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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

#561

Post by flashman »

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…

Not to mention that "can we please stop with all the politics" is not political neutrality, it's a position that supports the status quo.

Silence assists certain forms of repression.

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

#562

Post by fredgrott »

avoiding what is coming is no way to critically think..its like say oh holding technology to this loft position without acknowledging jobs due to technology progress and government's lack of solutions..

The flames,etc are symptoms..and this is just as bad..

We need a somewhat deeper solution and the discussion of one...

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

#563

Post by Neliquat »

wbillingsley wrote: post #362
xienze wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a fantastic idea -- it seems the trend today is to inject politics into absolutely everything. In the past, the prevailing wisdom was to avoid political and religious topics in the workplace and technical spheres (conferences, message boards like HN, etc.). Focus on the tech and just the tech and you'll be surprised how much nastiness is naturally eliminated from this board.

And as one, the community set down the Republican / Democrat placards they had so crudely been swinging against each other ... and picked up once more the placards for vi and emacs.

Seconded. Even the old M$ vs moms basement linux arguments would be better.

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

#564

Post by makomk »

madaxe_again wrote: post #393
ythn wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already get TONS of political crap thrown at me on facebook and reddit, why would I want my last bastion of pure, unadulterated technology news also tainted by the very thing I'm trying to avoid? I want to come here to discuss code and technology, not to argue about Trump or Clinton.

So, where would a story about the code in voting machines sit? Anathema? I agree that HN does not need walls of bickering partisan flames, but outlawing discussions of politics and ethics is not the way to go in my mind.

Unless some actual, new technical evidence turns up - and there doesn't seem to be much sign of it so far - voting machines are a pure political football right now. There just isn't that much new discussion to be had outside of speculation and partisan bickering. It was certainly interesting watching them go from unhackable to insecure in the mainstream political discourse despite the actual evidence not changing, though.

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

#565

Post by flashman »

cloverich wrote: post #501
reflexive wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I'd wager that we're all more qualified to talk about tech topics than political ones, which is what leads to emotion and bad arguments.

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

#567

Post by chrissnell »

tripzilch wrote: post #541
chrissnell wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As someone whose views don't align with a good chunk of HN readers (or don't align, period), I've grown to love reading about differing ideas through the eyes of others computing/tech enthusiasts. There's common ground to start from and most importantly, even if it turns out to be a viewpoint that deeply goes against my values I can still respect this fellow human because of their tech expertise. I have to admit, it…

> Come on what does that even mean?

> People that complain their opinions aren't getting fair treatment are very rarely worth listening to, regardless of position. I prefer a better signal-to-butthurt ratio.

Downvoted comments are subject to being greyed out here, which is a stigma. Yes, it happens. The downvote in a political story has such a different meaning than downvotes in other stories. I feel like people use them as an agree/disagree vote in political threads, whereas they serve as an informed/uninformed vote normally.

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

#568

Post by Forlien »

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…

You make some interesting points about non-objective discussions on HN. I think your reasoning could justify banning other topics too, so I'm wondering how you would decide that discussions aren't objective enough.

For example, you could use your justification for banning any discussion about HN's rules since that would also be subjective and have minority viewpoints unfairly downvoted. People are often passionate about any rules changes as we can see by the upvotes on this submission. Do you think discussion about this rules change should be banned too?

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

#569

Post by dang »

fusiongyro wrote: post #489
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…

Not only do I completely agree, this used to be the policy here, long long ago. Around the time that Aaron Swartz was gaining influence and the Snowden leak happened, it suddenly became a political free-for-all around here and a lot of highly political people showed up and started commenting. I don't agree that everything is political, unlike most of the protesters above. We have sister sites like lobste.rs that have…

No, that's a misunderstanding. The policy hadn't changed, circumstances did. We had to learn from that, and we're still learning.
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