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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

#501

Post by cloverich »

reflexive wrote: post #409
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…

Political discourse is antithetical to rational, intelligent discussion. In fact, what is antithetical to rational, intelligent discussion is: emotionally charged, poorly-considered, and dishonest discussion. The topic doesn't matter: health fads, operating systems, or taxes. I agree, many people have terrible style in their approach to political discussion - but see also, e.g. Hobbes and Rousseau for more thoughtful…

> The topic doesn't matter

Technically true. But practically speaking, I'd wager political topics lead to emotionally charged, intellectually devoid arguments (much) more commonly than others. If that's true, then this moderation should boost the general quality of HN comments and topics, which is why most of us come here in the first place. As a comparison, I was initially annoyed that simple jokes / witty remarks that were void of other content were down voted on HN. But long-term I compare it to reddit and agree with the method: I can still go to reddit if I want wit (I often do). I (ideally) come here for high quality technical content.

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

#503

Post by 6stringmerc »

tyingq wrote: post #297
dang wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my idea and has nothing to do with political preferences, though the election season was probably a factor. It has to do with us noticing an uptick in two undesirable things: harsh ideological comments, and accounts that use HN primarily for political battle. You can see one example of how the idea developed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052458

>It has to do with us noticing an uptick in two undesirable things: harsh ideological comments, and accounts that use HN primarily for political battle. That's straightforward, and understandable. Personally, though, I would want to measure that in some way. We all tend to notice harsh comments or politicized accounts when they are in opposition to our world view. Ones that we agree with might fly under the radar.

Step 1: Identify Problem

Step 2: Figure out a way to Avoid Problem

Step 3: Attain Nirvana

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

#504

Post by dang »

Analemma_ wrote: post #495
dang wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's delusional. The concepts can't be defined to begin with, nor can they be separated in any consistent way. And still we have to moderate this site. > the world is upside down, but think happy thoughts, folks! Here's a TED talk! It's sort of a peeve of mine that people project this onto us because I can't say how I really feel about it without breaking our own rules.

You've already pissed everyone off with this bad decision, it's not like you can make it much worse. Might as well get it out there and at least try to defend yourself.

Things can always get worse.

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

#505

Post by jlebar »

> Why don't we have some politics but discuss it in thoughtful ways? Well, that's exactly what the HN guidelines call for, but it's insufficient to stop people from flaming each other when political conflicts activate the primitive brain

The unfortunate fact is that political discourse in America (and, I understand, in many places elsewhere), has been reduced to lizard-brain questions.

In particular, but certainly not as the only example, the US president-elect ran on a platform that many of us would characterize as playing off machismo and fight-or-flight, rather than actual policy proposals.

HN is a good thing not because it's a way to waste time at work, but because discussing technology ultimately helps us create better technology. But the assumption in this decision seems to be that discussing politics doesn't help us make better political decisions.

I think it's clear to most of us that tech's recent success is due in large part to communities -- open source, StackOverflow, and yes, HN. We learn from each other, and this makes us all better.

If we think this model doesn't apply to politics, that each of us is better left to make up our minds independently, and that we cannot learn from each other, I fear for the future of democracy.

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

#506

Post by estsauver »

This doesn't feel nonpartisan, it feels like it's actively quashing what little political traction can be gained here.

And frankly, a 'detox' is absolutely the wrong word for it. The emotions for me at least come from feeling scared. I have several family members who will lose coverage if the ACA is repealed and I have muslim friends who are looking at the prospect of being sent to interment camps.

This is anger and fear that should be cultivated, not extinguished.

  sudo bash -c 'echo "127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com" >> /etc/hosts'

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

#507

Post by Kaedon »

thembones wrote: post #350
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…

"Why does calloc exist?" That's the title of one of the articles linked on the front page right now. I would challenge anyone to show us where the NYT, Economist, Drudge, Huffington Post, etc have anything like this. They don't. Why not? Because it's not what people come there to read about. I would argue this is "Hacker News". If you want politics, what's wrong with the 10k other sites dedicated to these topics? To…

An audience can have more than one interest. For example, tech sections in newspapers are roughly analogous to political stories on HN.

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

#508

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jc_811 wrote: post #470

A submission on climate change was flagged and removed due to these political guidelines. Is this really considered political? Wouldn't it be more justified to call it 'scientific'? How is anyone supposed to realistically draw the line between what is political and what is not? Couldn't any topic in the world be related back to politics one way or another? This seems like a blatant plot to censor 'unwanted' topics an…

If it's the one I recall, it was about "how to talk to climate change deniers" or something like that. I flagged it (dang says to overflag rather than underflag in this regard anyhow). I'd have a hard time categorizing it as "not political". It's a charged political topic, the details of that conversation had nothing to do with technology, and almost entirely were about "how to argue with the people you disagree with" who happen to almost entirely belong to a single political party.

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

#509

Post by bduerst »

pdx wrote: post #459
idlewords wrote: post #380

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 implication…

Back when I was a kid, there was a saying. "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death, your right to say it". Of course, now many on the left rejoice in the censoring of all sorts of speech. I find the prevalence and acceptance of these 'crybully' tactics to be much more frightening then the terrible atrocity of actually enforcing existing immigration laws which you appear to fear so much.

It's worth pointing out that I think the tone and out-of-context flaming of your comment is the problem that this entire thread is seeking to resolve, which is why you might have been downvoted.

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

#510

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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