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> What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't kno
by IanCal 10y ago
> What I think HN has taught me is that for any X you feel strongly about, if you actually were in a community that was evenly divided about X, you wouldn't know it. Instead, you would feel yourself surrounded by enemies. Why? Because we notice and remember painful experiences more than pleasurable ones, and it's painful to read comments against one's strongly held X's. So people feel like the community is biased whether it is or not.
This doesn't actually address the issue I feel there is in that HN is a fairly small group of people from a particular demographic. A site called "hacker news" with a heavy focus on technology and startups is surely likely to have some bias compared to a random sampling of the general population.
Any post added gets voted on and only a small number of the posts that get posted will get any real traction, do you feel there's no bias in the type of things that get to the front page?
As a quick example, how many of the frontpage articles do you really disagree with? Which ones are strongly against what you actually believe? I've just had a look and honestly there are none. Everything fits very comfortably with my general beliefs.
I have never felt like I was surrounded by enemies here.
- dang 10y agoIt isn't that HN is a random sample of the population, but that on most divisive issues (e.g. politics or programming languages) it's much more divided than people think it is. Re disagreements and conflict, I'm talking about the comment threads, not the articles. I don't think articles really excite agreement or disagreement at themselves (except about whether they should be on HN in the first place—another divisive topic), so much as provoke it in the threads. Re not feeling surrounded by enemies: that's great, but note that the "feel strongly about" qualifier is a necessary condition for this effect.
- NetTechM 10y agoI think it helps that HN has a common factor to bind us together. Professional Techies may be able to disagree in a less flamboyant style in most situations because at the end of the day politics is mainly seen in the light of how it affects the tech industry as a whole. While there are also some folks that are undoubtedly passionate about their particular political views, they mainly get well thought out replies as to the argument they are presenting for and against... even if some people get a bit passive aggressive with the down voting.