Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#41

Post by DavidSJ » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:07 AM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #39

DavidSJ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: don't you think people should be expected to be responsible for themselves?

I'd agree that they should. However, if someone's on the fence, pushing them in a productive direction might be something that serves our (well, pg's) goals, in which case it's not really about responsibility, but about pg's effect on others, something he will likely want to take responsibility for, at least to some extent. Or, to lift a more succinct phrase, "lead us not into temptation". ;)

"Pushing them in a productive direction" could be something like "You've been spending a lot of time here. Don't you think you should do something else?"

But for all the people not on the fence, you're denying them responsibility for their own choices. I can't help but feel that your stated agreement with me that individuals should be responsible for themselves is empty if you support measures that take all choice away from them.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#42

Post by Hexstream » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:34 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Shutting the site down for which hours of the day? With timezones it's not exactly a trivial question.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#43

Post by quellhorst » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:38 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

In the early days when ebay would go down, people actually started up alternative sites to talk on until it came back up.

Recall in the old days when people had a flash intro page and you had to continue to see the real content? You could start out with some page saying "You really should be working" but they could still click through. Maybe show this for 1 hour a day.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#44

Post by epi0Bauqu » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:39 AM UTC

anewaccountname wrote: post #35

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

How about a slow feed that I could check once a week and only get the week's 30 best stories?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/HNWatrCoolr

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#45

Post by pg » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:48 AM UTC

Hexstream wrote: post #42

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

Shutting the site down for which hours of the day? With timezones it's not exactly a trivial question.

I was planning to shut down during the traffic peak. That seems the obvious choice if you want to save the most people's time.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#46

Post by likpok » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:48 AM UTC

sam_in_nyc wrote: post #3

I'm going to admit that I barely read any of your post. I'm just going to answer: Your question is like asking "Is the Internet a Waste of Time?" It really depends. The stories are generally titled in such a way that I ignore stuff that I already know, don't need to know, don't care about, etc. Conversely, I read the stories that seem interesting or relevant. There's a lot of cutting edge stuff discussed here and I l…

HN is a /timesink/. It is easy to dump a v. large amount of time there, without a great deal of energy expended. Much like heatsinks, this comes with advantages (less free-unthinking time) and disadvantages (can suck time away).

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#47

Post by xenophanes » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 3:59 AM UTC

> Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

> The question though is whether interesting is good enough.

In my words:

"Is interesting stuff worth doing, and is using my own judgment OK, or should I stick to what tradition and authority and culture says is important?"

His best defense of reading Hacker News is not that he likes it. It is:

> I do not wish to come accross as someone who would rather be isolated

Being social is an approved activity.

Paul Graham says:

> [Hacker News is] certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that.

He has the common attitude that problems should be solved by an authority Doing Something, and that his judgment should trump the individual judgment of each reader. And he has the attitude that if people spend a lot of time doing something, that is prima facie evidence that it's a bad thing. That is backwards.

All this is a direct result of parents who educate their kids with principles like:

- it doesn't matter if you like it, do something important (aka, approved by an authority like a text book manufacturer or a tradition)

- if you like it a lot, then it's probably bad. TV, video games, ice cream, playing in preference to doing homework, etc

- your judgment can't be trusted

- if you have a problem, don't do anything, tell an authority who will fix it. e.g., self defense is banned at school, only defense by teacher is allowed. even solving an "i need to use the bathroom" problem on one's own initiative is banned.

- you have to share and socialize or you're a bad person. Ayn Rand is the devil.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#48

Post by drawkbox » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 4:21 AM UTC

It goes at the core of human development. Trial and error and results feedback loop, competition and community.

Here there are a collection of pieces of information that possibly contain valuable trial and error results; filtered by what might be a very interesting group of people. Also, competitors ways of thinking. Not to mention the other side of that the community aspect, so you aren't alone in your adventures.

So naturally you are attracted to it as it is an attractor, simple due to the possible trial and error results you might also be looking for. Anything that can touch on that natural instinct of trial and error result feedback loop, competition, community or other embedded biologically binded behaviors will win. Video games for instance hits all these for instance, nearly recession proof in the sense that they will always be played, and attract people.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#49

Post by lliiffee » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 4:46 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

It's certainly alarmingly addictive. Much more so than a newspaper. I've been wondering lately what to do about that. Any ideas? I considered shutting the site down for a couple hours a day. More people disliked that idea than liked it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593 but the vote was close enough that I might still try it.

An alternative to fully shutting down the site would be to "freeze" it. The site is available, but nothing changes. (This could even happen 24 hours per day: updates only happen every 6 hours or something.)

To me, the alarmingly addictive thing about HN is that something interesting could happen at any time. Removing this real-time aspect, HN would still be interesting, but no more addictive than a good issue of the New Yorker or whatever.

Re: Ask HN: Is Hacker News a Waste of Time?

#50

Post by randallsquared » Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 5:16 AM UTC

DavidSJ wrote: post #41

randallsquared wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree that they should. However, if someone's on the fence, pushing them in a productive direction might be something that serves our (well, pg's) goals, in which case it's not really about responsibility, but about pg's effect on others, something he will likely want to take responsibility for, at least to some extent. Or, to lift a more succinct phrase, "lead us not into temptation". ;)

"Pushing them in a productive direction" could be something like "You've been spending a lot of time here. Don't you think you should do something else?" But for all the people not on the fence, you're denying them responsibility for their own choices. I can't help but feel that your stated agreement with me that individuals should be responsible for themselves is empty if you support measures that take all choice aw…

I don't really support measures that take away choices (I'm against having the site closed for X hours per day, for example), but I do support arranging choices and defaults such that the goals of the arranger are furthered.