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

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

#771

Post by denom »

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.…

Man, this strikes me as a really lopsided exercise. And to what end? The visceral reactions about politics are a part of US society. Hiding what's going on only makes things worse. As hackers, we should be finding a shared language to work these problems out.

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

#773

Post by drvdevd »

mattnewton wrote: post #232
chrissnell wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

I agree with you and the first question that came to my mind was: what constitutes political discussion? I believe that, like it or not, the cat is out of the bag and Hacking/technology in general is very much entwined with politics. Thus I'm interested in the "hacker" point of view on these topics...

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

#774

Post by bootload »

While I agree with the idea, HN as a whole cannot totally avoid these kinds of issues: "Tech Companies Delay Diversity Reports to Rethink Goals". I haven't posted the link because it's not in the spirit of the detox and it's only one week. Do we avoid these types of discussions because they are ambiguous and hard?

  "Fashion is mistaken for good design; 
   moral fashion is mistaken for good."
I understand the re-calibration of HN here. The choice of topics drift over periods of time and a reminder of the rationale is good hygiene.

   "Moral fashions more often seem to be 
    created deliberately. When there's 
    something we can't say, it's often 
    because some group doesn't want us to."
I'm also reminded of a great essay [0] that for today should be mandatory reading.

[0] "What you can't Say" ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

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

#775

Post by [deleted] »

pauloday wrote: post #770
Mz wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us unwashed masses [1] loathe political drivel and totally support [2] this move. 1 I only refer to myself as part of the unwashed masses because: A) I am not actually a programmer B) I am incredibly poor and C) I literally do not bathe frequently due to said extreme poverty as I am homeless. ;-) 2 Evidence of total support: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108692

You seem exactly like the type of person that should be here, don't worry :) I don't know what they meant by "unwashed masses", but it kind of seems like there have been a lot of new posters coming here to talk about politics and nothing else. Honestly I think this site started getting mentioned a lot more on Reddit (especially the technology sub), and more people from there started posting here because they felt it…

[deleted]

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

#776

Post by tropo »

estsauver wrote: post #506

This doesn't feel nonpartisan, it feels like it's actively quashing what little political traction can be gained here. And frankly, a 'detox' is absolutely the wrong word for it. The emotions for me at least come from feeling scared. I have several family members who will lose coverage if the ACA is repealed and I have muslim friends who are looking at the prospect of being sent to interment camps. This is anger and…

Realize that the other half of the country is also scared. They too have anger (at ACA not being repealed yet) and fear (that muslims probably won't be interned) and they too want this cultivated, not extinguished.

They want political traction too.

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

#777

Post by enraged_camel »

flashman wrote: post #561
idlewords wrote: post #380

This is a terrible decision. The tech industry has built powerful tools of social control, and runs vast databases of private data on pretty much everyone in the country. We have a golden period of forty-some days before a new administration comes to power that has shown every intent of using that information to deport people and create a national Muslim registry. We need to be talking about the political implication…

Not to mention that "can we please stop with all the politics" is not political neutrality , it's a position that supports the status quo. Silence assists certain forms of repression.

Precisely. When you hear the phrase "can we stop talking about politics" it is almost always coming from the privileged who are benefiting massively from the status quo.

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

#778

Post by gkafkg8y8 »

scotch_drinker wrote: post #469
nneonneo wrote: post #174

Many of the top-level comments here are against this move. I, on the other hand, would like to express my strong support for this move. Hacker News has never been an anything-goes site. Tight moderation, considerate rules, and low tolerance for bullshit have made this a great site to talk about interesting technical topics and ideas. Remember that we all abide by the rules of the site, and that this isn't a magic fre…

I really wish this top level comment could get some traction. People seem to think that because something is important to them, it should be important to the community but that's not how communities work. I for one feel that no amount of discussion of politics on HN is going to meaningfully change or move forward the debate and is unlikely to be instructive to people who have already made up their minds. What I love…

> It would be interesting to know how they will judge the results of this experiment when it concludes.

Personally, I don't plan to discuss politics any more or less than when this topic was posted, so I guess I'm not part of the experiment.

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

#779

Post by humanrebar »

scotch_drinker wrote: post #469
nneonneo wrote: post #174

Many of the top-level comments here are against this move. I, on the other hand, would like to express my strong support for this move. Hacker News has never been an anything-goes site. Tight moderation, considerate rules, and low tolerance for bullshit have made this a great site to talk about interesting technical topics and ideas. Remember that we all abide by the rules of the site, and that this isn't a magic fre…

I really wish this top level comment could get some traction. People seem to think that because something is important to them, it should be important to the community but that's not how communities work. I for one feel that no amount of discussion of politics on HN is going to meaningfully change or move forward the debate and is unlikely to be instructive to people who have already made up their minds. What I love…

> I for one feel that no amount of discussion of politics on HN is going to meaningfully change or move forward the debate and is unlikely to be instructive to people who have already made up their minds.

I feel like healthy political discussion would be a meaningful change. If thoughtful people all abstain from the topic, it will surely get worse. The immediate goal isn't to "win" arguments. It's not to be confused about why someone would disagree. Or even agree! Maybe they do but there's no place to say that.

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

#780

Post by headcanon »

A lot of people seem to be reacting to the idea that all political discussion will always be banned forever on HN. Politics is important and affects everything in its own way, but this is just a post-election cooldown from all the super-polarizing Trump bullshit that has been preoccupying America for the past eighteen months. We're going to have plenty more to talk about starting January; I for one, welcome the break.
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