> A lot of online discussion might be a lot more pleasant if people considered the perspective of themselves, or people they care about, reading their comments years in the future.
Or maybe that hasn't worked so well because it's not a sane default nor the one we operate in when we converse with others on a site like Reddit. For example, I'd like to see the argument for why my utterances on a site like Reddit need to be online forever and why I should want them to be. I can see why that's good for Reddit, but not why I should care.
HN doesn't let you delete comments. Yet nobody can even respond to my comments in the future. So it's a feature that does nothing for me no matter how great my comments might be.