One man's 'intellectually lazy' is another man's 'educated guess'. Or as this community loves to say about others, "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

There are plenty of people online playing devil's advocate because one day they too could be rich and they don't want the harsh yoke of government regulation holding them back.

On HN, part of the audience is in closer proximity to that kind of wealth, and their arguments in favour of that status quo reflect this.