Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.

Please also don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes and certainly not by getting nasty about them. Your comment was correctly downvoted because it was a major step further into flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ok, I admit the edit could have been done better. I'll stop pursuing this path :).

However, it was downvoted before the edit for expressing an unpopular, but IMHO factually justified (i.e. anti-natalist) position. I think that was a fair point to make in a discussion of paid parental leave. Again, I don't care about points. I want to hear from people who disagree with the original comment ;)

Parenting is one of the most emotional topics that exists, which means it's flammable material in internet discussions. If you lead by comparing parental leave to "hangover leave", that's already a provocation, and if you throw in more provocative words like "indulging" and "hobby", at that point you're posting flamebait. You're going to get flamewar responses, not a reasonable conversation, and that's against the site guidelines.

If you really want to have a reasonable conversation about a divisive, inflammatory topic, you need to sand off all such sharp edges. That's not a moral or ethical point, just an empirical observation about internet dynamics, which are relatively predictable.

> factually justified (i.e. anti-natalist) position... I want to hear from people who disagree with the original comment

Does your mom agree with this "factually justified" position? She might have more patience with you than you'll find among strangers on the internet.

Please don't get personal about this. It can only land as a personal attack and make things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How does one encourage introspection, without getting even the slightest bit personal?

Perhaps by talking about the introspection you yourself have done?

For the record, I only downvoted after I read the smug self-satisfied edit, and only then because discussing your fake internet points is exceedingly boring (not to mention violates the site guidelines).