Why is Hacker News like that?

83 points | by caution an hour ago

18 comments

  • romanhn 3 minutes ago

    The flagged comments given as examples are exactly the type I don't want to see here. Not because they are wrong (they are not), but because they are boring, low-calorie declarations of obvious that add very little value to the topic at hand. It's like every mention of an iPhone got a comment about poor conditions of Chinese assembly workers. These, and the Musk rants, absolutely belong on threads about those topics, but let's not turn every thread into a holy war - you're just pushing people that already agree with you away.

    For the record, I vouched for this thread to keep it from being flagged, but that didn't seem enough. I think it's an interesting discussion.

      jjuel a few seconds ago

      But couldn't a bunch of posts that are just coming here to lift up one of Elon's products also be counter productive? You can never tell if someone is genuine when reviewing a product he put out. I think that is a big problem as well.

  • kdavis 15 minutes ago

    Unfortunately moderated out of existence in 10, 9, 8, 7....

  • leftnode 11 minutes ago

    This guy deserves none of your attention.

  • mitchellst 7 minutes ago

    "I hold views that are acceptable and conventional in most elite/academic circles. There's an organization and network of people who hold different views from mine. I don't like theirs. They don't seem to like mine, and sometimes say so out loud. Also, they have a website that looks like it's from 2005 but is popular, at least among them. For these reasons, I'm big mad."

  • freeli 6 minutes ago

    This doesn't mirror my experience, which is that most posts and comments criticizing the current administration and conservatives in general get significant positive engagement. There are few posts taking the opposite side, and those that try often get downvoted to oblivion.

    As a recent example, anti-progressive themes (being supportive of Israel, for example) are nowhere to be found. Pro-Palestinian views abound with little counter-engagement.

    In addition, just look at all the anti-US posts/comments. Other countries do not get the same treatment in the same volume. The US is a punching bag here. It's tiresome. HN used to be a respite from political insanity on both sides. Now some days it's no better than reddit.

    From my (politically neutral, believe it or not) perspective, this site is extremely hostile to conservatives. It's interesting that progressives feel the same way. Maybe we should put a pause on political discussions altogether.

      ronnier a few seconds ago

      Yes. Flag everything political. From both sides. We are here for tech. Not Reddit level content.

  • jmyeet a minute ago

    When it comes to submissions and comments, "political" or "controversial" is what you disagree with.

    What's changed I think is that Big Tech are essentially defense contractors. You can put Amazon, Google and Microsoft in the same bucket as RTX, Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

    A huge portion of HN is simply after their bag. The idea of the countercultural almost beatnik "hacker" like early Steve Jobs (yes, yes, I know, he's not the tech guy) is long dead. We saw this with crypto dominating HN. Crypto is just a bunch of people who are hoping to be the first to do the rug pull. Now it's AI.

    Silicon Valley itself grew out of the military industrial complex. It's simply returned to its roots.

  • brcmthrowaway 18 minutes ago

    Does any one else get confused between this guy and BurntSushi?

  • esalman 18 minutes ago

    Silicon valley is weird.

  • 1attice 22 minutes ago

    Just so. Thanks Drew. Good to to find another one that can see ;) They live!

      forgetfreeman 16 minutes ago

      I wish n-gate.com was still active and posted regularly to the comments sections.

        theideaofcoffee 14 minutes ago

        We lost a mirror in n-gate that was reflecting some of the ugly faces here back at some people that really needed it.

  • ecshafer 9 minutes ago

    Absurd article.

    All of these "reasonable political" comments that he points out for being moderated out SHOULD have been moderated out. They are absurd, not in good faith, extreme leftist arguments.

    > Unexamined bias against progressivism and the rights and interests of anyone who isn’t the “default” middle-class white cis male

    This is just stupid as well. The default is a middle-class white cis male? Its tech, the average is a 1/3 Indian 1/3 Chinese and 1/3 White man.

    Sorry to say DHH and Elon Musk are both not Nazis, and the demand for Nazis seems to be perpetually outstripping the apparent demand for them.

      jdougan 6 minutes ago

      I find dogwhistle arguments interesting. If someone is hearing dogwhistles, maybe they're the dog.

  • baddie_twoshoes 7 minutes ago

    This is almost comically backwards. HN is very pro-union, like reddit. In fact, it's pretty much the same users and political opinions as reddit.

    It's funny he mentioned the grok discussion. The other day I saw grok got some new release, and although I don't use it, I was curious whether it is any good, and was pleasantly surprised people were actually discussing it and not all running to the keyboard to see who could get their EM comments in first. Like they really cleaned up the place.

    This article complains that all their political comments got removed for calling Elon 'fascist', 'nazi' etc. - yes, that's the point; your useless, political opinions nobody else wants to hear, get removed.

    The article is practically a meme, using every buzzword imaginable. Racism, sexism, nazi, hate, bigotry, wokeness, etc., they're all there. The person who wrote this article is practically an NPC.

  • qwerpy 6 minutes ago

    Grok user here who happily flags political nonsense. Happy to report that my flag turned this one [flagged].