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The default position of HN is skepticism

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Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#21

Post by tome »

Not true currently. The top comment of two of the top five posts are supportive:

Rapid prototyping as burnout antidote, riffer: "Yes this really works"

Things I've Learned from Traveling Around the World for Three Years, acabal: "I can attest that everything in this article is true."

Irony prize: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it, jacquesm: "For those that are skeptical about nano machinery, google 'ribosome' and be amazed." Skepticism about skepticism! Perhaps he counts double for the purposes of your argument :)

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#22

Post by SandB0x »

Elite wrote: post #16
icey wrote: post #8

In my opinion, this is because there isn't a downvote button on stories. Because there isn't a downvote button on stories, posting a comment that disagrees with the premise of the story has become the de facto "downvote" button. It's easy karma to get, all you have to do is disagree with the sentiment of the post with barely more detail than "no, I disagree". Then, when people come into the comments to argue that the…

How do I downvote this comment? You're disproving my argument ;)

You can't downvote direct replies, and icey's comment is a direct reply to your post. You should be able to downvote a grandchild, if you have sufficient karma.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#24

Post by benologist »

The default position seems to be we're supposed to applaud certain things automatically... anything YC-funded, any attempts to dislodge Flash using js/canvas games that are garbage by post-1980 standards, ridiculous stuff with CSS.

Some of the stuff and companies applauded on here are in my opinion really, really weak. There's no downvoting of submissions so you can only express dislike in a comment.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#26

Post by dieterrams »

> In general, this is a good thing as taking the skeptical position forces a minimum degree of critical thinking, which makes that comment more useful.

One thing I've noticed is that comments which basically start off with "Bullshit" followed by a heated, not obviously wrong rebuttal tend to get a lot of upvotes.[1] And it can still accumulate upvotes even after another comment has shown that rebuttal to be wrong, and not even wrong in a good way.

Default skepticism is a good thing, but I think we're overly susceptible to assuming that anything resembling a righteous debunking from another HNer is right.

The other thing I've noticed is that if a submitted article isn't popular with some faction, but seriously damaging criticisms have not been forthcoming, then a comment demonstrating that a non-critical claim is wrong, or merely uncertain, will tend to get highly upvoted and treated as if it justified dismissing the whole article.

[1] Recent example: back in the New App Rejection Reason thread, the most downvoted top-level comment initially had 9+ karma, and had the structure I just described. Thankfully, more thoughtful people showed how it didn't make any sense, and it quickly got downvoted into oblivion. But a good number of people got fooled.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#27

Post by dabent »

icey wrote: post #8

In my opinion, this is because there isn't a downvote button on stories. Because there isn't a downvote button on stories, posting a comment that disagrees with the premise of the story has become the de facto "downvote" button. It's easy karma to get, all you have to do is disagree with the sentiment of the post with barely more detail than "no, I disagree". Then, when people come into the comments to argue that the…

I've found that the skeptical comments are a pleasant side effect of the lack of a down vote button.

HN seems to be a fairly scientifically minded community and, as such, wants proof to verify claims. The skeptical comments can be a good filter for the hype that seems to end up in all kinds of articles.

I've always thought HNers were one of the toughest audiences on the internet, and that's why I keep coming back. There are so many bright people who have the energy to research and verify claims, I stand a chance at getting to the truth.

I also know that this is a good community to discuss startup ideas and projects with, because I know I'll get a straight answer. Hopefully I can provide my own healthy dose of skepticism and constructive criticism to the mix.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#29

Post by dhs »

I must say that I love it this way. I see a headline that seems interesting, and there's a discussion, I read the skeptic first comment before all else, because it usually states quite clearly what the author of that headline is trying to sell. It's Anti-PR. I find this useful in more than one way.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#30

Post by patrickk »

I have a theory as to why the default HN attitude is one of skepticism.

Here's a quote from an article from Philip Greenspun, who company's board (ArsDigita) was taken over by VCs:

....But for most of this year Chip, Peter, and Allen [the suits] didn't want to listen to me. They even developed a theory for why they didn't have to listen to me: I'd hurt their feelings by criticizing their performance and capabilities; self-esteem was the most important thing in running a business; ergo, because I was injuring their self-esteem it was better if they just turned a deaf ear. I'm not sure how much time these three guys had ever spent with engineers. Chuck Vest, the president of MIT, in a private communication to some faculty, once described MIT as "a no-praise zone". My first week as an electrical engineering and computer science graduate student I asked a professor for help with a problem. He talked to me for a bit and then said "You're having trouble with this problem because you don't know anything and you're not working very hard."

http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/

(I found this from a link in the footnotes of pg's essay "A Unified Theory of VC Suckage" http://paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html)

In many areas in the hard sciences, maths and engineering, when you are wrong, you are wrong. No discussion. Many on HN have a background in these areas, hence their skeptical attitude to things that are fuzzy or as yet unproven (such as in the marketplace). People here often seem to assume that whatever is being discussed in a given article is dubious (or bullshit as the case may be). I believe this is healthy. The opposite attitude leads to all sorts of problems.

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