211–220 of 302 posts
I have discovered a ton of interesting books and other resources from that section alone.
If you simply avoid the politics and news and stick with sections like Ask HN, I think you gain much upside and little downside.
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The grandparent to my post was talking about politics, not repetition. I shouldn't have strayed and conceded that it's repetitive because this is my point: hacker-politics is on topic here.
"hacker politics" is in the eye of the beholder. There's no clear delineation between "politics" and "hacker politics" in an age when Facebook can be used to organize a genocide. One could say that many Trump stories are "hacker politics" because of Trump's unprecedented use of social media, and the effect that social media as a whole has had on the American political landscape since his election, leading to the "fak…
Stories about "the effect that social media as a whole has had on the American political landscape" could be on-topic. That doesn't necessarily make US politics in general on-topic.
Stories about "the influence of social media platforms and their ability to manipulate public perception" could be on-topic. That doesn't necessarily make stories about "fake news" in general on-topic.
Stories about the Wikileaks organisation could be on-topic. That doesn't necessarily make stories derived from the contents of particular leaks on-topic.
Stories about the DNC data leak could be on-topic. That doesn't necessarily make stories derived from the contents of the DNC data leak on-topic.
Stories about gender and racial disparity in tech and programming could be on-topic. That doesn't necessarily make stories about gender and racial disparity in general on-topic.
Stories about an Antifa or BLM hacking group could be on-topic. That doesn't neccessarily make stories about Antifa or BLM in general on-topic.
Personally, I don't find this distinction particularly hard. As for "bias", I've seen sentiments on this site that could broadly be categorised as Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, etc. Of course, there is a heavy political bias, but I'd say it's generally just "US-centric" (which is to be expected, as this is a US site); e.g. as a UK citizen I find some of the comments very bizarre (usually anything involving guns, healthcare, abortion, etc.). It can still be interesting, and if not I can just collapse the thread or close the page.
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> 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…
HN is a great place to study bad logic - people are smart enough to avoid the common fallacies, so you get some interesting bad forms. That said, where can you have an conversation, without requiring qualification to entry, about complex topics without bad arguments getting in the way of progress?
Ok, you've got my attention. Where can you have a conversation that requires qualification and is about similar topics?
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Depends on the timezone, I guess? When I browse, it's a mix between the two groups and a third group that upvotes and engages with the post you said "hackers in the archetypical sense" would. (The timezone thing is starting to become my stock reply; when I browse the semi-regular threads of how HN is going downhill or no longer populated by hackers, half of the claims disagree with my daily experience on this site. C…
> Depends on the timezone, I guess? Of course you would say that, given your username!
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Nah, there's a lot of nuggets there. Keep away from the political trash and follow people who post interesting things that you like. For example, I like old video games, so I follow people who talk about old video games. This guy posts cool, obscure Mario trivia: https://twitter.com/MarioBrothBlog A wiki about cut content in old games retweets cool new finds: https://twitter.com/CuttingRoomWiki This non-profit posts…
Those are cool, but the problem is that Twitter shows you a load of turds for any nuggets. I just want it to click your link and read a thread, instead they minimize a thread and show me politics and celebrities below, and trending stuff on the right (desktop). On the old reddit at least (stopped using after the new launch), if I went to /r/technology I’d only see /r/technology and that was pure nuggets. You could al…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
You’re just rebranding a weakness as a strength.
This was an extraordinarily poignant quote that I empathize with greatly. The only reason I’m sharing it as a comment is because I believe that I can now also gain some karma with it as well.
What does this mean? Are these the beginning signs of an addiction to fake internet points?