Nothing about the comment gave the impression that the author isn't familiar with those concepts.

> Haha, you literally just came upon

This breaks the HN guidelines in two ways. First, it's uncivil. Second, it falls far short of this:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

Could you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when commenting here? It does take an effort, but it's an effort everyone needs to make if we're to succeed in having a bit higher quality here than internet median.

> This breaks the HN guidelines in two ways. First, it's uncivil.

Did you read my other responses because I 100% agree with him. I was just laughing because he made a textbook economic argument but didn't actually mention economics.

> "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

What? I am 100% in agreement with OP. What argument do you think I am making?

Possibly I misunderstood you, in which case I'm sorry. We often have to guess at what people meant in their comments. On the other hand, we're no different from other readers in that respect, so if I guessed wrong, almost certainly others did too.

This post is condescending without any real substance. "Read some economic books" is not meaningful in the context of one particular government safety net.

Apparently my comment is being misinterpreted since I completely agree with his points because they are well agreed upon concepts in economic textbooks. I was laughing about it because he made no mention whatsoever of economics despite his argument being so economically rational so I suggested reading up on economics as it seemed like a subject he was unaware of but one that he would love.

Believe it or not, I didn't just "come upon" this realization and I've taken multiple econ classes (though I'd like to take more). Also, our unemployment benefits are a pretty sorry excuse for a social safety net, which is why I wasn't specifically talking about them here.

> Also, our unemployment benefits are a pretty sorry excuse for a social safety net, which is why I wasn't specifically talking about them here.

What and how much of a safety net do we need considering the opportunity cost of supporting said safety net?

Sorry, you didn't mention economics at all but all of your points are discussed thoroughly and pretty well agreed upon in economic textbooks so I assumed you weren't aware (since if you were, I thought you would have sourced them).

In general, conversations are more interesting and edifying when they consist of more than someone just saying "my reaction on this topic is what economics textbooks say" :)

That part was 100% me suggesting you read up on economics as it seemed like a subject you were unaware of but one that you would totally love since it completely matched your logic.

My main point was bringing up unemployment benefits.