Yes. We've reverted the title now - submitted title was "Algorithmic System for Turning the Elderly into High-Nutrient Slurry", which besides gutting the historical reference, gives way the joke and breaks the HN guidelines:

"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The original submission title was much better, and doesn't give away the joke. This headline is part of the joke, but one that will cause it to be missed by many people. I don't think you should revert headlines so readily unless significant confusion/upset results. There's a lot of poorly-written headlines out there, and it's not uncommon to see a well-written article saddled with a terrible or tendentious headline.

In the pdf article, the submitted title was in fact the subtitle. I can see an argument for choosing the subtitle like that when an article has the form

Pithy phrase: subtitle that actually tells you something

Especially given the lamentable academic fad for such titles, a la Stupid is good: capturing unwary readers' attention by exploiting incongruity'.

Yup we often do that when the original title is inadequate (e.g. too baity or misleading). But the original title was fine here!

The original title is better. This style of satire works best when it's entirely deadpan. Putting a reference to A Modest Proposal in the title gives the joke away.

I'd say that even more about "Turning the Elderly into High-Nutrient Slurry", but I grant it's all pretty subjective in the end.

Oh, I missed that. Brilliant.