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I think I’m done with HN

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Re: I think I’m done with HN

#41

Post by Rochus »

hckr_news wrote: post #26
_8j50 wrote: post #18

Oh wow, this made it to the front page and it just got flagged! I was going to say how i really don't care about mainstream news topics worming their way to HN but man, this is crazy. I understand downvotes and bans but flagging this and shadowbans are hitting below the belt. Is this site for the intellectually dishonest? If not this b.s. needs to stop. How many "I quit facebook" posts make it to the front page all t…

Unfortunately users will flag content they don’t like.

Which restricts freedom of speech in an arbitrary, unlawful manner.

See e.g https://dejure.org/dienste/vernetzung/rechtsprechung?Gericht... or https://www.mondaq.com/germany/social-media/735562/munich-co...

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#43

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

free_rms wrote: post #14
azhu wrote: post #9

As a younger person, I agree, it is very disappointing. I would've guessed YC more prescient than to not realize there are tectonic cultural shifts heavily worth deep discussion happening. I've noticed that sometimes, when people rise through ranks or otherwise mature in the world of business, they become disconnected from regular humanity and forget that emotions are real signals.

(since this whole story is flagged) As an older person, this is another iteration of the same shit and unfortunately nothing will change. Part of the reason it won't change is that a bunch of upper-class white people try to make it all about their sociological theories instead of the really simple premise of "cops aren't accountable and that's not ok". They're spending their effort going after Scott Alexander, who's…

Yea anti-racism is a modern religion. It's counterproductive, and I expect a net-negative backlash than useful reform and change. No longer is it ok to affirm the human dignity and the equality of minorities. Racism is assumed globally so the question now becomes how is a person instantiating racism, not if a person is instantiating racism. It's screwed up and bizarre.

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#44

Post by blaser-waffle »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #21

> Appeal to authority with internet points > Moan that HN won't support you spilling your politics that already fill your twitter feed over into the site, despite many alternatives existing > Recognize it's a free site and it can do what it wants > Assert it's wrong, and doing wrong, by disagreeing with you, that voice of karma-provided authority > Post your Twitter rant to HN for attention > HN democratically remove…

Indeed. This is a stripped down tech news aggregator for niche audiences.

A thread or two on big cultural trends of the day makes sense but this isn't reddit or twitter.

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#45

Post by asveikau »

wayneftw wrote: post #36
asveikau wrote: post #2

On some of those peak days of BLM protests, I came on here and it was like the whole thing wasn't happening. It did seem strange. If nothing else people here should stop pretending they're above the zeitgeist. How many others remember the slashdot threads on 9/11, for example? This is a big defining moment in our times worth more conscious observance. Tech cares too.

“Tech cares too”? What does that even mean? That’s the sort of sweeping generalization about a group of people that racists make.

It means we are human beings and current events are relevant to us. We are not above it. It is not an irrelevant topic somehow beneath us.

Our professions, our tendency towards rational view of the world, should not be a mechanism to deny reality and put ourselves on pedestals, to create distance with other human beings. When we dismiss a major event as not relevant to tech that is what we are doing. I see it as somewhat egotistical.

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#46

Post by zozbot234 »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #43
free_rms wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(since this whole story is flagged) As an older person, this is another iteration of the same shit and unfortunately nothing will change. Part of the reason it won't change is that a bunch of upper-class white people try to make it all about their sociological theories instead of the really simple premise of "cops aren't accountable and that's not ok". They're spending their effort going after Scott Alexander, who's…

Yea anti-racism is a modern religion. It's counterproductive, and I expect a net-negative backlash than useful reform and change. No longer is it ok to affirm the human dignity and the equality of minorities. Racism is assumed globally so the question now becomes how is a person instantiating racism, not if a person is instantiating racism. It's screwed up and bizarre.

It's especially screwed up and bizarre because this whole fuzzy, religious outlook thoroughly obscures the relevance of real, actual, systemic racism in the workings of institutions like criminal justice (including policing) in the United States. Here you have the clearest argument for systemic racism being a real dynamic even in a developed, largely-free country like the U.S. (and presumably it's no coincidence that CRT, from which we get this notion in the first place, originated from a subfield of legal studies), and yet you probably wouldn't know this from looking at the progressive debate on this issue, which simply sticks to its meaningless, mindless religious tropes. Quite mind-boggling.

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#47

Post by kangnkodos »

I don't think there are enough threads on HN saying that vegans are right, and evil egg-eating vegetarians are wrong. Therefore, I have concluded that HN is a den of evil egg eaters. I just don't feel safe reading opinions of people who have their moral compass compromised in this way.

So I think I too am done with HN.

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#48

Post by jka »

asveikau wrote: post #2

On some of those peak days of BLM protests, I came on here and it was like the whole thing wasn't happening. It did seem strange. If nothing else people here should stop pretending they're above the zeitgeist. How many others remember the slashdot threads on 9/11, for example? This is a big defining moment in our times worth more conscious observance. Tech cares too.

Note that there's a function available to view the historic frontpage content on HN for a given date:

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=YYYY-MM-DD

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#49

Post by dang »

_8j50 wrote: post #18

Oh wow, this made it to the front page and it just got flagged! I was going to say how i really don't care about mainstream news topics worming their way to HN but man, this is crazy. I understand downvotes and bans but flagging this and shadowbans are hitting below the belt. Is this site for the intellectually dishonest? If not this b.s. needs to stop. How many "I quit facebook" posts make it to the front page all t…

I did pay attention, because the OP's claims are false. When people say false things about HN and try to gin up outrage with them, I unfortunately feel obliged to respond.

If you haven't seen these comments, and are willing to read them, I'd be curious to hear if you feel like there's anything that remains unaddressed. I listed 52 threads but it could just as easily have been 102.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624916

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962

Since you mention intellectual honesty: do you think the OP or any of the people who jumped to the same false conclusions will correct anything? I would be surprised if they did, even though acknowledging a mistake of this nature is the bare minimum that intellectual honesty requires.

Edit: on reflection, that last bit crossed a line and I owe the OP an apology. It's one thing to go on about intellectual honesty in general but there was a specific person in the mix and I should have left more room for the possibility that I was misunderstanding him, especially since I know how easy that is on the internet. I was doing the very thing I was complaining about—jumping to conclusions! Sometimes it takes a while to realize this, but it's embarrassingly obvious now. I've told the OP that I'm sorry, and want to say so publicly also.

Re: I think I’m done with HN

#50

Post by dang »

bichiliad wrote: post #23
yongjik wrote: post #22

Not sure why anybody's upset that HN didn't have much discussion on, above anything, George Floyd. HN discourages (and always discouraged) "me too" style remarks, like "Oh that's awful", "that's outrageous", or "that's gross injustice!" But exactly what other reasonable opinions are available here? I mean, would you want to see people discussing here whether Derek Chauvin was justified in killing George Floyd? Becaus…

I think there's a lot more to discuss other than Derek Chauvin's culpability. HN is full of really bright people; I'd love to hear what they think about tech's role in enabling police brutality like this to exist, and what is in our capacity to do to help solve the problem.

In that case you may be glad to see how many major discussions like that HN has hosted in the past few weeks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962

Sorry not to have listed the titles, but there are many tech-overlapping threads in there, and many more that I didn't list. HN Search can help—for example:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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