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Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

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Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#241

Post by deyan »

dang wrote: post #234
deyan wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind expanding on why the article has been flagged and removed from HN? The number of comments and upvotes suggests that the community is interested in discussing, so I am trying to understand better what is and is not acceptable at HN these days. I am sure others would appreciate transparency on this subject as well.

The article hasn't been removed from HN in any way. It's just lower in rank because that's what user flags do. I'll try to expand on this later but my phone just rang. Edit: ok, it's a bit complicated because the influences of these factors are constantly varying, so giving you an accurate answer means sounding like I'm contradicting myself. But at present, the story's rank is only being affected by upvotes and user…

Thank you for replying, I appreciate it.

The way I read the response is the following: the tug of war between users who want to see / comment on this and those who are flagging the article is being won by those flagging it - and thus the article has fallen below the front page.

The irony is strong here. An article talking about what you can't say, being flagged to oblivion, further confirming that, indeed, some things can't be said.

Strange world these days..

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#242

Post by dang »

gkop wrote: post #179
dang wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the usual reasons: user flags, software, and a moderation penalty. The latter can vary in weight but at the moment is a small downweight applied to follow-up discussions that don't contain significant new information. The software involved is HN's flamewar detector a.k.a. overheated discussion detector. All of these are typical responses to articles with a large heat-to-substance ratio.

> All of these are typical responses to articles with a large heat-to-substance ratio. To save others from having to look it up themselves: according to [0], it took 13 hours for Sam's article to fall off the front page, while this article fell off after about 1 hour. dang didn't say it was ONLY heat-to-substance ratio causing the downmod. Clearly, there are other factors than heat-to-substance ratio causing it thoug…

This is a hard comment to respond to because there appear to be several misapprehensions in it, and at the same time I find it hard to understand what you're saying. Let me try to address a few though.

You say "clearly" and then switch to "hard to dismiss the suspicion". There's no "clearly" there, just suspicion. I'm sure it's a natural suspicion or you wouldn't be posting it, but it lands with me as strange somehow. How could an article that doesn't mention Sam embarrass Sam? It was written weeks before his essay anyhow.

What you're missing, perhaps, is that the reaction here, by both the users who flagged and the moderators, probably isn't about the subject matter per se, but about the fact that this topic was thoroughly covered yesterday and in follow-up threads like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15936614. Doing the same thing every day is boring, and the current article doesn't clear the bar of substantiveness enough to justify overriding that.

There's another point that sits a bit uncomfortably with me. You say HN is influential in tech culture, but if that's true, it's because of qualities HN has that are the product of the very system (community plus moderators plus software) that you seem to object to. That comes up all the time and to me it seems incongruent.

You overrate the power of moderation to control this community. Even if we wanted to control it, which we don't, we couldn't, not even close. We serve it and we never forget that.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#243

Post by r00fus »

electrograv wrote: post #206
chasing wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Voices are being silenced. I think we've got to be cautious in defining what "being silenced" means. Because I see a world in which people are saying all sorts of things out loud. There was a protest with a bunch of people waving Nazi flags in a public park in Virginia a few months ago. I don't think people are being silenced. I think community norms are shifting quickly in many parts of the country and, again, it'…

“Silenced” here means any manner of active suppression (shaming, ridiculing, verbal abuse, social bullying, even physical violence, etc) of an idea, rather than simply (1) ignoring it on a personal level, or (2) responding to it with argument via evidence and reason. If an idea we disagree with is rare or harmless, we often ignore it. If an idea we disagree with is more common and worth refuting, we should respond to…

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#244

Post by nstart »

refurb wrote: post #158
nstart wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it troubling that views based deeply in religious beliefs (gay people are unnatural and somehow should be sidelined for their differences makes sense only inside of a highly religious context) or just pure unscientific opinion are somehow being taken as a political view. Back in the days, skin colour was a political view. That was a dumb idea. And the effects of that is still felt up to today. These days sexua…

Why not let ideas be judged on their own merit, rather than pre-judged and banned from conversation? Everyone likes to use examples like racial differences as an example. How about something more gray? Should someone be able to voice opposition to immigration? Or is that another one of those ideas that "don't deserve a seat at the table"?

