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They didn't actually compare it with eugenics though, they compared the nature of the discourse around eugenics to discourse around minimum wage with the penultimate point of explaining a mix of why/how they distrust economists, specifically economists, to handle discussions about ethics. They weren't making a direct comparison between the topics themselves and yet most of the replies are reacting as if they had, illustrating why these sorts of talks with laymen are bad ideas.

It is though. Most economists will advocate a mix of minimum wage and EITC (Earned income tax credit). Few will say that minimum wage by itself is a good thing and those that do will typically qualify it by saying that it's a good thing if you're only concerned with optimizing particular metrics, the persuit of which will likely have unintended consequences if chased with tunnel vision.

This line of online questioning is the lazy dismissal of the 21st century. This comment has a positive score and even a child that agrees with it and yet it's akin to asking any theorist "do you have sources for that?" in response to them saying something wildly uncontroversial within their domain. It adds nothing to the discussion and only shows that the respondent is so wildly out of touch with the relevant mainstream that they're not worth answering because the challenge is going to be one of persuading them rather than informing them.

Minimum wage is a widely studied issue with well documented pros and cons. It's weaknesses, when addressed in isolation, are so well understood that most discussion at a high level on the topic is not whether it has pros/cons but what instruments it should be combined with to mitigate its cons (the mainstream answer is usually tax breaks of various kinds, often targeting the employee and not the employer.)

Would you ask a Gender Studies professor to defend the assertion that the feminine gender construct is typically defined by its submissive traits or would you ask how these observations are used to make observations and proposals about the real world?

Would you ask a mathematician their sources when they begin to explain linear algebra or would you ask questions that help to understand their perspective on the matter?

Hacker News supposedly has a rule against shallow comments and yet for some reason knee jerk requests for sources with no additional substance to drive the dialogue forward are considered 'reasonable'.