Yup, I agree, be clear what the consequences are if you fuckup, allow people to fuckup if they wish.

To expand on the original reply to you - shorting companies, or engaging in almost any stock-based activity beyond “buy and hold,” typically entails much, much higher risk than just buying and selling stock. The most you can lose when buying a share is the purchase price, and that’s fairly unlikely, but when you start getting into even options/etc, you’re magnifying your risk - small swings in the market can lead to large and disproportionate losses, and when you get into shorting in particular you can lose far more than your initial investment. This is why you’re getting the reaction you’re getting - because the thing you’re asking about is sufficiently risky that if you're asking on Hacker News (and not, say, asking a professional), you don’t understand the risk profile well enough to do it “safely.”

That, and because snarky answers get more imaginary internet points than helpful ones.