most of the interactions you get are people trying to prove you wrong
this is great when it's with evidence, but half the time instead they accuse you of lying, argue from their own authority, or insult you
the options for including equations, data tables, and diagrams are very limited, and these are important when what you're thinking about is objectively falsifiable propositions
the options for structuring your writing into sections with titles with a table of contents, so readers can navigate an argument that takes more than two minutes to read, are similarly weak
nobody reads what you write after a week, and it's hard for you to even find it yourself
worst of all, if you discover that you were wrong two weeks or more after your initial comment, there's no way to append a correction
posting here makes my life worse
Once I started doing this I found HN comments would grow off HN. Now there are a few subjects where I can just point people at a link the next time a subject comes up. And the link has often grown out of repeated iterations of debate on HN and elsewhere.
It doesn't bother me that people forget HN comments. I don't forget them, and that seems the important thing.
You _are_ right that one needs to keep HN at arms length. Over the years I try not to engage in repeated back and forth. I'm not writing primarily for whoever I'm arguing with. I'm writing for the silent readers.
i did edit some hn comments into dercuano, derctuo, and dernocua
which comments of mine here do you think would be worth saving
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33641298#33644090
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33679360#33684545
But I think there are others. Your view of your own darlings will be different from others. It might be worth downloading the archive in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33389843, just because it's recent and so going to be up to date.
> Start a blog!
Posting to HN counts as writing, too.