Obviously there is very little rational analysis or response on HN to this article or the issues it covers. It's obvious from the wording of the replies of those who are more sympathetic and those who are less sympathetic to those mentioned in the article. Look at the wording:

"poor choices...empathy...choices have consequences...we make mistakes...morality of altruism", "The country I grew up in....Jobs are the result of innovation and entrepreneurship", "morally competent", "how much of your income would YOU like to give to the heroes"

Not much rational analysis. Just a sermon, or morality tale, or an abbreviated Ayn Rand screed against altruism, which might as well be a religious sermon.

Poverty is an essential cornerstone of the current economic system.

There have been many economic systems over the millenia - hunter-gather societies, then slave societies, then feudal societies, then capitalist societies. From the philosopher Hegel to Francis Fukuyama we've had intellectuals say our current economic system is the last one. From the 19th century on, some have said other economic systems might become predominant in the future, particularly socialist ones.

Capitalism is the only economic system where poverty is necessary. When a company's revenues exceeds its capital expenses, the money has only two places to go - profit or wages. If there was full employment, strong unions, no laws banning secondary strikes like Taft-Hartley etc., workers would get more and more in wages until profits disappeared. When companies have the lever to send workers into poverty, they become happy "just to have a job". This allows for companies to make workers work longer hours for less money, or to put in a more strenuous effort during the time worked.

Everything can be discussed rationaly, but when discussing how poverty exists in capitalism in a manner it did not in feudalism, or prior economic systems (or possible future ones), words like "morality" are brought out. People can rationally discuss VCs and valuations and options. But rationality has to go out the window when discussing how poverty exists in the current economic system, we have to get a sermon, rational discussions of the topic are not allowed.

Also a look at history is not allowed. That our economic system is just one in a chain of systems, and that "socialism" is still a bugaboo of the people moving the levers of our economic system is a sign of this. Capitalism is new historically as a dominating system, and has very shaky elements, so you want to make people forget that...in Europe countries are still under feudal trappings. That in the the 1930s, the capitalist west had its factories lying dormant while the USSR couldn't build factories fast enough. And so forth. You want to forget that the property in the US was stolen from Indians, or even the property in Poland or Ireland stole from the Polish and Irish. You want to forget Africans were dragged to the US in chains and set to work in stolen Indian property. That even the property accumulated from the profit made off these people after is similary ill-gained. And that this all happened historically recent, relatively. History has to be forgotten to, even fairly recent history. It's a topic which can't bare rational analysis or a look at recent history. Some type of moral sermon is all that's called for. Not just the "heartless conservatives" but the "bleeding-heart liberals". Mawkish calls for the poor to be fed for moral reasons is just as silly as moralistic claims that the poor are lazy.