alt Hacker NewsRon Maimon uses an argument that relies purely on symmetry, which circumvents the standard explanations, including many in this thread. In some sense, this is the simplified version of Noether's theorem (as far as I understand it).
As an aside, I believe Ron Maimon's account was suspended after he challenged the character of someone who was soliciting votes for a moderator position. Ron Maimon's stance was that if someone was running for an elected position, discussing their character was valid. The SO site had/has a strict challenge-the-question-not-the-person policy, which the moderators used to ban him permanently.
At the time, I remember seeing some posts by Ron talking about how the SO sites were corrupted by their policies and that it was a matter of time before they ceased to provide value. I think this was late 2000s or early 2010s. Looking back it's hard not to feel like his stance was prescient.
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It wasn’t “prescient”, StackExchange sites have always been among the most hostile communities on the Internet.
Today they are additionally weighed down by increasingly erratic management decisions desperately trying to extract as much monetary value as possible before AI completely obsoletes SE, but the amount of aggression and hostility on the network was unbearable from the start.
I remember dozens of occasions where I looked up something on StackOverflow, intending to be in and out in 10 seconds, and ending up spending several minutes just staring in disbelief at the comments showing how people treat each other on that site.
It wasn't a permanent ban. He will be unbanned at Mar 18, 2292 at 16:28