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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

#871

Post by dang »

denom wrote: post #771
dang wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes we should, but the creative energy you're alluding to is the first thing to leave when the vitriol starts flowing.

What should we do? I don't know, but I don't think a week off is going to hurt anybody.

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

#872

Post by yosefk »

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…

As someone tempted to comment on politics, I'd love for the detox to continue indefinitely, with an instant lifetime ban for the first offence.

HN doesn't add much to politics (it looks just like that kind of discussion would look anywhere else) but politics does detract from HN (firstly because you get less of what HN has that is less prevalent elsewhere, and secondly because politics is great at distracting attention from everything else.)

This would not be a controversial statement if "politics" were replaced with "pornography" and I think the two are, in this context, very much a like - you can have none, or you can have just that one thing as they do in many places and that too "works" in its own way, but having a little works badly.

(And if anything, if HN had porn it'd be easier to ignore it than politics because with politics, not only do you need to avoid the temptation to read about it but also to argue with the harebrained viewpoint in the comments that threatens your family, country and the entire humanity, and then they have to avoid the temptation to push back against my harebrained arguments threatening their family, country and the entire humanity. And just standing there and doing nothing when humanity is at risk, for the sake of a goal so narrow and insignificant as keeping HN about one thing and not another, is very, very hard.)

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

#873

Post by Frqy3 »

ProAm wrote: post #52
dang wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my idea and has nothing to do with political preferences, though the election season was probably a factor. It has to do with us noticing an uptick in two undesirable things: harsh ideological comments, and accounts that use HN primarily for political battle. You can see one example of how the idea developed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052458

Interesting, I have noticed the change in discussion but a ban seems a swing too far in the other direction, but it also no go unfettered. I guess we'll see how it goes. I'd like to see what gets defined as being 'political'. To play devils advocate there are several YC backed companies that lobby and contribute to politicians.

I think defining political is going to be tricky. For example, is a discussion about fake news vs censorship political? Is the answer different if we are talking about China vs the US? What about discussing a company that provides fake news detection as service?

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

#874

Post by postcarnival »

nneonneo wrote: post #861
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…

I don't mean to offend, but I think that this is not a rational comment. I think it illustrates my point that rational discourse can rapidly become irrational when politics get involved. Again, I stress that this is why I am strongly in favor of a moratorium on politics on HN. You express a fear that Trump is going to somehow strongarm, subpoena, or otherwise force tech companies to roll over and give over private da…

Thank you for taking the words out of my mouth, except that I have confidence in Trump and his ability to lead our nation. Remember, Peter Thiel is on his transition team...

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

#875

Post by dang »

japhyr wrote: post #41

I understand the sentiment here, but it sounds a little...wishful. Our political climate is affecting all of us in many ways, and we need to process what's happening. We need to do that carefully and constructively. I want to know the subtle political aspects of many of the stories I read on HN. That said, I'll play along for the week. I hope what comes out of this is a push to encourage critical thinking about the p…

Thanks for this. Your willingness to be open-minded is very much in the spirit of the idea.

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

#876

Post by postcarnival »

cinquemb wrote: post #798
olalonde wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this type of comment is precisely why I support a ban on political discussion on HN. You're just preaching to the choir. I've read this same comment in one form or another for hundreds, if not thousands of times on HN. If anything, a dissenting opinion (e.g. one in favor of Trump or the NSA) could add something new to the conversation but it would get down voted to hell and get ugly pretty fast.

>If anything, a dissenting opinion (e.g. one in favor of Trump or the NSA) could add something new to the conversation but it would get down voted to hell and get ugly pretty fast. I'll take the bait. About a little of a year ago, when I worked in a lab, some of my colleagues routinely laughed and mocked Trump and boasted how he had no chance in hell (as well as fueling fire with continued patronage of sites and news…

the ultimate safe-space

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

#877

Post by 3131s »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #828
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…

You can't bully people into caring about things, sorry. Most people here would rather talk about solar power or functional programming than the political implications of whatever, and trying to guilt them into cooperation is just going to make them crankier.

Nobody is asking them to participate in these discussions. I could not care less about anything posted to HN relating to Windows or MacOS, but I wouldn't downvote those posts just because I personally have no interest in them.

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

#878

Post by debaserab2 »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #827
Bud wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing one of the most intelligent and rational communities from the political debate (albeit temporarily, although I fear that a permanent ban might be considered) will only make the overall political debate even less rational, in addition to taking away a space where technologists can discuss these matters. I respectfully disagree that discussion of politics on HN cannot "meaningfully change or move forward the d…

Suggesting that mixing HN and politics will improve HN is like suggesting that mixing wine and poison will improve the poison. The political discussions on HN have been typified by flaming, bullying, groupthink, and appeals to emotion, which tends to ooze out into the less-political topics and damage them too. This site is far better off without them.

I don't know. Even if the flaming and groupthink rhetoric is there, it doesn't mean that there's no one on the other side listening. Maybe they are just spectating and not posting. There is an impact there, but it's not measurable in any conceivable way. That doesn't make it useless though.

I say this as someone whose been that spectator.

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

#879

Post by inimino »

sean_patel wrote: post #684
ben0x539 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you recognize that you can only opt out of being stressed about politics because you're not on the receiving end. :/

> because you're not on the receiving end. Nope. I actually am at the receiving end. 2 of my cousins are married to illegal aliens (both Mexican women) and 1 couple has a child born here (so citizen). Still I had a moment of clarity when I realized that 1) Trump was indeed Democratically elected, and 2) I don't gain anything by fretting over and stressing over after reading 1 bad news after another about his policies…

An excellent choice.

Perhaps I shouldn't comment without having more to add, but I just wanted to support this very healthy perspective. It is a much calmer way to go through life, and not limited to politics!

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

#880

Post by dang »

woodhull wrote: post #105

Do you really think that the techno-capitalist libertarian utopia that many in silicon valley seem to be trying to build is a-political, immune from regulation or popular backlash? Anything political or critical of YC already gets disappeared from this site quite quickly. I had assumed that this policy (which always seemed misguided to me) was already in effect. I think the historical moment we find ourselves in is a…

> Anything [...] critical of YC already gets disappeared

That's definitely not true, and we're very careful about it. It's literally the first thing pg blurted out to me, before I even had a chance to sit down, on my first morning as an HN moderator. I do my bit by blurting it to everyone else in turn.

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