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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

#741

Post by Normal_gaussian »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #278
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…

Is political discourse in HN comment threads ever actually "effective", though? What actually results from having those discussions here that couldn't be accomplished just as easily in a forum where it's explicitly on-topic, e.g. /r/politics or similar? It's not as though policymakers or voters are looking to the HN comments section for guidance.

HN has exposed me to varied and critical political discourse that I would not find elsewhere in my life, and has on the whole been overly positive.

Places like /r/politics are often devoid of any real debate or critical argument, and are stressful and tiring to involve oneself in.

I do welcome a week without politics on HN, though I would not like to see it permanently in place such an exercise lets us fall back on what makes us happy.

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

#743

Post by douche »

tropo wrote: post #735
rpeden wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is reasonable to avoid political subjects that are off topic. Which is difficult, I know, because on-topic for HN is literally 'Anything that good hackers would find interesting.' Perhaps, for politics, it would be good to try to limit political discussion to things that affect the technology world broadly, and startups specifically? In the past, topics like those have been discussed here quite productivel…

Limiting to "people with 500+ or karma" doesn't make for a reasonable discussion unless you like an echo chamber with 100% pure San Francisco values.

Submitting about three, maybe four, good frontpage-worthy technical stories can net you 500 karma.

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

#744

Post by aaronbrethorst »

menacingly wrote: post #607
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…

Can't you expand this argument until it completely fills your reality? Is it exercising privilege to order a coffee or a sandwich without discussing politics? If so, simply pretend that's what you're doing here, except instead of a sandwich you've ordered some technology news and discourse. The issues will still be there to fight when you're done, just in a more appropriate forum.

The point the GP was making was that many of the topics that are regularly discussed here have an inherently political angle to them.

If that cup of coffee is from a civet[1], for example, then it does behoove you to consider the social ramifications of your actions.

And that sandwich, depending on who you are, what you look like, and where you are, could be considered extremely political.[2]

[1] http://world.time.com/2013/10/02/the-worlds-most-expensive-c...

[2] http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/6-legacy/freedom...

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

#745

Post by rjdevereux »

I understand the sentiment, and promoting civil discourse is a wonderful goal. But the way forward is figuring out how to promote the good, and discourage the bad, not disengagement.

I don't think I can say why it is important to engage better than Charles Krauthammer, so I'll just put his words here.

"While science, medicine, art, poetry, architecture, chess, space, sports, number theory and all things hard and beautiful promise purity, elegance and sometimes even transcendence, they are fundamentally subordinate. In the end, they must bow to the sovereignty of politics.

Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything – high and low and, most especially, high – lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933… Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns."

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

#746

Post by clackanon »

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…

I feel your pain, brother.

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

#747

Post by dragonwriter »

tropo wrote: post #735
rpeden wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is reasonable to avoid political subjects that are off topic. Which is difficult, I know, because on-topic for HN is literally 'Anything that good hackers would find interesting.' Perhaps, for politics, it would be good to try to limit political discussion to things that affect the technology world broadly, and startups specifically? In the past, topics like those have been discussed here quite productivel…

Limiting to "people with 500+ or karma" doesn't make for a reasonable discussion unless you like an echo chamber with 100% pure San Francisco values.

There's no reasonable definition of "pure San Francisco values" for which that would be true even with a 20K karma threshold.

HN certainly isn't a representative sample of the (global or US) population, ideologically speaking, but the idea that HN is a pure representation of any single ideology, either in general or at any particular karma threshold where there are more than a handful of users, is absurd.

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

#748

Post by rybosome »

ohpuhleeeze wrote: post #731
rybosome wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not hyperbole. http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/donal... > Donald J. Trump, who earlier in the week said he was open to requiring Muslims in the United States to register in a database, said on Thursday night that he “would certainly implement that — absolutely.” Mr. Trump was asked about the issue by an NBC News reporter and pressed on whether all Muslims in the country would be forced…

That quote is from 2015. If everyone held people to what they said a year ago despite them softening on the issue or even changing their mind completely... well then why is Obama so highly regarded by the left?

> That quote is from 2015. If everyone held people to what they said a year ago despite them softening on the issue or even changing their mind completely...

Ok, this is reasonable. There have been some indications that Trump might be softening on the issue. Language alluding to this policy was removed from his campaign website on election night, for instance, and it hasn't really come up since (at least from him). I'm still very concerned that it was said at all, but you can certainly make an argument that this statement doesn't represent the current state of things.

> well then why is Obama so highly regarded by the left?

You have veered into defensive tribalism. We are not discussing in what regard Trump is held, but rather the likelihood of him implementing a particular policy based on what he has said about it. Whether or not liberals forgave Obama's transgressions is irrelevant to a muslim registry.

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

#749

Post by therealgimli »

I am disappointed by this decision, but I don't love HN any less for it.

Many comments have pointed out that there are plenty of places on the web to have discussions about political topics, so let's keep the HN about tech.

I see the merit in this sentiment, but for me reading the political discussions within this community is something I value greatly. For one thing, there are a great many non-US based people here. In my experience I have been exposed to a relatively balanced set of perspectives, and generally commenters are thoughtful and un-troll-like.

In short, I learn many things from other folks in this community, and that includes political topics.

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

#750

Post by taytus »

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…

>I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion

This is insane. Why are people worried about internet points. I'm guessing you are an adult right? and you don't want to express your points of views because someone might click the little arrow?

Why? Please, honestly, explain this to me.

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