Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

831–840 of 1001 posts

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

#831

Post by nkurz »

jrcii wrote: post #768

Oriental is not an offensive term according to the unanimous opinion of over a dozen Asian friends I've broached the subject with, but that opinion isn't aligned with San Fransisco leftist political beliefs so I was banned from HN. Liberals are open to everyone as long as you think exactly like they do, otherwise fascist-style political censorship and hate is the rule.

No, you were banned for being rude and obnoxious.

Had you stopped at "Oriental is not an offensive word", individuals may have downvoted you to express their disagreement, but I doubt you would have been banned. Personally, I think 'Oriental' sounds a bit dated, but not of itself offensive.

Instead, you were banned because you followed it with "anyone who thinks it is should grow a pair and get a life. The hypersensitive PC social justice crap is so wearisome." It's the insult in this second part that went over the line.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12698197

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

#832

Post by polymotivated »

Here's an idea. If a story is clearly political, then just turn off comment moderation except for flagging.

Objectively, HN has a huge problem with leftists and socialists downvoting conservative/libertarian comments.

Dang knows this. I haven't read all the comments, but if he denies that simple fact, then HN has bigger problems.

You can't have legitimate conversations if the other side is openly hostile to the very idea of even displaying contrarian to their beliefs opinions.

There was a big bubble that many on HN lived in until election day, when they must've realized that there's another half of the country that doesn't think like them.

Here's a perfect example of living in the bubble. Look at all the car hatred on HN, where people are almost giddy over ideas to ban them, limit them, etc...

The vast majority of the people in the world don't think that way.

HN is just a bubble and why it's a parody.

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

#833

Post by yagga »

golemotron wrote: post #180
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 it disturbing too. Right now one of the top stories on HN is about Amazon Go and the top comment is about whether the destruction of jobs it could cause is socially acceptable. I don't know whether that is politics or not but I can't imagine discussing Amazon Go as a technology without having that discussion. In fact when you look at HN very little is about particular technologies. Most of our discussion is ar…

With automation, robotics and AI the world does not need so many bio-robots anymore. Before we needed dumb people to do manual labor. Not anymore. Machines can do it. Most of people don't want to learn and change. What to do with the bio-mass that can only eat, shit and have fun?

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

#834

Post by vinchuco »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #38

Thank you, I'll happily flag down politics on HN. Politics has caused me to start using new software so I can filter Twitter, change my subreddits, and aggressively unfollow people on Facebook (even family at this point). And still I can't avoid it... though perhaps for the best, since social media by-and-large is just a distraction from real work and real life. I'm far better off coding, reading books, and playing g…

Not caring is the default state.

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

#836

Post by Jemaclus »

grzm wrote: post #784
Jemaclus wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I would argue that the "don't discuss politics or religion" with family and friends is partly what got us into this mess in the first place. The United States has become a nation where you can't have reasonable political discourse, because we've been taught not to talk about it. We put our heads in the sand and repeat our same beliefs over and over without any external challenge or validation. When we try to h…

If this is a topic you're interested in, I think you'll find Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" particularly useful. I've read it through twice and it's helped me better understand the nature of the issue.

Thanks for the recommendation!

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

#837

Post by dang »

typomatic wrote: post #702
dang wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> here need to be clearer guidelines around what's allowed and what's not. We're happy to clarify (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108614 ) but it's impossible to draw a precise line. Moderation is about a few core principles and a lot of case-by-case judgment calls, and it's inherently unsatisfying. Whatever rules we have, though, we apply them less rather than more in cases where YC itself or a YC start…

This is amazingly naive. "We apply them less rather than more in cases where YC itself or a YC startup is at issue." You realize, of course, that YC, PG, and SA all drive the tech zeitgeist to some extent or another. News that affects YC itself is all tech and politics, because YC affects these things.

By that logic it affects a butterfly in China too. I'm talking about what we can control.

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

#838

Post by tmnvix »

Politics is not discrete.

While I agree that posts about election results or political leadership changes are mostly unrelated to topics I come to HN to read about, I think that there are many ostensibly political posts that are very relevant (e.g. Snowden or Wikileaks related posts). I would hope that they will not be subject to exclusion.

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

#839

Post by dragonwriter »

polymotivated wrote: post #832

Here's an idea. If a story is clearly political, then just turn off comment moderation except for flagging. Objectively, HN has a huge problem with leftists and socialists downvoting conservative/libertarian comments. Dang knows this. I haven't read all the comments, but if he denies that simple fact, then HN has bigger problems. You can't have legitimate conversations if the other side is openly hostile to the very…

> Objectively, HN has a huge problem with leftists and socialists downvoting conservative/libertarian comments

It's funny how partisans on the right often say this, and partisans on the left often say the same thing, with the sides reversed.

The fact is, HN has sizable and active contigents from all parts if the political spectrum, and partisan voting (up and down) comes from all sides.

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

#840

Post by inimino »

I am all for experiments, and I think this is a good thing to do for a week.

Long term, politics is inseperable from many other issues, so I suspect this isn't a viable long-term rule. However, insisting on thoughtful discussion may be easier after some "detox".

I for one certainly miss the functional programming articles that used to be so much more common on the front page. Here's hoping for a week of new and non-political food for thought!

Post reply on HN