Sure, I incorrectly used the word ”terms” in my comment above when I meant “sentiments”. The pattern I'm referring to is best exemplified by these comments:
Go build and never speak to a human again, if that's what you want. Reject the humanity you despise.
– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48947427
The culture here is so deeply self-sabotaging because it's so deeply afraid to be human. It really gets depressing sometimes.
– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48167992
And yes many people in tech are on the spectrum. I suspect that much of what's dysfunctional with SV and tech culture is the result of raising a generation of socially awkward neurodivergent kids on 4chan and making them millionaires before their frontal lobes have even fully developed. That necessarily bleeds into HN and becomes normalized within the culture as performative cynicism, misanthropy and toxicity.
– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47165924
The fact is the ethos of this forum has become antithetical to what hacker culture and tech have become, which is incurious, misanthropic and aggressively pro AI.
– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47621066
I grin a bit whenever someone gets that infantile on what's supposed to be a board of high-minded intellectual sophisticates. But I'm serious. This forum is meant for human beings to satisfy their intellectual curiosity discussing topics of interest which are usually but don't need to be related to tech or programming. The humanity matters, even if it's damned hard to find sometimes because expressing humanity is a negative social signal here.
– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46973059
And yet if someone so much as cracks a joke they get rapped across the knuckles and lectured about a rule that doesn't actually exist (no humor allowed)? Yes, that's negative. That's a culture of performative misanthropy.
– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459037
That's the pattern I mean. It was particularly the second one – containing the line “The culture here is so deeply self-sabotaging because it's so deeply afraid to be human” – that has stuck with me, because it was so jarring, and indeed so insulting.
We have countless stories where the primary topic, or much of the discussion, is something profoundly human and warm. People building things with or for their kids, partners or other family members. People telling their stories of overcoming or succumbing to severe illness, with comment threads full of profound expressions of compassion. Individuals being victims of bad fortune or corporate dysfunction, and the community rallying to their aid and in many cases, getting their problem solved. And plenty of cases where stories about wars and other atrocities are given front page time here and the community given extensive opportunity to discuss the topic, with Dan and I spending entire work days plus many hours in the evenings and overnights managing the threads, but with the overwhelming sentiment from HN commenters being in favour of civilians and in opposition to the military aggressors.
The Alt-Right and Dark Enlightenment types have never had any foothold here, and I remember vividly when they tried, just how swiftly and efficiently the HN immune system swarmed to keep them out. It's never been a place where hustle-culture or 996 workdays have any support, and stories about corporations demanding more from their employees are always met with resistance and derision in the comments. Corporate excess and abuse is always derided here. In a site that gets over 10,000 comments on most days I can think of fewer than five regular commenters who are staunch economic conservatives, and even then they hold their views because they sincerely believe they are better for humans.
When I read these characterizations you make about HN, I really just shake my head. The community you're describing is not one I recognize. Yes, sure, in a site that gets 300,000 comments per month, you will always be able to find something that fits the narrative you want to perpetuate. Normally, I just put it down to “I guess this is just what he needs to believe” and get on with my day. But your comments above to echelon crossed the line and meant I could no longer just let it slide.
The question of whether your comments are worse than his or not is moot. Your interaction is the perfect example of two people succumbing to the Negativity Bias or the Notice-Dislike Bias and attacking each other as avatars for the forces they so worry about. Neither of you is right and neither of you is better or worse than the other; it doesn't matter if one of you made a specific comment that happens to be a more egregious guidelines breach than the other; both of you are engaging in the same harmful behaviour and it's equally important for both of you to stop the behaviour and let go of these caricature models of HN, because you're both poisoning the place by perpetuating them.
HN is not ”supposed to be a board of high-minded intellectual sophisticates”; HN is a community of reasonably-educated people discussing the pros and cons of things. The deranged techno-utopian dark-enlightenment zealots may lurk in some corners of the tech world, but they’re not on HN or at YC. Anything promoting race science, genetic supremacy or even most mentions of IQ are flagged and killed here, and serial commenters promoting such ideologies are banned.
I understand you're distressed about the dysfunction and injustice in the world. I am too, as is Dan, and most of the people whose comments I read on HN. I can see signs that echelon is too, even though you – and I – may disagree with the way he expresses that.
The worst of this is that by trying to seem like you're the one who cares about humanity, you end up demonising and “othering” many of the people here, most of whom care about the same things you care about and broadly want the same things you want. Most people here have partners and kids and nieces and nephews and friends and communities they care about and want the best for. It's such a mean-spirited mentality to portray such a large community of people as “misanthropic” or “deeply afraid to be human”, when so much of what we see here is the very opposite of that.
So, sure, go and touch grass, if you need to. And of course you're welcome back. I meant it when I said we appreciate you and what you contribute. But no more of that vicious commentary about this community, please.
(And as a final aside: we don't rap people over the knuckles or lecture anyone about cracking a joke! I can hardly think of any instance at all when I or Dan has chided anyone just for an attempted joke. And we wouldn't, geez; when Dan and I are in a room together, much of what we talk about is old comedy sketches. The guidelines ask us to avoid internet tropes and we always discourage anything lame, and sadly, many attempts at humour, everywhere online, are lame tropes (or worse, meanness masquerading as humor). When a good joke lands on HN it’s a great day. I hope that’s not a surprise to anyone.)