"My philosophy is that if I take care of you, you're going to take care of my business" - one of the best guys I ever worked for.

^THIS. Seriously. Go write a book with this title and make millions. Take care of the people that help you on the way, of course.

A little meta, but whatever... I am not sure the reason, but the "this" thing really annoys me. Am I the only one?

^ THIS.

Of course, it's ironic that in a single breath you complain of the "^ THIS" trope, while at the same time invoking the "DAE" trope.

DAE = Does Anybody Else. I had to look it up, too. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dae

DAE? Whoops! What is that one? My appeal to the masses? Going off topic? Talking meta?

No. It adds nothing except irritation.

My deepest apologies Zizee. I'll think a lot longer before commenting next time. I'll be sure to keep your annoyances in mind. Thanks so much for your insight.

Seriously man. "THIS" (read: your grievances) are beyond first world problems. Pick your battles. Stop making annoy-enemies for stupid reasons. Go do something productive. I thought the guy was insightful, so I said it in my own way. Go do something productive.

It's just another word for "I agree".

HN and other sites have an 'I agree' button. Should that prove insufficient for expressing your enthusiasm for someone's comment, you can always find a grammatically correct way of saying "I agree", ranging from "I cannot more emphatically state my heartfelt support for your point of view!" to "FUCK YEAH!". "This." has always just seemed like a meme for the terminally grammar deficient.

Wow. What is wrong with "you people". Hacker News has turned into a really bad episode of the Player Hater's Ball. I used the word "THIS". As much as I actually like the term, how exactly does that make one "terminally grammar deficient"? Good to know that we can forget about the middle east for a while and focus on problems with THIS. Just let it go, man.

Life will be SO much easier for you if you just let shit that really doesn't matter go.

Read it, react. If you REALLY can't control that reaction and THIS just REALLY grinds your gears... go ahead and comment. I don't want your next aneurysm on my conscience. Maybe think about controlling what annoys you a bit. They have really good articles online for this kind of stuff -- lots of people are dealing with it. You are not alone. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Technically the upvote/downvote aren't for agreeing and disagreeing, they're for curating the content to stay on-topic.

But in practice everyone uses them as agree/disagree.

Akio Morita, cofounder of Sony, said essentially this in his biography. Sony was, of course, the Apple of its time.