Are you implying the same people that are pessimistic about the internet are also AI hypers or tech entrepreneurs? Because HN isn't monolithic, it's entirely possible -- in fact, likely -- that these are two distinct sets of people who both read HN. I know I'm pessimistic about much of what the hype people like.
Edit: or if you meant the grandparent claims not to be a doomer but is pessimistic about something, I don't see the contradiction. It's more like "I don't generally like sweet things, but this cake is nice". Where's the contradiction?
"In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases."
"In eight of the ten global regions shown in Figure 2.2 (covering roughly 90% of the world’s population), those in the youngest age group have higher life evaluations now than in 2006–2010, either in absolute terms or relative to those over 25. Youth wellbeing has only fallen in the NANZ countries [United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand] and Western Europe, both absolutely and relative to adults. [Emphasis added]"
I think your comment is dismissive of valid criticism. Sorry, but I'm not convinced by the line of (blanket) argument who goes "the old always complain about the young". It fails to engage with the actual details of the criticism.
Even worse: the comment was obviously referencing TFA, which your dismissive retort failed to address, falling back to the cliche of "every generation complains about the new and thinks old stuff was better".
It's a thought-terminating cliche that fails to add anything to the discussion. At least you could have made it a top-level comment about TFA, so it wouldn't read as (empty) criticism of the comment you were replying to.
