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Make America Hate Again

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Re: Make America Hate Again

#261

Post by grzm »

gonvaled wrote: post #225

Internal american politics, not of interest. Flagged. When we were discussing the terrorist attacks in France, they were being consistently flagged. I complained about [1] the anglo-centrism of HN and dang replied this: > I'd caution against drawing general conclusions about HN from spot observations about what does/doesn't get flagged. People usually fall prey to cognitive biases when they do so, e.g. thinking that…

Internal american politics, not of interest. Flagged.

If you think the submission is inappropriate for HN, flag and move on, as the guidelines ask.

Your criticism of HN being US-centric sounds like you believe it's deliberate and curated. For as much as it is so biased, I think it's an understandable consequence of something that falls out of the demographics of the members and their interests. A lot (not all, though likely a plurality) of the members are in the US. While the community isn't entirely tech and start-up focused, there is a large interest in these areas. A lot of interesting tech companies are US-based. Silicon Valley is in the US. Y Combinator, affiliated with HN, is in the SF Bay area. It makes sense that a lot of submissions would also be US-centric, and, unfortunately, what might get flagged.

I don't see a large number of members actively arguing that HN doesn't have a lot of US-focussed content.

Perhaps the submissions and which get flagged don't completely align with your own interests. And I can understand how that could be frustrating. That's not necessarily because of some cabal actively keeping things focussed on the US.

Personally, I think HN has too many political discussions regarding US politics, prompted by the recent US elections. And I'm doing what I can as a member to shape HN just as any other member can. And a lot of the political submissions are getting flagged. People are complaining about that as well. (Look just in this thread!) It's the nature of the demographics and interests of the members.

Edit to add: A lot of the HN submission and comment data is available via the HN APIs. I've often thought it would make an interesting study to dig into that data to confirm or disprove perceptions of bias like this (though, in this case, I'm sure there is an unsurprising, strong US-tilt to submissions). If you chose to do so, please share the results on HN. I know I'd be interested!

Re: Make America Hate Again

#262

Post by hevel »

mikeash wrote: post #96
_xhok wrote: post #2

I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse. These are labels. No one really knows what "hate" means anymore, but because people are emotional, they see the word, recall what they think of Trump, and think, "yeah, that's hateful!" This is a problem for two re…

While we're banning these other words, can we also ban "virtue signaling"? It basically means "you are being insincere" and is just as unproductive.

Virtue signaling is a specific application of a major idea in game theory and economics. It is not abstract like "hate." See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaling_game

Re: Make America Hate Again

#263

Post by sdenton4 »

_xhok wrote: post #2

I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse. These are labels. No one really knows what "hate" means anymore, but because people are emotional, they see the word, recall what they think of Trump, and think, "yeah, that's hateful!" This is a problem for two re…

He is doing more than buying labels: he's giving 20k a month to the aclu, and apparently working on discontinuing Breitbart's access to his company's platform.

I've been working for a while now on having concrete, one to one conversations about race with strangers. Some key principles in this work are to call people in, not out, focus on personal experiences, and build out from shared values. It's hard. But I grew up in St Louis, which is a deeply, deeply racist town, where I was told from a young age that we lived in a colorblind society, and that I should stay away from the black parts of town of I valued my life.

Ignoring racism doesn't make it go away. Ignoring white nationalists, and giving them more acceptable labels doesn't make them go away, and doesn't make their hated any softer. These labels are still useful and relevant, and removing words useful for discussing the worst offenses, and providing a rock bottom which most people are happy to distance themselves from.

White silence enables white violence.

Re: Make America Hate Again

#264

Post by gonvaled »

grzm wrote: post #261
gonvaled wrote: post #225

Internal american politics, not of interest. Flagged. When we were discussing the terrorist attacks in France, they were being consistently flagged. I complained about [1] the anglo-centrism of HN and dang replied this: > I'd caution against drawing general conclusions about HN from spot observations about what does/doesn't get flagged. People usually fall prey to cognitive biases when they do so, e.g. thinking that…

Internal american politics, not of interest. Flagged. If you think the submission is inappropriate for HN, flag and move on, as the guidelines ask. Your criticism of HN being US-centric sounds like you believe it's deliberate and curated. For as much as it is so biased, I think it's an understandable consequence of something that falls out of the demographics of the members and their interests. A lot (not all, though…

Thanks for replying, and for clarifying. HN is, as you are also admitting in a subtle way, anglo-centric. It does not really matter if that's a policy or an emergent property. The consequence is that you attribute more importance to issues related to your cultural area of influence.

