D'oh! You mean the Amazon links? Well... I'd love if someone would buy anything from my posts :) But in fact, I guess that almost everyone interested in these books... has these books already. I just put them whenever I write anything about a book. I also did it back in time when I didn't have an Amazon Affiliates account, just to give the possible reader a quick link to see reviews and contents.
I post in hacker news because it is a place with people interested in the subject, sorry. Moreover, the links are quite clearly marked as buy on Amazon link. If you don't want to buy that book, you don't click on the link. If you found the review of a book interested, you keep reading, if you don't, you close the tab and keep on browsing. It's not like I'm putting a name and linking to another place.
The link got a few votes (thanks everyone who read and liked), so I guess I was right in posting it here.
Why do you complain about an individual sharing his thoughts, and not about NYTimes, which is stuffed with advertisement? Or like 90% other hn posts with advertisement on it's pages.
I don't think you can claim that mixing advertisements and content is a bad thing unless the advertisements are misleading. There is nothing misleading about those links.
