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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

#931

Post by Chris2048 »

yosefk wrote: post #872
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…

As someone tempted to comment on politics, I'd love for the detox to continue indefinitely, with an instant lifetime ban for the first offence. HN doesn't add much to politics (it looks just like that kind of discussion would look anywhere else) but politics does detract from HN (firstly because you get less of what HN has that is less prevalent elsewhere, and secondly because politics is great at distracting attenti…

> HN doesn't add much to politics

I disagree, I've seen plenty interesting discussion around political topics. Interesting that startup circle-jerking isn't hated as much...

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

#932

Post by tptacek »

tzs wrote: post #480

It's not clear to me what is politics. For instance, I just came across this interesting article from The Brookings Institution: "Another Clinton-Trump divide: High-output America vs low-output America" [1]. It's a look at how the election broke down by county. Clinton won 472 counties, Trump won 2584. The counties Clinton won produce 64% of the country's GDP, with Trump's counties producing 36%. With the exceptions…

Absolutely, yes. It's not about the stories, but about the threads they spawn. There is virtually no chance such a story would generate useful discussion in the current climate on HN. In fact, that's the kind of political story that would probably get flagged off the site even if we weren't in detox.

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

#933

Post by Chris2048 »

3131s wrote: post #808
flashman wrote: post #561

Earlier 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.

And it's already the case on HN that political discussions are quickly flagged into oblivion, so I'm not sure how this current week will be any different. I was pretty let down that HN did not do more to protect political discussions during the US election cycle and I really didn't see all that much vitriolic behavior in the first place. Even if there is bad behavior though, is that something that we need to be prote…

A much better course of action would be attempts to improve political discourse, rather than demonize the adjective.

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

#935

Post by Chris2048 »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #923
flashman wrote: post #561

Earlier 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.

We are talking about specialization here, not repression. There are tons of political forums where ppl can express their opinions and discuss them. It just does not have to be here.

There are tons of tech forums too, are there not?

In fact, sub-reddit provides all the specialization you could need; I think "demographic" is usually what is valued in HN.

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

#936

Post by tptacek »

flashman wrote: post #561
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.

It's not about "political neutrality", though.

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

#937

Post by Chris2048 »

lobotryas wrote: post #813
flashman wrote: post #561

Earlier 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.

How can you come to such a conclusion? "Can we stop with the politics" doesn't take away your right to protest or discuss politics _elsewhere_. It just means someone is tired hearing the same arguments rehashed over and over on HN.

> tired hearing the same arguments rehashed

I'm tired of people not getting it the first time

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

#939

Post by DanBC »

3131s wrote: post #808
flashman wrote: post #561

Earlier 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.

And it's already the case on HN that political discussions are quickly flagged into oblivion, so I'm not sure how this current week will be any different. I was pretty let down that HN did not do more to protect political discussions during the US election cycle and I really didn't see all that much vitriolic behavior in the first place. Even if there is bad behavior though, is that something that we need to be prote…

> I really didn't see all that much vitriolic behavior in the first place.

There is a setting in your options called "showdead". Is that on or off for you? If it's set to off HN will hide some comments that have been killed by userflags. Thus, you may well have not seen the worst examples.

But this week someone (with more than 10k karma and an account that's over 3000 days old) called for Jews to relocate:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13056816

> But, yes, to the extent the inchoate Alt Right has a position on it, one of them is that Jews are to be "excluded if not eliminated from society", as in all societies that are not Israel. You've got your own homeland now, which we of the Alt West fully support, relocate yourself there. Specifically "diversity + proximity = war", and we want to avoid "war" such as it is or will be.

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

#940

Post by DanBC »

Chris2048 wrote: post #933
3131s wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's already the case on HN that political discussions are quickly flagged into oblivion, so I'm not sure how this current week will be any different. I was pretty let down that HN did not do more to protect political discussions during the US election cycle and I really didn't see all that much vitriolic behavior in the first place. Even if there is bad behavior though, is that something that we need to be prote…

A much better course of action would be attempts to improve political discourse, rather than demonize the adjective.

They've tried, hard, for some time now. Look through dang's and sctb's comment history to see how hard they've tried to improve the discourse.
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