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The default position of HN is skepticism

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Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#31

Post by Confusion »

[deleted] wrote: post #15

[deleted]

  Smart people can effectively criticize anything.
However, that doesn't mean their criticism isn't valuable. The world simply isn't simple and one can always add caveats that are worth realizing and knowing about. Actually, a lot of times these criticisms come from people that do have domain knowledge, which is why they feel qualified to make the comment. The fact that many more people can criticize something doesn't mean they will.

Secondly, I don't see a lot of 'trashing' happening here, so I'm not sure what your paragraph on 'people with a bug up their ass' is referring to. The top-voted critical comments are mostly good comments. Perhaps a purely additive comment should be ranked higher, but that doesn't make these critical comments bad.

If 1% of readers would 'trash' an article and that trash would get voted up, this place would not be worth reading. It is, so your numbers don't add up and the point doesn't hold.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#32

Post by dhs »

todayiamme wrote: post #7
patio11 wrote: post #5

The community values articulate cleverness, and sometimes folks optimize for this by trying to be more clever than the author of the article under discussion. The easiest way to move community norms is to write the comments you want to see on the site. (I'm trying to be better at this myself.)

You know skepticism is a good thing, but too much of it makes people reluctant to learn and even share things. I just think that an argument is something no one wins. [edit: as arethuza pointed out what I am truly against is cynicism i.e. crab behavior. I know you're wrong because I know what's right and you can't be right because I know I am right. That is exactly the sort of thing that the world doesn't need] So, w…

YMMV, but I often get more interested in a new topic by reading a skeptical comment. I remain skeptical about skeptical comments.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#34

Post by tspiteri »

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 ;)

It's not really disproving your argument, you said almost every submission.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#35

Post by napierzaza »

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…

Ha, your non-skeptical comment is on top. So there

disarm

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#36

Post by Confusion » 

  But I certainly would like to see more top comments that agree with what
  the poster said, or expands on their argument.
There are plenty of those, but it's easy to mistake them for sceptical comments. Questions, side notes, alternate interpretations, etc. are expansions of an argument, into territory not covered by the original post. When someone starts a comment with 'However ...' or 'I mostly agree, but ...', the remainder of the comment is usually supportive, constructive and littered with tidbits that add to understanding of the point under discussion. However, simply due to the way the argument starts, we view it is 'criticism', because it sets itself up as countering the article, due to the use of an 'inverting' word/phrase, like 'however' or 'but'. There's probably a word for those words and this effect in English, but I don't know it.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#37

Post by [deleted] »

Confusion wrote: post #31
[deleted] wrote: post #15

[deleted]

Smart people can effectively criticize anything. However, that doesn't mean their criticism isn't valuable. The world simply isn't simple and one can always add caveats that are worth realizing and knowing about. Actually, a lot of times these criticisms come from people that do have domain knowledge, which is why they feel qualified to make the comment. The fact that many more people can criticize something doesn't…

[deleted]

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#38

Post by diN0bot »

patrickk wrote: post #30

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;…

seeing the world in black and white is typically reserved for teenagers. as we mature, we are able to understand more perspectives and see how numerous factors influence a problem, and how solutions can have complex and unexpected consequences. we tend to see bigger and bigger pictures. discussions becomes more than arguing over particular numbers; now they include the meanings of those numbers, and then the experience of the discussion itself matters.

Being critical and firm is fine, but being mean is unnecessary energy. If anything, we should encourage creativity and boldness. We should strive to be ourselves open and lead by example, as teammates not enemies.

I went to MIT. The cultural "no-praise" was both present, and yet seemingly lifting, if not in academia itself, then in the more mature "millenials" (!$!&@!(@!#(!) who seem to have more optimism, and thus more guts and less defensive reactions. In general the computer hacker culture has been broadening and is filled with a more inventive than argumentative mindset, which I think spirals positively on itself in terms of inclusiveness.

I've had the good fortune to have incredibly smart mentors*, who not only solve hard problems, but also lead by example on how it is possible to be a great engineer and socially fantastic.

So, to respecify the problem, if we could separate the skeptisism and interesting perspectives from reactionary negativity and meanness, that'd be hot.

I'm not sure skeptism or meanness is actually a problem---many have stated why skeptism tends to prevade the top and/or majority of comments---I just wanted to separate the problem domain into two distinct problems.

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#39

Post by [deleted] »

patrickk wrote: post #30

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;…

[deleted]

Re: The default position of HN is skepticism

#40

Post by CWuestefeld »

NickPollard wrote: post #4

Skepticism is generally the rational position - unless the evidence contained in one article is overwhelmingly conclusive. The whole idea of the Scientific Method is to not believe something until proven. Just flat out believing anything you are told without questioning it is what leads to flat-earth maps and golden chariots pulling the sun across the sky.

Right. And a skeptical discussion isn't necessarily a negative thing, or even indicative of disagreement. I certainly use a Socratic way of extracting deeper information, and this frequently comes across as disagreement or even being argumentative.
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