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

#431

Post by bargl » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:31 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #406

bargl wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathize with your view, but I very much disagree with you. 1) It's an experiment, there should never be any disagreement with an experiment unless the experiment itself can cause harm to someone/something. The results of this experiment should be evaluated closely, and if they make new guidelines for HN I'm fully onboard. But it's an experiment. 2) The person who shot the gun did not read HN, I may be wrong but I…

2) It's not relevant whether the shooter read HN, but there could be very fruitful discussions as to how this was instigated because of social media of which is mainly built by tech in the bay area. 3) 24 hour news may be an issue of degradation but fake news perpetuated within giant tech companies is also an issue. You cannot talk about fake news without going into the politics of it.

OK I'd go on and emphasize. 1) 1) 1) 1).

It is an experiment. That's a good thing. Let's talk about solving Fake News in a week. If they try to ban politics on HN in a week I'll get up in arms with you.

3) perpetuated by the users of software distributed by giant tech companies

To finish up: It is an experiment.

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

#432

Post by dang » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #419

mattnewton wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rub is, a lot of difficult conversations lead to what are effectively political answers. Take the amazon go which is on the front page right now. We need to be able to have a conversation about job displacing technologies, and hacker news has been a good venue for smart, civilized discussion on the topic. I'm all for flagging uncivilized discussions, but eliminating discussions outright because they might make pe…

Yeah, it honestly seems like HN should split into two forums effectively. Tech (No politics, etc.) / Not Tech. The trying to force it all into a single view seems to be creating some friction.

The distinction isn't tech/notech. That's the most important thing to understand about this whole site!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I do think the purely political forum that a minority of users here seem to want, would best be served by a different site.

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

#433

Post by jowiar » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #342

jowiar wrote: post #198

When "politics" is treated as "things that affect other people that we opine about", this decision makes sense. But this decision is the epitome of privilege. To enter a space thinking "I'm not going to think about politics" is to be someone whose sheer existence in that space isn't a political statement in and of itself. And for many, such a space is "The United States", "The Tech Community", "HN", or whatnot. Sayin…

should be fired on the spot Someone should lose their job for coming up with the idea in an attempt to increase the signal to noise ratio of the site?

If the community as a whole defines signal to be "Which bits are going to flip" and noise to be "How are folks going to put dinner on the table when we flip that bit?", I don't want to be part of that.

The "someone" I'm referring to here almost certainly, in reality, isn't one person. And the "entity" who did this certainly should lose their position -- it's a privilege we've granted them for far too long.

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

#434

Post by throw2016 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This camel in the sand approach clamors to roll back to a time when tech was not political.

But now tech is political, surveillance and the surveillance economy being built by SV companies is political, techologists working for the government building invasive surveillance systems is political, the betrayal of people by a technical elite is political, the censorship advocated by social media based out of sv is political, AI is political.

Ignoring this is like an arms supplier turning a blind eye to his weapons used to kill innocents choosing to focus on specifications. ie a world without morality. That's not protecting values or intellectual curiosity, its killing it.

The kind of forum HN has morphed into for lack of an alternative cannot be run by an organization with commercial interests. Then you get knee jerk arbitary decisions like this that begets a culture of passivity accepting what ever is handed down to you. I think the technical voice needs more robust expression and to speak as one with the rest of the population rather than seek isolation and alienation.

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

#435

Post by Zenguitar777 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

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 support political detox week in HN!! Great idea! I was just ready a story and someone got in a political jab and the comment thread was off to the races. I took refuge in HN to GET AWAY from the hateful and uncivilized ranting that other news sites tolerate. As cliche' as this might seem, it was once considered the height of politeness to leave your political and religious baggage on the front porch and not bring it to the dinner table!

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

#436

Post by epaga » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

Though I do not consider this a wise move, it is limited to a week so I don't think the "harm" will be that great (however, nor do I think the benefit will be at all worth the effort of explaining the flags to people who didn't see this Tell HN).

The reason I don't consider it wise is that I think the current political situation is completely unique at least in my lifetime (Rather, this time around there are Real Issues that are Important. The current trend of populism will have global ramifications for many decades to come. Not allowing discussion on these topics seems counter-productive to me.

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

#437

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

Hi,

my personal POV is that a lot of issues affecting the tech community at large resolve to politics in the end - be it the fight of cities and entire countries against AirBnB and Uber for example, the infamous Flint water disaster, the "fake news" battle, internet censorship, snoopers' overreach, the role of Big Data in elections, voting machine fraud...

Nearly every story (even those about new startups "disrupting" a specific market - markets ripe for disruption are usually created by political decisions, be it Republicans or Democrats!) has its base in politics, and I believe it is our duty as citizens and educated people to call politicians and their parties out when they mess stuff up.

Therefore, I believe that prohibiting political discussions outright is a dangerous move - I'm all fine with penalties or flagging if a discussion devolves into outright fight, but not for simply bringing up the topic.

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

#438

Post by trowawee » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:34 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #419

mattnewton wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rub is, a lot of difficult conversations lead to what are effectively political answers. Take the amazon go which is on the front page right now. We need to be able to have a conversation about job displacing technologies, and hacker news has been a good venue for smart, civilized discussion on the topic. I'm all for flagging uncivilized discussions, but eliminating discussions outright because they might make pe…

Yeah, it honestly seems like HN should split into two forums effectively. Tech (No politics, etc.) / Not Tech. The trying to force it all into a single view seems to be creating some friction.

Except, as tons of people have already pointed out, there is no way to talk about tech without talking about politics. Is research about how the Google search algorithm or Facebook's news feed shapes users' opinions tech or not-tech? Is a story about Uber researching autonomous cars with the intention of eliminating drivers in its own industry and industries like trucking tech or not-tech?

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

#439

Post by ythn » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:34 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #421

ythn wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already get TONS of political crap thrown at me on facebook and reddit, why would I want my last bastion of pure, unadulterated technology news also tainted by the very thing I'm trying to avoid? I want to come here to discuss code and technology, not to argue about Trump or Clinton.

I think this is where good judgement comes into play. If there's an argument about Trump or Clinton, clearly it's off topic. If there's an argument about how a technology will be impacted by some element of the current political landscape, that seems reasonable. Others have stated this elsewhere in the thread, but it's often impossible to avoid politics altogether. I'm completely with you about posts that are purely…

I guess I just interpreted "politics" to mean left vs. right bickering, not the nuanced ethics of self-driving cars or whatever. The left vs. right never-ending debates are what I want to avoid.

If an article clearly has a pro-left/right spin, I don't want to read it.

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

#440

Post by finid » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 9:35 PM UTC

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 couldn't upvote your comment fast enough.

This whole idea about avoiding political discussions strikes me as very counter-productive. It reminds me of a quote attributed to a well-known person who once traveled these parts: Those who feel too intelligent to engage in politics will be governed by the less intelligent members of society.

That's not the exact quote, but I think it captures it very well.

More than at any other time, this is the time to be very engaged in political discussions, because our future is being decided right now.

If intelligent people refuse to be part of that discussion, we won't like the result.