it's considered bad form to discuss votes. the link itself would have been enough

Agreed. I wish that HN would force people to write a comment explaining why they are downvoting.

Alas, that would generate more petty bickering about downvotes. Heaps more.

I didn't downvote, but "peace in our time" isn't the same as "let's buy a few years and then get some Nazis". It's also extreme Monday morning quarterbacking.

And it's plausible that anything short of Churchillian intransigence would have lost that war. Even a "smarter" craftiness could have failed.

Thought experiment - if you're Chamberlain, and want to postpone the war with Germany for a few more years while you build an army - what exactly do you say in a speech? "We're currently too weak to fight, but we'll get there" is not the sort of thing that I would expect to result in postponing war.