Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#371

Post by vcarl » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #355

md224 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. This community already has its head in the sand. Political topics are flagged to oblivion, and even those that aren't inevitably inspire so much discussion that the flamewar detector goes off and nukes the thread. Imagine: in an era where we rail against filter bubbles, a website punishes threads t…

I've had a hard time finding a good place to have substantive political discussion outside HN. Anyone have suggestions?

The best I've found is reddit.com/r/neutralpolitics. It's strictly moderated, with minimum comment lengths and required source links when making factual claims.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#372

Post by falcolas » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #109

tarikjn wrote: post #62

I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then p…

> head in the sand There are a ton of other sites where you can follow and debate politics all you want. I'm starting to stick my nose into local politics here in Bend, Oregon, but there's no reason I need to talk about it on HN. I'm ok with compartmentalizing things: HN for tech/startups/'interesting things', and other sites for other things. I love bike racing, too, and feel that it's the best sport in the world, b…

> but there's no reason I need to talk about it on HN.

If you start a business, politics impact you. If you are an employee, politics impact you. If you invest in businesses, politics impact you in a huge way.

Uber and AirBnB are no longer just startups, they are very politically active corporations. But they both started, if not from here, then from other communities just like this one.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#373

Post by s_q_b » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

s_q_b wrote: post #255

I live in Northwest Washington, D.C. I am a technologist, a government contractor, and an HN member for many years under various accounts since 2008. I respectfully disagree. Yesterday someone motivated by the "Pizzagate" story, spread and enabled by the social media systems we designed , fired multiple shots from a semi-automatic weapon into a crowded restaurant near my home. My partner and I passed the crime scene…

I want to be clear about three aspects of this:

1. Any views expressed here or elsewhere on HN are purely my own and not representative of the United States government or any other entity.

2. This is not about one individual act of violence. It is symptomatic of a culture created by the types of technology we discuss and implement. I happen to know many people within various spheres that do read HN, and are influenced by it.

3. This comment was flagged, which seems contrary to the purpose of inviting a public discussion, particularly on the thread regarding the appropriateness of such discussions on this site.

If we can't even express dissent that we can't express dissent, that is a problem.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#374

Post by ben0x539 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

sean_patel wrote: post #19

I really welcome this move. I couldn't get out of bed on Nov 9th and a few hours of introspection later, I realized I have no control over any of the Political changes and that I shouldn't be causing myself so much stress. So I stopped watching the news -- both online and on TV -- since Nov 9th. It's been an incredible month for me since then. I've made significant progress on my languishing side-projects ( a Show HN…

I hope you recognize that you can only opt out of being stressed about politics because you're not on the receiving end. :/

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#375

Post by whybroke » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

Very true, high emotions preclude clear thinking and this week will be a worthwhile experiment. But unfortunately web technologies are at the core of recent political events making this a very hard problem. For example will discussion on the following topics be disallowed for the week?

-Discussions of intrusions into US infrastructure by Russia which, curiously, always engender enormous political controversy.

-Manipulation of social media for political ends both manual and automated.

-Policy changes on net neutrality proposed by the president elect or others.

-Governmental surveillance as is and as likely to evolve.

-Trolling as a political tool to disrupt opposing communities.

One level up, there is also the possibility that calm well informed discussion is the exact thing that is targeted for destruction. But perhaps this week's experiment will take some steps towards thinking about that.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#376

Post by kushti » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #282

kushti wrote: post #153

How can HNers discuss topics having "China" / "Russia" in their titles? These are inviting words for many millennials to commit to their media narratives.

These are inviting words for many millennials to commit to their media narratives. This type of perspective is in my opinion part of the problem, and not recognizing that this type of comment is itself part of its own narrative. When the discussions descend into repeating talking points or following a narrative, it's no longer a thoughtful, inquisitive discussion. Given that you've included one such example in the me…

What are you trying to say, in plain English?

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#377

Post by karambahh » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #136

dang wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it's not possible to define "politics" precisely, and it would be a mistake to try. But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by. We can clarify, though. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet.…

I have an idea - if it's in reference to a topic of CNN, NYT, WSJ, and WaPo's politics sections then it shouldn't be on HN.

What if a tech topic (say the current Amazon Go thread) sparks a debate about 'is it socially acceptable or not?'

If the story gets big enough, the articles about Amazon Go's impact on workers will move from the tech section to the politics section of the newspapers. Where do you draw the line on HN in that case? Once they have move in the WaPo, we should stop talking about them?

I agree with others that moderating such a large online community is probably very hard and that dang and others probably experience bad times when comments thread inflame, but I think that a blanket ban on affairs of the cities is not the way to go.

Actually, I find it quite funny that we are having this debate, because in essence that is a political debate. Some US posters will consider it as hampering their right to free speech, some others will consider that making that space void of any political discussions is fine, some (as myself :-) ) think it is impossible and impractical... Debate around the frontiers of that is admitted here is entirely political, in the noble sense of the word.

As long as our debate is civil (and as far as I can see, it is), I think we should be allowed to have it. And what if my comments are not interesting and bring nothing to the debate? They will be downvoted to hell. HN, in contrast with Reddit, has apparently a very good track record with karma. It seems that brigading is not practiced around here.

I think it is probably linked to the fact that under a certain thresold, you cannot down-vote. My karma is indeed too low to downvote for instance and at first I was uneasy with the fact that I couldn't downvote...but I think I am starting to understand why it is actually a good rule for the board ;-)

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#378

Post by netcraft » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

What is the experiment? What is the hypothesis and what are the metrics we will be using to measure success or failure? I cannot understand how this is healthy or beneficial. If there are disrespectful comments, moderate them. But saying "some people cannot talk about these things constructively so lets not talk about these things at all" is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#379

Post by madaxe_again » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

tarikjn wrote: post #62

I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then p…

I'm with you. Far too many technocrats simply go "politics are not my problem", and before you know it you've helped build a police state.

If we discuss and use technology without considering it's ethical ramifications then we are on cruise control to hell.

To those who will respond with "he said politics, not ethics" - prithee - where is the line?

Stifling one angle of discussion stifles others.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#380

Post by idlewords » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

This is a terrible decision. The tech industry has built powerful tools of social control, and runs vast databases of private data on pretty much everyone in the country. We have a golden period of forty-some days before a new administration comes to power that has shown every intent of using that information to deport people and create a national Muslim registry.

We need to be talking about the political implications of what we've built, and figuring out how to fix our mess. This is like the period before the hurricane: everyone should be busy boarding up windows, and you can't do that if you decide you're just not going to talk about the coming storm because it makes you feel bad.