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Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

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Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#151

Post by maze-le »

_y5hn wrote: post #99
dwrodri wrote: post #3

I uninstalled my 3rd party reddit app the other day for very similar reasons. I love reddit as a way for getting my tech news, but there's just so much about the platform that I don't like which is becoming harder and harder to avoid. The communities I really enjoy (r/cpp, r/MachineLearning, r/DataScience) are still for the most part wonderful communities and they provide killer feeds that let me stay up to date with…

For the subreddits I track with RSS I've yet to encounter anything political or someone not arguing constructively. Is this something with the platform or each forum? I often don't mince words either. After a while in a community one tends to have "seen it all", so it'll be longer between nuggets produced.

How many users subscribe to those subreddits you've mentioned? I have made a similar the observation, I have a few subreddits that are very niche with only a few subscribers -- discussions are very much on point and civil. Usually, the quality and decency of discourse on a subreddit seems to be inversely related to the number of people engaging in it.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#152

Post by paganel »

tupputuppu wrote: post #145
paganel wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not just discussions about politics, I still find HN to be one of the most politics-free places on the Internet, which is nice. Granted, I avoid almost everything that talks about US computer programmers vs the rest of the world computer programmers, discussions which tend to have not that nice xenophobic nuance to them, but the rest of the discussions are pretty civil. Also (and of course), I also avoid almost eve…

I'd really be interested in hearing which TECHNICAL forums are more political?

I personally don't regard this as a technical forum, more like a general-discussion forum of things that are of interest to (mostly) technical people.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#153

Post by RubenvanE »

smusamashah wrote: post #139
RubenvanE wrote: post #32

These sentiments are quite familiar to me. That's why I've been building my own HN copy ( https://hackerdaily.io ). It shows all posts per day, which has a few benefits: 1. It doesn't become an addictive slot machine that updates every minute. 2. The conversations have already happened, which makes it easier to see which threads are interesting and informative and which are not. It also uses an outline.com like style…

It looks great. I can't seem to minimize the comments and seeing an exception in console. I am on chrome desktop.

That's weird! I've used it mainly on Chrome so far and I've not yet encountered this problem. Does it keep happening or was it once?

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#154

Post by Ma8ee »

foldr wrote: post #123
Ma8ee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Trained logicians should know that semantic meaning is arbitrary...Abortion is the canonical example of [a semantic] argument: once you have decided what 'life' is, there’s really not much else to discuss. It’s not a political argument, not even in theory. It’s purely a semantic one." Which is quite much exactly what I said. That a definition is arbitrary doesn't mean that it is unimportant. If I use one arbitrary…

>Those two things are the the same. What is the meaning of a word other than the "nature or essense" of the thing it references? This is actually a vexed question in linguistics and the philosophy of language. I don’t want to get into it here, but the answer to your question is not in any way uncontroversial or obvious. For me the idea that the root of the abortion debate is a disagreement over an arbitrary definitio…

Because introducing new words with commonly agreed definitions won't help. It would go like this:

life_prolife = life begins at the conception.

life_prochoice = life begins at week 20 of the pregnancy (as an overly simplified example for the sake of argument).

Pro life: it is wrong to kill anything that has life_prolife.

Pro choice: no, it is only wrong to kill anything that has life_prochoice. It is, at least under some circumstances, ok to kill something that has life_prolife but not life_prochoice.

So of course we haven't resolved anything (which I think is your point). Rather, we have moved the discussion to which definition is the one that is relevant to use when we discuss the sanctity of life. And that is a discussion about semantics.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#155

Post by deostroll »

This looks like a problem because of faceless conversations happening over the internet. But I agree how it can be unproductive. In fact, I spent about 3 hours writing this comment. But can't technology today save us from this pit?

Why not make it fun!!!

First ingredient is a never-ending argument which the author has exhaustively talked about.

Second ingredient is a common availability of the debaters or the various debater camps.

Third ingredient is to make the "debate" for public to access live/offline.

Fourth ingredient is, we need a neutral person who can moderate and more importantly co-ordinate this. Why not ask HN-ers; its just another Ask HN post away? Is it against community guidelines? And if this person is a little elder that the debators, the much better.

The fifth and final ingredient, is a self-pledge. Towards 3 things - tolerance, civility, and, anti-social-dilemma. Think all dimensions of tolerance. Time. The relative age of the OP. What if the OP is a student or a novice? Can he/she speak English properly? Can you tolerate the way he/she speaks? Can you tolerate the speed of his/her broadband connection? Know a bit of the person's background. Can you all agree on a lingua franca? Can you not stoke any innate blood curdling racism? But once the match has begun it is going to be a "social dilemma", after-match. What if I took the wrong side of an argument and now my job prospects have all gone bad...?! It is something to expect. Which is why civility is important. At the end of the debate all parties, irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, or, time zones, must dissolve peacefully...

