definitely awful and lazy. I know who he is, that's why I wrote that the most interesting thing about this was that he'd put his name on it.
It's not plagiarism, but it's also not something a moderately talented high-schooler couldn't have done. I mean he even used the same food examples, the same real-estate examples, the same travel examples, the same home appliance examples...all he did is add some BLS stats.
Comments
I was just about to write a comment when I noticed that this article has been flagged to death. Personally, I find this troubling. I thought this was a very good article, well within the scope of HN. I wonder how much other good stuff is being flagged to death. The haters are winning. :-(
I thought it was a really lazy article that fails miserably to sell me on the idea that I've got a better life than a billionaire in 1916, including some really stupid stuff about there not being refrigerators (only iceboxes, on no! Who cares, the staff keeps it iced-up and I never even have to think about it, in fact I may not even know which room it's in, yay wealth!) or vacuum cleaners (I'm a billionaire in 1916, I have hand-knotted wool Persian rugs that the help clean regularly, why do I care?).
George Will had a deadline and was feeling lazy so he repackaged someone else's poorly-argued blog post and sent that to his editor. The only interesting thing here is that George Will doesn't mind putting his name on something like that.
Then express that opinion in the comments. Don't flag it to death so that those who might find value in the article or the resulting discussion never get a chance see it.
I didn't flag it, but it's of such low quality that I'd understand why someone might.
My comment was not directed at you specifically.
BTW, that piece was written by George Will. I'm personally not a big fan, but he is a Pulitzer Prize winner. If you think that one of his articles is "of such low quality" that it deserves to be flagged you might want to consider the possibility that the problem is with your reading rather than his writing.
This piece is definitely awful and lazy. I know who he is, that's why I wrote that the most interesting thing about this was that he'd put his name on it.
Ah, sorry, I missed that bit.
So you just accused a Pulitzer Prize winner of plagiarism. Do you have any evidence for this? Where is the original that you claim he "repackaged"?
The claim wasn't that he committed plagiarism, it was that he lazily "repackaged" a blog post: http://cafehayek.com/2016/02/40405.html
It's not plagiarism, but it's also not something a moderately talented high-schooler couldn't have done. I mean he even used the same food examples, the same real-estate examples, the same travel examples, the same home appliance examples...all he did is add some BLS stats.
Fair enough. I concede the point.