Readers should be aware about this, and I would like this to be plainly obvious to everybody. I have never implied that this is HN policy, but it's a fact.

The reason why I insist is because HN usually pretends this not to be the case, and attributes to perception biases any mention of the problem. Even your post goes in this direction.

Re: Make America Hate Again

#265

Post by mikeash »

hevel wrote: post #262
mikeash wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we're banning these other words, can we also ban "virtue signaling"? It basically means "you are being insincere" and is just as unproductive.

Virtue signaling is a specific application of a major idea in game theory and economics. It is not abstract like "hate." See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaling_game

That's very interesting but irrelevant. People aren't using the term as a reference to game theory, they're using it as a cowardly way to say "You don't actually believe what you're saying."

Re: Make America Hate Again

#266

Post by beat »

humanrebar wrote: post #233
beat wrote: post #210

Regardless of how one feels about the order itself, the fact is, courts are ordering it temporarily suspended, and the Trump administration is ignoring court orders. Legislators are going to airports to see that travelers arriving in their district and being detained are allowed access to counsel, and they're not allowed to meet with the detainees. This is a constitutional crisis. This is not about the right or wrong…

It's a complex set of events, but America is overdue for some stronger checks on the executive branch. I think it's also fair to say the executive branch has unique power in security affairs that the judicial branch can overstep its authority in. I'm not supporting these actions, here. I might go either way on them, honestly, but it's hard for me to get too worked up about constitutional crises now given all the exec…

A temporary restraining order in a non-emergency is not overstepping any authority. I see absolutely no reason why this is too important to go through due process.

Re: Make America Hate Again

#267

Post by fmihaila »

pluma wrote: post #188
soneca wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone." This is extremely superficial, arrogant, even offensive to people who voted for Trump. And that is the reason why Trump won IMO. Opposition couldnt understand (not even recognize) the legitimate and valid thoughtful reasons people had to vote for Trump.

I'm still struggling to understand where this obsession with explaining how Trump got people to vote for him comes from. The real killing blow was the low turnout for the Democrat candidate. Trump only had to beat Clinton and practically nobody (outside the most progressive parts of the US) voted for Clinton. Trump may have swayed some undecided voters in his favours as a protest vote but all he had to do was rally t…

The article [1] and video [2] below shed some light on the "how". The video is mentioned directly in the article. The text explains how highly sophisticated targeting was deployed by the Trump campaign, and how it differed from Clinton's campaign. Highly informative.

[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/big-data-cambridge-analytic...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc

Re: Make America Hate Again

#268

Post by mjmsmith »

mst wrote: post #187
mjmsmith wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nations without Trump hotels.

So you're saying that the Obama administration set up their list of countries with terrorist activities based on the business interests of somebody who wasn't even running for office yet? This seems strange to me.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/30/sorry-mr-president-the-o...

Re: Make America Hate Again

#269

Post by losteverything »

beat wrote: post #210

Regardless of how one feels about the order itself, the fact is, courts are ordering it temporarily suspended, and the Trump administration is ignoring court orders. Legislators are going to airports to see that travelers arriving in their district and being detained are allowed access to counsel, and they're not allowed to meet with the detainees. This is a constitutional crisis. This is not about the right or wrong…

I have faith our process will "manage" this.

But I find myself VERY upset reading your comment as well as many other reactions to exe. order

How much more can I take? I see signs "whatever it takes to remove trump" that has so much negativity behind it. "Trump" is now a word like being "gay" was growing up.

This is quite unhealthy for me.

I compare it to second hand smoke before the surgeon generals report.

Re: Make America Hate Again

#270

Post by kalleboo »

rayiner wrote: post #145
kalleboo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Trump went to election on "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" [0, donaldjtrump.com] The fact that it was implemented as a ban on citizens from the most prominent Muslim-majority countries (as seen by the eyes of the average American voter, who forgot about Saudi Arabia) could be interpreted as a way for Trump to say he kept his pledge while not being instantly impeached for n…

How are those the "most prominent Muslim majority countries?" They don't have he largest Muslim populations, etc. They're a list of the most unstable Muslim-majority countries.

Prominent in the eye of the electorate. Your typical American has no idea Indonesia is majority-Muslim. "Unstable" does match that since they show up in the news a lot. But countries not on the list such as Saudi Arabia have several confirmed islamic terrorists and yet aren't on the list.
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