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I've been involved with other sites where the political discussions overwhelmed the core topic, and the audience just collapsed in a tailspin of high emotions.
I hope Hacker News doesn't go that route.
http://edu.mkrecny.com/thoughts/be-nice-to-programmers
Both that article and this one resonated with me on a certain level. Software development can be such a hypercritical field, involving so much self-recrimination.
That, in turn, reminds me of Alan Cooper's characterization of Homo Logicus in The Inmates Are Running The Asylum. Programmers are forced to look at all possibilities, and are trained to point out even extremely unlikely cases. This emphasis on edge-cases is confusing and counter-intuitive to non-programmers, who tend to think in terms of probable cases.
Perhaps too much concentrated attention on possible cases is turning us all sour.
When I discovered Hacker News, I loved it because it seemed to be 100% about technology and internet startups. It doesn't feel like that to me any more. I've been involved with other sites where the political discussions overwhelmed the core topic, and the audience just collapsed in a tailspin of high emotions. I hope Hacker News doesn't go that route.
I'm pretty new here, but I enjoy reading about the future of programming languages alongside posts about Marcus Aurelius' writings. It just seems that it's mostly content about being the best you that you can be and having a broad range of knowledge.
When I discovered Hacker News, I loved it because it seemed to be 100% about technology and internet startups. It doesn't feel like that to me any more. I've been involved with other sites where the political discussions overwhelmed the core topic, and the audience just collapsed in a tailspin of high emotions. I hope Hacker News doesn't go that route.
I kind of like the mixed bag that Hacker News seems to be. I'm pretty new here, but I enjoy reading about the future of programming languages alongside posts about Marcus Aurelius' writings. It just seems that it's mostly content about being the best you that you can be and having a broad range of knowledge.
I like a good balance of topics, keeps things interesting (and more importantly, continues to get me interested in other subjects / topics).
When I discovered Hacker News, I loved it because it seemed to be 100% about technology and internet startups. It doesn't feel like that to me any more. I've been involved with other sites where the political discussions overwhelmed the core topic, and the audience just collapsed in a tailspin of high emotions. I hope Hacker News doesn't go that route.
I've been working as a developer for about 10 years, and was involved in some tech communities for about 6 or 7 years prior to that (early high school, doing things like LAN parties, Linux install fests, and generally socializing amongst the "nerd" set). If there's an overwhelmingly common personality defect I've seen amongst tech aficionados, it's a proclivity towards the negative. My observation is that people with…
This tends to lead to a very negative outlook, but is more a consequence of pragmatic mental habit than anything.
That said, like everyone else I've noticed that pragmatic negativity doesn't translate well to other parts of life. Switching mindsets from "what's wrong and how does it need to be fixed" to "what's enjoyable" can be quite a leap when you're used to thinking a certain way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of like the mixed bag that Hacker News seems to be. I'm pretty new here, but I enjoy reading about the future of programming languages alongside posts about Marcus Aurelius' writings. It just seems that it's mostly content about being the best you that you can be and having a broad range of knowledge.
Agreed, I love the diversity which is why I continue reading HN. I like a good balance of topics, keeps things interesting (and more importantly, continues to get me interested in other subjects / topics).
I've been working as a developer for about 10 years, and was involved in some tech communities for about 6 or 7 years prior to that (early high school, doing things like LAN parties, Linux install fests, and generally socializing amongst the "nerd" set). If there's an overwhelmingly common personality defect I've seen amongst tech aficionados, it's a proclivity towards the negative. My observation is that people with…
Did you notice, however, that the only explanations you went to for these negative approaches were "dealing with people not as logical as us" and "genetic personality defect"? What's the common thread in these answers? They're both examples of blame externalization (and thus perserving cognitive dissonance - you're great the way you are!). If it's other people, you're not in the wrong, you don't need to change. If it's genetic, then it's hard-coded, and try as you might, you're going to have a hell of a time fixing it.
Now maybe you're right, and maybe you're wrong. Who am I to say? Your points aren't invalid, just biased, and it's clear to see where it's coming from. But I think the best way to negate this negativity (ha, ha?) is by having people turn the mirror on themselves, first and foremost, before judging others.
How much of this negativity could be spared to begin with if people just thought about how they would feel in someone else's shoes?
It's awesome that you've seen an upward trend in positivity. You said you've been working on it yourself, you're definitely part of what's making it better!
Or maybe we complain, to take the example of sexism, because there is a real problem. That needs to be addressed. And given that the first two items you address are code of conduct & sexism, I can't help but think "Of course a white male programmer wouldn't see an issue with that". To be very clear, not because I think all white males are mean-spirited misogynists. Most of them are pretty nice people, in my experienc…
> And then let's fix them.
Ok, so stop with your sexists & racist stereotypes.
When I discovered Hacker News, I loved it because it seemed to be 100% about technology and internet startups. It doesn't feel like that to me any more. I've been involved with other sites where the political discussions overwhelmed the core topic, and the audience just collapsed in a tailspin of high emotions. I hope Hacker News doesn't go that route.
You can help by flagging submissions on (mostly US) politics that are off-topic. I rarely flag, but do in such cases as those threads suck a lot of oxygen out of this place.
To me all politics is off-topic - I'm interested in the technology discussions.