I have a permanent solution to the "politics problem": require all comments be cryptographically signed, and give users the tools to rate the signing keys.
Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#822Disagree, not because it isn't a good idea right now, but :
a) we should not abandon the general rules, unless under the most exceptional circumstances [ ie. unless these posts threaten to kill the HN site or render it unusable in the main, we should not adopt a special rule ]
b) its un-needed, in the sense we can choose to self impose this by not upvoting overly political stories/comments
c) HN is already practicing too much self-censorship - we need to tolerate some extremes / ugly points of view, in order to keep a healthy community where free speech is highly valued and where any subject can be discussed
d) imo HN is equally susceptible to hostile takeover by ugly "trumpism"'s as it is by political-correctness / overly tolerant relativism. It is for each of us to upvote/downvote/comment in order to fight against memes that might enslave this community and its freedoms.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#823This 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.
That's one point of view. Another is that the people who speak the loudest about political issues have the most support and political power.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#824I'm laughing at how pedant this group is. Viewed under a microscope, sliced and diced a thousand ways and all possible repercussions and views are debated. It's just a week! We'll survive :)
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#825Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's one point of view. Another is that the people who speak the loudest about political issues have the most support and political power.
What else does status quo mean?
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#826The pedantic bullshit in these comments is why America is in the shitter.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#827Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really wish this top level comment could get some traction. People seem to think that because something is important to them, it should be important to the community but that's not how communities work. I for one feel that no amount of discussion of politics on HN is going to meaningfully change or move forward the debate and is unlikely to be instructive to people who have already made up their minds. What I love…
Removing one of the most intelligent and rational communities from the political debate (albeit temporarily, although I fear that a permanent ban might be considered) will only make the overall political debate even less rational, in addition to taking away a space where technologists can discuss these matters. I respectfully disagree that discussion of politics on HN cannot "meaningfully change or move forward the d…
Suggesting that mixing HN and politics will improve HN is like suggesting that mixing wine and poison will improve the poison. The political discussions on HN have been typified by flaming, bullying, groupthink, and appeals to emotion, which tends to ooze out into the less-political topics and damage them too. This site is far better off without them.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#828This 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…
You can't bully people into caring about things, sorry. Most people here would rather talk about solar power or functional programming than the political implications of whatever, and trying to guilt them into cooperation is just going to make them crankier.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#829Earlier quoted context omitted.
I too find this to be an argumentum ad absurdum. > The values of Hacker News are intellectual curiosity > and thoughtful conversation. > For one week, political stories are off-topic. That said, I can support: > Those things are lost when political emotions seize > control. This ban should be on political emotions seizing control; not on intellectual conversation surrounding political stories.
In theory, yes, of course. In practice, that distinction doesn't hold up—not on the public internet and not at scale. The discussions are tribal. I'd be happy to say "No Tribalism on HN" but how would we enforce it and how could anyone comply? Tribalism is not something people have conscious control over.
You can enforce "no tribalism" by (a) requiring all users to either declare a tribe, or neutrality; and (b) requiring all posts containing tribal content to be self-marked as such.
For instance, suppose users can select in their profiles that they are either apolitical, SJWs, or shitlords. When an SJW or shitlord posts, they are offered a check box which indicates whether the post contains any virtue-signaling or shitposting, respectively.
Obviously, shitposts should be seen only by shitlords and so on. Political signaling at your peers is normal discourse and part of benign human social behavior. Political signaling at your enemies, or at neutral parties who just don't care, is normal human warfare behavior.
So the box is a self-reported box. But etiquette can easily render it mandatory. The chimps on each side of the river can and must suppress their own tribal instinct to throw turds over it, or the gods will rain down fire on the offending chimps or possibly even the whole tribe.
And of course, apolitical users shouldn't see any political crap at all...
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#830I feel this is oddly appropriate.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111026
http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burn...