I certainly don't want a 3rd world war born out of this... :)

So I am literally suggesting a death match of sorts between the debaters. I am suggesting a healthy way towards unraveling your internet-anonymity. But its important to be civil. Its important to forgo the comfort of the relative pseudo-anonymity we all seem to enjoy while arguing. And the prize is a healthy argument. Sadly we all go home and eat our own cakes. If you want solace, then, take pride in the fact that this is the normal discourse of a civilization, and, you participated in it. We will have lots to love, and, hate. But that is life.

Today, we have the means to make this happen...Google Meet, Hangouts, Zoom, etc.

If this goes as dreamed, perhaps we might see sponsors from some media outlets...that is a plate with a dash of humanity in it. It is something we all might have to live with.

So in essence, yes, the practicality of "this" can be debated. At length if need be. But I think I have covered the healthy and right way to behave on the internet - anonymously or otherwise - especially when having an argument, or, not when having an argument.

Peace out folks!! _\m/

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#157

Post by melicerte »

names_are_hard wrote: post #106

To me a large part of the value of HN is the back-catalog. When I'm researching something I frequently do a site:news.ycombinator.com search on DuckDuckGo to see what HN users have to say about the topic. I've been doing this for a long time, only recently I decided to get over my fear of participating in the internet and created an account to comment now and then when I have something to say. And I can see how parti…

Great to have you on board, commenting here and there :)

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#158

Post by Chris2048 »

matwood wrote: post #146
Chris2048 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been thinking a lot lately about blindspots. I think it works like this: blindspots are so hard to see, but if they are inconvenient, they will get pushback . great effort will be spent creating counter-arguments i.e. arguments against, but not so much arguments for. Effort will be spent repeating them so these counterarguments will become well-known, and accepted. Soon enough, there will be a lamp-shade effec…

> I personally hate so-called "identity politics" because it gives people a personal, group-identity stake in things that not only bias their perspective, but often add a strong emotive current to topics that fuels the creation of stigmas and taboos as above. This is why I'll never understand people who are crazy about . No matter who they are, they will do something you disagree with. It's much easier to recognize w…

> Instead, I see people twisting themselves in knots to defend positions they would normally denounce.

This is actually a rational behaviour (in an f-ed up system/incentive).

Any admittance of failure will be used against your candidate, and the opposition will defend their candidate just as strongly. Consider how when celebs get involved in scandals their PR isn't always to admit fault.

Its the same thing of "repeat a lie enough.."; even if the defence itself is not accepted, it can still soften the blow of the scandal by resisting the death-blow of unanimous condemnation. Humans are sometimes herd creatures, visible support is a universal defence in itself, even if only to threaten/dissuade attackers.

In other words, this is how political theatre works.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#159

Post by bryanrasmussen »

cj wrote: post #140
goto11 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some examples of quality technical comments (conforming to the guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ) being downvoted to hell? (Not disputing you at all, just curious for some concrete examples.)

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS887US887&hl=en...

So I guess the answer is no, given that the first two comments are not technical comments, and while they were perhaps pithy or correct in their observations, they were not quality comments either.

Of I course I myself feel that I have been unfairly downvoted in the past, but I do have a more strict rule for when I would downvote someone than most people seem to have. On the other hand all my upvotes have been 100% totally deserved, I'm just lucky that way.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#160

Post by Applejinx »

paganel wrote: post #143
narag wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me a large part of the value of HN is the back-catalog. That's not a very flattering thing to say. I do the same as you. Yesterday I wanted information about Monero and did the site: trick with good results. What I find annoying is the partisan chilling effect. Not just discussions about politics, that I try to avoid because I know it's doomed. But about anything. There is a front-page technical programming discus…

> Not just discussions about politics, I still find HN to be one of the most politics-free places on the Internet, which is nice. Granted, I avoid almost everything that talks about US computer programmers vs the rest of the world computer programmers, discussions which tend to have not that nice xenophobic nuance to them, but the rest of the discussions are pretty civil. Also (and of course), I also avoid almost eve…

I find HN to be a very specific political demographic of great interest, so when I read it, it's with the specific intent of exposing myself to the point of view of this very specific political demographic.

That's not the same thing as a specific POV or catechism: the demographic actively seeks novel answers and ideas in certain ways so long as larger assumptions remain unchallenged, and even then the right framing can work wonders. It's the demographic that remains consistent, even predictable. The position of this demographic isn't always a given.

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