Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#281

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:44 PM UTC

knz wrote: post #115

pshc wrote: post #30

Tribalism is so toxic. I'm all for this. But for flagging purposes what's the boundary between a political/non-political story? EDIT: @dang in another comment: Let me clarify. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet. We're not so concerned about stories on other things that happen to have polit…

> Tribalism is so toxic. And yet isn't one solution to tribalism a respectful exchange of ideas and dialogue? Political changes have many direct impacts on this community - net neutrality, education policy related to STEM, funding for organizations/government agencies that have a long history of supporting technology, legislation concerning the development of new technologies (particularly for the medical and energy…

> And yet isn't one solution to tribalism a respectful exchange of ideas and dialogue?

Yes. And HN may in fact be a good forum for doing so, if we can keep the respectful and dialogue parts.

This may not be the week for it, though. (The last two weeks haven't been so great for civil, thoughtful dialog on anything touching politics, even on HN.) If HN is going to be the place to counter political tribalism via thoughtful cross-tribe communication, it may need this week off in order to be able to get there.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#282

Post by grzm » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

kushti wrote: post #153

How can HNers discuss topics having "China" / "Russia" in their titles? These are inviting words for many millennials to commit to their media narratives.

These are inviting words for many millennials to commit to their media narratives.

This type of perspective is in my opinion part of the problem, and not recognizing that this type of comment is itself part of its own narrative. When the discussions descend into repeating talking points or following a narrative, it's no longer a thoughtful, inquisitive discussion. Given that you've included one such example in the meta-discussion is indicative of how ingrained some of this "anti-discussion" is and hard to get away from.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#283

Post by johnchristopher » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

Well. Let me just flag this post since its a political one.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#284

Post by cLeEOGPw » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

Arcsech wrote: post #51

Who decides what's "political"? Are discussions of regulations surrounding Uber political? The ongoing Tesla/dealership feuds? Using machine learning to detect fake news? New immigration policy that impacts H1B tech workers? The impact of Brexit on tech companies? Restrictions on cryptography? I'm split on this: On one hand, firm moderation and keeping things on-topic makes for a good forum for discussion. On the oth…

"Political" = anything mods don't like. Soon this will be like reddit and other "politically correct" places. It would be nice to know about changes in mod positions, because I suspect there might be few in order to implement "correct" political atmosphere.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#285

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

rcavezza wrote: post #66

I disagree. I think if there was ever a time in the history of the world where more political discourse needs to occur, it should be now. I think this is especially true with such a smart group of individuals trying to change the world in many different arenas.

More reasoned, thoughtful, polite political discourse? Absolutely. More yelling without listening? No, the world doesn't need another platform where that happens.

The goal here is to let people get past the yelling so that we can get back to the thoughtful, polite discourse.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#286

Post by bambax » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

> HN is a garden

and Attila is going to trample all over it.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#287

Post by 551199 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #158

tarikjn wrote: post #62

I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then p…

I actually haven't seen very many political stories on here. I've personally avoided most of the political crap too, so maybe I just didn't click on a lot of it (and therefore selectively un-memoryed it). I don't feel this need to be an explicit policy. I mean it gets into the entire "what is politics debate." Hackernews is about hacking (software, hardware, life), and I still see tons of that on here -- well that an…

They seem to be flagged on this site. You rarely see them stay up for long.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#288

Post by mjg59 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:48 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #48

rustyfe wrote: post #32

One question that interests/concerns me is making judgement calls about what is/is not a political story. Some links will be cut and dry, some will not. Some comments will be immediately identified as political, some will just be politics adjacent. For instance, on a story about self driving cars, will it be appropriate to talk about UBI? On a story about cryptography, will it be acceptable to talk about how it appli…

Right, it's not possible to define "politics" precisely, and it would be a mistake to try. But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by. We can clarify, though. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet.…

Hi dang,

Quick question for clarification - would http://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-companies-delay-diversity-r... fall into the kind of race and gender issues that you'd block this week?

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#289

Post by BHSPitMonkey » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:48 PM UTC

s_q_b wrote: post #255

I live in Northwest Washington, D.C. I am a technologist, a government contractor, and an HN member for many years under various accounts since 2008. I respectfully disagree. Yesterday someone motivated by the "Pizzagate" story, spread and enabled by the social media systems we designed , fired multiple shots from a semi-automatic weapon into a crowded restaurant near my home. My partner and I passed the crime scene…

I think the question is not whether the issues are important, it's whether they're on-topic right here. Your example is meaningful but that doesn't mean it should be discussed on Reddit under /r/comics or /r/cooking. Since HN doesn't have categories/subreddits, I think there's a diverging sense of what readers want to find when they come here.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#290

Post by serge2k » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:48 PM UTC

chrissnell wrote: post #205

tarikjn wrote: post #62

I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then p…

I fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it…

How is this any different than people getting downvoted for questioning the ability of Tesla to execute on an insane timeline or any of the other random things go against the HN hivemind?

I'd suggest not caring about downvotes.