This is just a natural consequence of Hacker News not being a free market. The state controls of the karma system practically guarantee inefficiency in the free exchange of ideas. We need to stop subsidizing mediocrity.
Hacker News is a social echo chamber
21–30 of 206 posts
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#22In other words, a place focused on particular subjects (technology, programming, science) collects people with similar life experiences, interests, worldviews, etc.
That kind of thinking betrays the idea of diversity existing within those fields.
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#23I tend to agree with the premise of the article, but found this line from a self described "big government" type, funny: We have always been at war with Eastasia.
big government != mind control.
EDIT: to add, I thought that Orwell actually wrote an essay called "I am on the left" although I can't now find it. He was definitely not right wing - he was just very critical of communism as a supposedly left wing system.
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#24Is there any online discussion place that isn't to some degree an echo chamber?
4chan. Anonymous (well, you can use a trip, but you'll be mocked for it). No downvotes. Very limited moderation, and what there is has a lot of transparency. There's, inevitably, a lot of low-level trolling, but you also get some amazingly original insights.
4chan [...] amazingly original insights.
On /b/? Where?
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#25Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#26Flamewars != disagreements. Discouraging flamewars (namecalling, counterproductive arguing that devolves into ad hominem and unrelated attacks) doesn't mean it kills stories that generate disagreement and discussion. I've had many a disagreement in HN threads, been convinced that my original stance was wrong, and (I believe) convinced others that their original stance was wrong (or incomplete, or to change something…
"Flamewar" is such a Paul Graham term that doesn't really help with dealing with the problem. I'd rather use the reddit terminology of "controversial discussions" where people are coming from very different places. I think the problems with Hacker News has more to do with a failure to account for those situations over the echo chamber discussions where everyone is in (borderline-insufferable) agreement.
> "Flamewar" is such a Paul Graham term
We were discussing flame wars on Slashdot before News.YC (ahem, Hacker News) even existed. People on the internet before then were discussing flame wars on usenet (as the parent post mentions).
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#27Flamewars != disagreements. Discouraging flamewars (namecalling, counterproductive arguing that devolves into ad hominem and unrelated attacks) doesn't mean it kills stories that generate disagreement and discussion. I've had many a disagreement in HN threads, been convinced that my original stance was wrong, and (I believe) convinced others that their original stance was wrong (or incomplete, or to change something…
"Flamewar" is such a Paul Graham term that doesn't really help with dealing with the problem. I'd rather use the reddit terminology of "controversial discussions" where people are coming from very different places. I think the problems with Hacker News has more to do with a failure to account for those situations over the echo chamber discussions where everyone is in (borderline-insufferable) agreement.
I'm fairly certain that Paul Graham doesn't hold the copyright on the word "flamewar". There's no "Paul Graham term" about it. We all understand what a flamewar is, plus or minus a handful of picked nits.
The HN flamewar detector isn't a human being. It's a software algorithm. It doesn't care about the subject of the flamewar or take that into account. It only looks for certain posting patterns.
What you're asking for is something that discriminates (no negativity intended) "controversial discussions" from "flamewars" - where "controversial discussion" is pretty much defined as "stuff I want to talk about".
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#28Flamewars != disagreements. Discouraging flamewars (namecalling, counterproductive arguing that devolves into ad hominem and unrelated attacks) doesn't mean it kills stories that generate disagreement and discussion. I've had many a disagreement in HN threads, been convinced that my original stance was wrong, and (I believe) convinced others that their original stance was wrong (or incomplete, or to change something…
The end result is the same though, HN conceals any controversial subjects, even ones that are important to the vitality of our industry.
The topic is undoubtedly important, but is the discussion of the topic specifically on HN really vital to our industry?
I question this because such discussions seem to be, in practice, the exact opposite of productive. They are not so much discussions as they are internet shouting matches. I doubt very few people walk away from those discussions with altered perspectives.
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#29Flamewars != disagreements. Discouraging flamewars (namecalling, counterproductive arguing that devolves into ad hominem and unrelated attacks) doesn't mean it kills stories that generate disagreement and discussion. I've had many a disagreement in HN threads, been convinced that my original stance was wrong, and (I believe) convinced others that their original stance was wrong (or incomplete, or to change something…
"Flamewar" is such a Paul Graham term that doesn't really help with dealing with the problem. I'd rather use the reddit terminology of "controversial discussions" where people are coming from very different places. I think the problems with Hacker News has more to do with a failure to account for those situations over the echo chamber discussions where everyone is in (borderline-insufferable) agreement.
[deleted]
Re: Hacker News is a social echo chamber
#30HN is privately run by pg. He's allowed to set the rules whichever way he wants. Just because the author wants it to be run a certain way doesn't mean that it should. If he doesn't like how it's done and thinks that issues that he believes are important should be discussed, he should make his own news aggregator site, instead of trying to hijack an already-established site for his own agenda. If the majority start di…
Uh no. You can criticize HN while also claiming pg has the right to do what he wants. Oh look, the article does just that: "Hacker News is a privately run site and nobody's under any obligation to change how they choose to run it. But the focus on avoiding conflict to such an extent that controversial stories receive less exposure than ones that fit people's existing beliefs doesn't enhance our community. "
Oh look, I never once said the author wasn't allowed to criticize the way HN was run. I said that if he wants something different, then do it himself instead of trying to hijack HN for his purposes.