Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN is essentially a single subreddit. But its a fairly specific/topical subreddit, where a left-right score is questionably meaningful.
Is 0 an invalid score?
Zero seems like the ideal amount of bias.
Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
21–30 of 76 posts
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#22Left-right seems like a false dichotomy to me. e.g. the reason to avoid cable news is not because of some sort of "left" or "right" bias (which is already nebulous), but because of conflict of interest: health care and military contractor ads sandwiched between pundits attempting to sway public opinion regarding health care and defense policy.
The biggest problem with cable news (IMO) is instead of presenting a news story and moving on to the next, they present a story and then give their personal opinions on it. Instead of letting the audience form their own opinions.
In other words, cable news has turned into a level of quality that’s no better than late night talk shows.
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
My impression is that the site has gradually shifted right, but the Overton window has shifted right faster giving the illusion that it has gone left. Edit: There is something ironic to be said about my very benign comment triggering someone to the point that they felt compelled to create an account and call me classically right wing slurs (subhuman, animal, low-iq). I think its worth considering that the internet/so…
Are you saying the realm of acceptable things one can say had shifted to the right? I may have misunderstood because I've never heard that before. I can see that maybe one could claim the leftward shift has stopped and momentum is to the right, but I don't think the fever has broken yet, and I've never even heard anyone claim it has, outside of a few "tide is turning" twitter posts. (I'm using left/right as I think t…
> Are you saying the realm of acceptable things one can say had shifted to the right? I may have misunderstood because I've never heard that before.
I'm kind of surprised by your surprise, because i feel like for years now people never shut up about the realm of acceptable things shifting right.
Although personally i think its less a right/left thing and more extremes on both sides becoming more vocal with the moderates being squeezed out. Its always easier to fixate on the crazy thing the other is saying then to look at one's own side.
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#24Seems odd to rate HN given it's an aggregation of articles from other sources.
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying the realm of acceptable things one can say had shifted to the right? I may have misunderstood because I've never heard that before. I can see that maybe one could claim the leftward shift has stopped and momentum is to the right, but I don't think the fever has broken yet, and I've never even heard anyone claim it has, outside of a few "tide is turning" twitter posts. (I'm using left/right as I think t…
> Are you saying the realm of acceptable things one can say had shifted to the right? I may have misunderstood because I've never heard that before. I'm kind of surprised by your surprise, because i feel like for years now people never shut up about the realm of acceptable things shifting right. Although personally i think its less a right/left thing and more extremes on both sides becoming more vocal with the modera…
We must live in very different bubbles. Hi from over here!
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#26Imo, HN has moved from being moderately libertarian/right to today's slight liberal left slant as its user base aged from young, hungry, hopeful entrepreneurs to jaded senior engineers or VPs in large fortune 500 companies. I think the has also been an influx of non-US users over the past decade, which also tend to lean more left. I'd be curious to see if anyone else that's used this site regularly for the past 10+ y…
I think it's shifted somewhat in a US-specific authoritarian-left direction as that becomes a bigger force in US tech culture. I don't think people are more cynical than before, but it's expressed differently; the live-and-let-live culture has vanished under polarization and toxic positivity, and again I think that's a strongly US phenomenon. I also think that it's partly an explicit top-down shift, particularly with dang taking over and having an explicit policy that is anti- particular kinds of negativity even when that negativity is correct (e.g. telling people they're wrong is moderated a lot more harshly than before).
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a perfect summary of it!
On what issues has the Overton window shifted right?
Does it even make sense to say the Overton window shifted one way or another? The claim is meaningless without also including whether the window widened, narrowed or stayed the same width. The whole point of the window is that it defines the left and right bounds of acceptable discourse. So does "shift right" mean that both the left and right edges shifted to the right? Or that the left stayed in place while the window widened to the right? Or that the right stayed in place while the window narrowed toward it?
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#28Imo, HN has moved from being moderately libertarian/right to today's slight liberal left slant as its user base aged from young, hungry, hopeful entrepreneurs to jaded senior engineers or VPs in large fortune 500 companies. I think the has also been an influx of non-US users over the past decade, which also tend to lean more left. I'd be curious to see if anyone else that's used this site regularly for the past 10+ y…
My impression is that the site has gradually shifted right, but the Overton window has shifted right faster giving the illusion that it has gone left. Edit: There is something ironic to be said about my very benign comment triggering someone to the point that they felt compelled to create an account and call me classically right wing slurs (subhuman, animal, low-iq). I think its worth considering that the internet/so…
Weird. I was going to posit the exact opposite. Like the window has shifted left and this site may seem lean a hair right of center because of it.
Maybe the window is shifting so fast in both directions everyone in the middle just kinda orbits back and forth?
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#29Imo, HN has moved from being moderately libertarian/right to today's slight liberal left slant as its user base aged from young, hungry, hopeful entrepreneurs to jaded senior engineers or VPs in large fortune 500 companies. I think the has also been an influx of non-US users over the past decade, which also tend to lean more left. I'd be curious to see if anyone else that's used this site regularly for the past 10+ y…
I think it's shifted somewhat in a US-specific authoritarian-left direction as that becomes a bigger force in US tech culture. I don't think people are more cynical than before, but it's expressed differently; the live-and-let-live culture has vanished under polarization and toxic positivity, and again I think that's a strongly US phenomenon. I also think that it's partly an explicit top-down shift, particularly with…
[deleted]
Re: Media Bias Fact Check: Hacker News
#30Imo, HN has moved from being moderately libertarian/right to today's slight liberal left slant as its user base aged from young, hungry, hopeful entrepreneurs to jaded senior engineers or VPs in large fortune 500 companies. I think the has also been an influx of non-US users over the past decade, which also tend to lean more left. I'd be curious to see if anyone else that's used this site regularly for the past 10+ y…
My impression is that the site has gradually shifted right, but the Overton window has shifted right faster giving the illusion that it has gone left. Edit: There is something ironic to be said about my very benign comment triggering someone to the point that they felt compelled to create an account and call me classically right wing slurs (subhuman, animal, low-iq). I think its worth considering that the internet/so…
I suspect that if elections had the HN commentariat as the voters, it would result in landslide wins for most Democratic politicians. I don't think this has shifted much in the last decade.
That itself doesn't dispute your point, as I can sympathize with the idea that Democrats aren't particularly left-wing. But I'd also caution against using that as the yardstick, since most people do think of Democrats as "the Left" and it can result in confusion.
Broadly speaking, I'd say HN comments more or less center around the Democratic mainstream, but with a very high level of variance in political viewpoints compared to the general population. You get everything from unreconstructed Stalinists to Mencius Moldbug acolytes here.