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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

#881

Post by chris_wot »

flashman wrote: post #565
cloverich wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The topic doesn't matter Technically true. But practically speaking, I'd wager political topics lead to emotionally charged, intellectually devoid arguments (much) more commonly than others. If that's true, then this moderation should boost the general quality of HN comments and topics, which is why most of us come here in the first place. As a comparison, I was initially annoyed that simple jokes / witty remarks t…

I'd wager that we're all more qualified to talk about tech topics than political ones, which is what leads to emotion and bad arguments.

That's not what Aaron Schwartz thought. But bravo dang, your timing could not be better given your blackout will be in effect on the anniversary of his death.

That will put paid to all that pesky politics around freedom, innovation, abuses of power and ignorance by those in high office of all persuasions.

Next thing I know, anything related to GNU, feminism in tech, policy discussions around encryption, the necessity of the space program, censorship or any of the hundreds of "political" topics will be killed off.

It seems to me that HN are of the opinion that they must infantilise the reader and that any robust debate, no matter how well reasoned, will be cut off.

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

#882

Post by dang »

brilliantcode wrote: post #461
vacri wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is censorship pure and simple. No, it's 'moderation'. Censorship is where you can't say something in any (public) outlet. > Is HN an America based community that reflects the core beliefs in freedom of speech & expression? No, because downvoting 'ghosts' a comment, there's shadowbanning, dead comments, and the mods can already kill stories. Moderation is already alive and kicking on HN; there's plenty of it do…

> Censorship is where you can't say something in any (public) outlet. HN is a public outlet, anyone is free to register and participate in the discussion. The thread is soliciting the community to censor themselves with a pretty vague and large blanket under "politics". HN is run by an American corporation correct, it's servers are in America, then it should follow American values. If this was a Chinese or Russian co…

No precedent for future discourse is being set.

It's true that HN doesn't follow a democratic process that way, but it never has, nor pretended to.

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

#883

Post by dang »

venomsnake wrote: post #573
mindcrime wrote: post #484

I say make this permanent. A couple of years ago, politics was mostly verboten here, at least unofficially. It's been a slow, steady transition to the current state where political stories have become so prominent. None of that is to say that politics isn't important, or that I don't enjoy discussing the subject. It just isn't mainly why I come to HN, and I honestly feel a little dirty every time I get drawn into a p…

The BIG wave of identity politics started circa 2011 ... it was easier to be forbidden before that. It is easier to stop a tide than a Katrina.

HN can't be immune from macro trends.

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

#885

Post by inimino »

brilliantcode wrote: post #273

This is a slippery slope, I read it as "lets censor ourselves for this week and everybody should do their part". Tech is like any other industry, it's rife with politics. I don't agree with trolling but obviously this place isn't reddit, lot of political debates are valuable and offer insights for those less politically inclined. If we agree to this policy what guarantee is there in the future that other topics that…

There is certainly nothing wrong with a community having a topical focus. This is just an experiment in reorienting the focus back towards its historical orientation. I think you're over-reacting.

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

#886

Post by _postcarnival »

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…

> This is like the period before the hurricane: everyone should be busy boarding up windows, and you can't do that if you decide you're just not going to talk about the coming storm because it makes you feel bad.

lol wait what? everything you just said is purely subjective opinion, not fact.

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

#887

Post by dang »

pjlegato wrote: post #418
rubicon33 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different forums for politics though... I think the point Dang is making is that this place isn't primarily (even tangentially) a place for politics.

Evidently a large subset of the user base disagrees.

It seems that a majority (though not a huge majority) of the commenters do. But if you consider that plenty of the 600 users who posted comments also support the idea, and factor in the 1400+ upvotes on the submission (which tend to be expressions of approval), it's likely that community feedback is between moderately and highly positive. Though you wouldn't guess it from reading the thread.

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

#888

Post by atmosx »

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…

I think it's not about politics specifically. All social sciences can get quickly irrational because they're not mathematised. Every one of us is subjective to framing.

You can argue that e.g. "Obama was a great president!" or that "Obama was an awful president!" and there are arguments to back both sides of the discussion depending on where you're coming from.

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

#889

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

So I assume this means that yc is now concerned over alienating a certain political party/faction that tends to have a lot of money but not a lot of support among college grads.

And as many others have said, this is a horrible idea. ESPECIALLY for a site oriented toward start-ups (or, at least, people who like to talk about start-ups). Guess who is going to be signing off on the regulations that determine what is and isn't allowed? Guess who is going to determine where research money goes and what gets subsidies or tax breaks?

Oh yeah, that thing which you don't want anyone to discuss.

A few years old and more geared toward HPC and scientific computing, but Michio Kaku gave a great talk at SC about how politics and lobbying are very important and are actually vital and that if technology wants to advance it needs to not plug its ears and hide but actually be involved and fight for our interests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_MbkVozydE

Rather than sit around, gazing at our navels, and talking about how amazingly smart and above it all we all are maybe, just maybe, people should actually consider "disrupting" the world into an "agile" state that can actually result in a government and laws that aren't a hindrance. And you sure as sugar don't get that by talking about how nobody else knows how to communicate with anyone because they aren't "hackers".

But hey, gotta make sure you don't alienate anyone who might be a good business partner.

---

Maybe, just maybe, enforce rules about not making emotional and unfounded posts. Because that is largely independent of politics and is the kind of thing that makes it hard to take this place seriously as a "meeting of the minds" and mostly causes it to feel like "A marginally less meme filled reddit".

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

#890

Post by atmosx »

tripzilch wrote: post #541
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…

As someone whose views don't align with a good chunk of HN readers (or don't align, period), I've grown to love reading about differing ideas through the eyes of others computing/tech enthusiasts. There's common ground to start from and most importantly, even if it turns out to be a viewpoint that deeply goes against my values I can still respect this fellow human because of their tech expertise. I have to admit, it…

You remind me an Aristotle quote: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. :-)
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