Ironically, one of the definitions of 'literally' is 'figuratively'. This has been the case for over a hundred, and many acclaimed authors (Fitzgerald, Joyce, etc) have used it in this sense.
Technically, it's a 'janus word,' which means it has two definitions that are antonyms. The canonical example is 'cleave' which means both separate and adhere.
It's a sense that I, and other people, strictly avoid. Why use "literally" to mean "very" but "not literally"? It adds nothing but confusion. I would say it's an error, but if you want to be pedantic the rules describe usage, not prescribe it.
Yes, but the poster used the actual title of the article, which is the norm. This time the title was deliberately sarcastic, but that was not yarapavans fault.
And it was a good and interesting article, just of much less significance than it appears on a non-sarcastic reading of the title.
I'm all for descriptive titles. If a title is linkbait, even if it is 'original' then I'd prefer it if people edited the title to make it more reflective of the content than to 'blindly' keep the original title.
Otherwise sites that use linkbait titles would get a whole pile more visitors from HN because of the 'originality' of the titles.
You do have a good point, but I do not think either ArsTechnica or the poster here was intentionally setting up linkbait. Viewing the title on their front page (where they italicize key words and include a slightly longer blurb) it is clearly being ironic, and I think the poster was just following the tradition here of using the original tighter.
Or is this an ironic use of the non-literal use of the word "literal"?