I didn't demand that. This is about comment/thread quality. There are certain kinds of post that reliably lead to much lower-quality discussion, and those are the kinds we ask people to refrain from; generic ideological tangents (and generic tangents in general) are a case of this.
I don't think the article is flamebait. In fact it plainly isn't, because people have been having interesting conversation and reactions to it. It's possible to disagree, even strongly disagree, without getting sucked into generic tangents or flamewars. (I know you know this.)
TFA is a shallow, fact-free, ideological rant based on the premise that "If you want to change the world to a better place, the best way to do it is a for-profit because for-profits have to take feedback from reality." The author is at best uncritically free-market favourable, if not considerably more so, based on this and other writings.
User poetically, in the best pg sense, critiqued the core of the argument:
Truly refuting something requires one to refute its central point, or at least one of them. And that means one has to commit explicitly to what the central point is. So a truly effective refutation would look like:
The author's main point seems to be x. As he says: <quotation>
poetically is practicing pg's highest form of disagreement precisely to specification and form. The post was flagged (groups never admit failure, after all), and you as moderator stepped in and admonished them. You're wrong, dang.
The refutation reads as a "generic ideological tangent" strictly because the article is a generic ideological tangent. The refutation is absolutely on point. The gericism and ideology are in the source, and must be pointed out as such to be an effective refutation.
If a submission cannot be properly refuted without descending into "generic ideological tangent" then the fault lies with the submission.
At the very least, restore poetically's comment and withdraw your admonition.