> Should someone be able to voice opposition to immigration?

Absolutely. Few things to note here:

1. The topic of immigration is a valid political discussion with a large amount of studies done from the perspectives of science, economics, and even ethics and philosophy. Taking a stance in it is a political stance and that conversation is crucial to progress.

2. That said, it's not a valid comparison to what was actually being mentioned in my comment which was religious or non scientific views getting a free pass to masquerade as political stances. Those were the ones I said that don't deserve a seat at the table

3. To expand on the discussion of what's valid to be at the table though, immigration is a valid topic. "No people of a certain ethnicity should be allowed to immigrate because they are bad people" is not a political stance. That's a baseless bigoted view that pretends to be a political stance. That can be shown out of the room.

4. One last thing on above. There are close but grey line topics related to the above statements that should be part of discourse. Eg - people from certain areas of the world have a higher risk of being radicalized than others prior to immigration. Statistically provable. Good science. Worthy of discussion. Making the outcome of that "ban everyone of the given ethnicity from that area" though is the kind of discussion we really need to stop these days.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#245

Post by r00fus »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #226
chasing wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point to bring up. I don't think those people were silenced. They went to a public protest in a public place to make a statement. That statement was broadcast across the country and the world. The opposite of being silenced. Now, they faced consequences for what they said. But that's what happens when you say things. Words have meaning and you can say words which will cause people to no longer want to a…

> Now, they faced consequences for what they said. And what of those who were incorrectly identified by the vigilantes? Do their fates not matter?

[cite needed]

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#248

Post by dang »

deyan wrote: post #241
dang wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article hasn't been removed from HN in any way. It's just lower in rank because that's what user flags do. I'll try to expand on this later but my phone just rang. Edit: ok, it's a bit complicated because the influences of these factors are constantly varying, so giving you an accurate answer means sounding like I'm contradicting myself. But at present, the story's rank is only being affected by upvotes and user…

Thank you for replying, I appreciate it. The way I read the response is the following: the tug of war between users who want to see / comment on this and those who are flagging the article is being won by those flagging it - and thus the article has fallen below the front page. The irony is strong here. An article talking about what you can't say, being flagged to oblivion, further confirming that, indeed, some thing…

You're still looking at this only from the point of view of one thread you happen to care about. I understand that! But HN has hosted truckloads of extremely active threads about all of this. Many have spent loads of time on the front page. In fact this topic set is one of the most highly represented on HN. So the situation is the opposite of how it seems to you and not ironic at all; the irony is that it seems that way.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#249

Post by will_hughes »

Veelox wrote: post #181
mperham wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be clear here. We're not talking about where to eat lunch or controversial scientific theories, a la Galileo or Darwin. We're talking about "is race X smarter than race Y", "is gender X smarter than Y". Bigoted ideas. Some have been comfortable espousing bigoted views. Now they are forced to think about what they say and how they say it. As a white man, this has affected my own behavior (for the better IMO): I'…

>"is race X smarter than race Y" That is one way to phrase the question. Another way to phrase the question is "what are the average IQs of the races in the USA and why are they different?" This question can be used as a starting point to help change things so that those who are below average can be helped. The above is a question that I would not bring up in my workplace for fear of being fired. That is why there is…

That's because IQ tests arn't tests of intelligence, just tests of how well you know certain information and skills.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#250

Post by tytytytytytytyt »

asveikau wrote: post #220
tytytytytytytyt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so bad about saying that one?

Maybe because it's not true outside of certain high-risk neighborhoods? (And those are also higher risk for earthquake damage for the same underlying reason.) People who are buying property in SF can and do look up these risks.

Sure, but that doesn't seem like it'd make it such a horrible thing to say.
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