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

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

#381

Post by BinaryIdiot »

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?

I too have not found a good place to have any type of political discussion. Even on HN it's better but still almost impossible especially if you have any type of opinion or have done anything in the past that doesn't align with what the majority of opinions are on this site.

Politics seem to work like religion in the brain. I'm not sure it's possible to have a good discussion.

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

#383

Post by davidw »

falcolas wrote: post #372
davidw wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Politics is way more important than most of what we discuss here. Think about topics like gay marriage: being able to marry who you want is a much bigger deal for most people than whether Node.js is better than Erlang (Erlang is way better!).

That's another reason why it should be banned, because it will crowd out other topics by dint of being more important to more people - which is also a feedback loop, as more people get drawn in for the politics.

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

#384

Post by madaxe_again »

padobson wrote: post #279
mattnewton wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rub is, a lot of difficult conversations lead to what are effectively political answers. Take the amazon go which is on the front page right now. We need to be able to have a conversation about job displacing technologies, and hacker news has been a good venue for smart, civilized discussion on the topic. I'm all for flagging uncivilized discussions, but eliminating discussions outright because they might make pe…

Detox week may be a good time to focus on non-political positions and views to problems like mass-job displacement. Are there solutions to these problems that don't fit neatly into a political ideology? Are there solutions that don't require government policy? If the non-political solution antibody makes itself a permanent resident of the HN community as a result of detox week, I know I'd be pleased.

How on earth can one talk about labour displacement without involving political solutions? You could say "purely economic" or "purely technical" solutions only need apply - but by doing so you are taking an ideological stance, which is political.

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

#385

Post by dave_sullivan »

chrissnell wrote: post #205
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 fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it…

> It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it or face the onslaught of downvotes if we express a dissenting opinion.

Are there any online communities where their political opinions match more with yours? Why don't you hang out there instead? I realize that's reinforcing an echo chamber, but it sounds like you're looking for more of an echo chamber, right?

> even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way

Maybe an example of a time you made a point in an informed and respectful way only to be downvoted and derided would help clarify?

> Unless HN can figure out how to give fair treatment to minority opinions, it's best to exclude these discussions entirely.

I strongly disagree. I don't know what "fair treatment" means, but if enough people on the site feel a topic is worth talking about, we should talk about it. Specific incidences of abuse should be flagged, but again, it's hard for me to say one way or another without examples showing what you mean.

As to the overall question of whether politics should be allowed on HN, HN started as "Startup News". It's always been a site about entrepreneurship, mostly in the tech industry. Entrepreurship is intimately linked to politics in obvious and non-obvious ways. Politics has to do with taxes, healthcare, immigration, legality of certain types of research, market size and access, shifting demographic trends, financing sources, and much more.

Edit: I removed a final sentence because it's moot and doesn't add to my actual argument.

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

#386

Post by davegauer »

jowiar wrote: post #198

When "politics" is treated as "things that affect other people that we opine about", this decision makes sense. But this decision is the epitome of privilege. To enter a space thinking "I'm not going to think about politics" is to be someone whose sheer existence in that space isn't a political statement in and of itself. And for many, such a space is "The United States", "The Tech Community", "HN", or whatnot. Sayin…

Please correct me if I have completely misread your statement. It sounds as if you believe there are topics that are so important that they must always be discussed in any forum dedicated to any topic?

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

#387

Post by politician »

anonbanker wrote: post #244
politician wrote: post #225

Hi dang. About 45m ago, I added a comment [1] in the Amazon GO mega-thread that mentions the concept of religion. Is this comment acceptable per new policy? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108455 (Aside: I believe that this detox experiment is treading on dangerous ground, that it will be a struggle to contain the amount of censorship that will happen as a result of encouraging people to flag each other in…

I'm not a mod, but I wouldn't flag your comment. Mentioning faith-based alternatives for human interaction may not be 100% on-topic, but it isn't political or divisive. Now, if you had recommended one faith/sect over others for a superior experience of human interaction, then maybe you'd have a problem.

This detox experiment calls for all members of the community to police all comments for all mentions of the censored concepts.

Regardless of whether a given comment is OK now, once this detox experiment gains steam will anyone be able to mention anything about any of the designated concepts under the anxious eyes of a newly deputized membership?

(I'm specifically thinking about the 99th percentile of moderation activity given the large number of people on the site and the fact that neutral opinions are not counted by the current voting system.)

Or, will these sorts of down votes be weighted? And if so, by what? Using the karma system doesn't seem appropriate - there are many well-spoken members on HN that hold wildly different, even antagonistic, viewpoints.

What inhibits abusive moderation activity of the sort observed when a CTR-like group was actively manipulating /r/politics?

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

#388

Post by pjlegato »

This supposes that legimitately intellectual and civil political discourse is simply not possible, that some sort of "primitive brain" must always take over in any political discussion. This is empirically false. Hacker News generates much more calm and rational political discourse than otherwise.

Of course people sometimes get angry and flame each other in political threads. That should be flagged. For that matter, people flame each other on "Technology A versus Technology B" threads all the time, too, and many other topics.

The way to promote more civil political discourse is to promote more civil political discourse, not to ban political discourse as a dirty, taboo topic altogether.

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

#389

Post by mcphage »

KineticLensman wrote: post #122
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 find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. I see this great move as a way of the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be, unsullied by political nausea. Sure, in a week we can get back into the grim reality, the tech-noir crapsack future, but perhaps…

> the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be

The thing is that we all have very different visions on the hill of where we want to be, and that friction is what's playing out in these threads.

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

#390

Post by ythn »

nneonneo wrote: post #174

Many of the top-level comments here are against this move. I, on the other hand, would like to express my strong support for this move. Hacker News has never been an anything-goes site. Tight moderation, considerate rules, and low tolerance for bullshit have made this a great site to talk about interesting technical topics and ideas. Remember that we all abide by the rules of the site, and that this isn't a magic fre…

Thank you. I have a million places I can go for political discussion. Why does HN have to be one of them?
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