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HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too.

HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who invented it. My ADHD brain loves the depth that side topics can get explored and being surrounded by people far cleverer than me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

witty_username 10y ago
> blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. I've seen plenty of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" in the comments and complaints about engineers always trying to use the newest technology.
- Semiapies 10y ago
  Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". And you see a lot of xkcd 927 and "I can't help thinking effort would have been better spent on an existing project" when someone writes any program of any type where other examples exist.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I only post a 927 when there are >6 different standards in the field, and there's no way a new one will catch on. As for the effort better spent posts, those are awful. Never post those. Instead post about how great emacs is compared to vim: you're more likely to spawn useful discussion.
    - Semiapies 10y ago
      And if you post the xkcd link to a discussion about a piece of software and not a new standard for which many already exist, (and I see that post,) I will proudly downvote you no matter how many examples exist. Just be glad I don't have the magic ability to force anyone to use QED to program their next project in Fortran on a CTSS box.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        Yeah, just don't post 927 on software: that's dumb. Note I said when a new one won't catch on, or is unlikely to do so, particularly of it doesn't have any significant benefits over what's already there.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - 50CNT 10y ago
      I think that it's interesting that there is an etiquette developing on when which XKCD is appropriate.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        XKCD is always appropriate when it's relevant, pretty much. There's only etiquette for 927.
      - Semiapies 10y ago
        Well, here. It's still popular on Reddit to be the first to post an "obligatory" link to a vaguely relevant xkcd. Here, that usually gets downvoted fast.
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        I do it sometimes, but only if the XKCD is actually highly relevant. As a result, I've actually never gotten downed for it.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      > As for the effort better spent posts, those are awful. Never post those. Except, the issue is when there’s already dozens of standards in the field, and someone decides to make yet another one, and publish factually wrong articles about existing standards to get an advantage.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". I see this a lot, and I don't think it's a valid criticism of the issue. It assumes either that all periods in IT are equally good, or that there's monotonic progress (both of which are wrong), and that there's no such thing as a fad, so anybody pointing one is clearly a "get off my lawn" person. I'm with Alan Kay on this: computer science is a pop culture.
    - Semiapies 10y ago
      It's not a "criticism" of an "issue", it's a description of a behavior that may in some cases and out of some mouths have a point, but is not necessarily rooted in anything worthwhile. The behavior is frequently ad hominem in use and often seems to express insecurity of some form, mixed with the conservative bias towards freaking out about flaws in new things while brushing them off in existing things.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  I did say tendency! I still get surprised the way opinion goes for some posts. I won't be betting on the likely sentiment any time soon! Whichever way opinion leans it rarely stifles discussion.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  It depends on the subject. Take Mars colonization or self-driving cars. There's recently been a few posts (with a large number of upvotes) that were more or less press releases from companies, with the majority of the comments being very positive and the most up-voted comment in each post complaining about the existence of a few comments that were skeptical.
  - planteen 10y ago
    Yep it seems anything by Elon is sacrosanct with much of the HN crew.
    - johnfjacobi 10y ago
      I'm pretty critical of technology and modernity in general, and this Cult of Elon is a large part of the reason I dislike the man and his endeavors. It has nothing to do with his intelligence or person. He's clearly intelligent, and I'm not quite sure he's a person (ha) but I don't know the dude. It's just that he has revived so much technological optimism in a time when skepticism is pretty important, at least imo. He seems to bandy about these technical solutions that are dazzling, for sure --- and extremely interesting --- but just don't cut it, or come with a slew of potentially unintended consequences, or simply aren't putting the focus in the right place. For example, his talk of Mars colonization as an escape hatch to our degradation of biodiversity / carbon emissions / etc. is just awful. What kind of idea is that? It's infuriating because when I say things like, "I'm not convinced that collapse or technical decline would be a bad thing," people can immediately see the criticisms, chief among them being "Won't a lot of people die?" Which is fair. But there is little to no skepticism when Musk presents his idea, when there certainly should be. How many people do you think will make it on those spaceships, and who do you think those people will be? At least in a case of economic or technical decline, many people will have a fighting chance at it not being totally awful.
      - nzp 10y ago
        > For example, his talk of Mars colonization as an escape hatch to our degradation of biodiversity / carbon emissions / etc. is just awful. What kind of idea is that? To be fair, that's not a good characterization of why he's into Mars colonization. He's not advocating colonization so we can disregard life on Earth. He seems very much into preserving life on Earth. Mars colonization is a backup plan (or the initial stage of a backup plan) for the inevitable moment when Earth will have to be abandoned regardless of how well we behave. Regarding “a lot of people dying” angle: the difference is in magnitude of “a lot of people”, and choice. However many people die on SpaceX spaceships, the number can never reach millions or even billions that would result from the collapse or technical decline. People also, in general, will choose to get on a spaceship and dwell on Mars, but they neither choose to be involved in dying from civilization collapsing, nor to have to fight for survival in such a situation — it would be completely forced upon them.
- johnfjacobi 10y ago
  I've also seen a fair amount of people actually cognizant of the dangers our technological society poses. It's not the majority, but there are far more people here than most discussion-centered places on the internet.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
>It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who invented it. My ADHD brain loves the depth that side topics can get explored and being surrounded by people far cleverer than me This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly.
- drieddust 10y ago
  > This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly. Thanks for articulating it so well.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    ...okay. You're welcome, I guess, but I'm not sure what's so hard about articulating it that makes doing so praiseworthy. Or were you just being nice? If so, that's totally fine, never mind.
    - andrewflnr 10y ago
      To paraphrase Mark Twain, the difference between the right phrasing and the almost right phrasing is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. We're here for the lightning.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        ...And that was totally the right phrasing. Thanks for explaning so well.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  ^ Very similar for me. A good criticism that invites me to better understand a different viewpoint is worth a lot.
Jimmy 10y ago
>I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic If you stay off the default subreddits and only go on the intellectual/debate subreddits, then I honestly think reddit is better for this. The amount of expertise on reddit is astounding. It's very easy to find someone to rigorously challenge any view I have. I'd go so far as to say that it's the smartest place on the internet (except for maybe places like MathOverflow and some other specialty blogs/forums). They do have a natural advantage because of their huge userbase.
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  Reddit is the new Usenet with all the good, the bad and the silly. The advantage of small subreddits over HN is that links don't get buried.
  - j1vms 10y ago
    > Reddit is the new Usenet with all the good, the bad and the silly. And none of the decentralization that was Usenet unfortunately.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Reddit a crossroads of the usenet and 4chan cultures: it's where they meet. However, Reddit actually doesn't totally adopt the common-carrier approach, and aren't decentralized: they try to take responsibility for their users to a greater degree than either of the previous sites ever did, resulting in things like hateful subreddits getting taken down, and the voat split.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- digi_owl 10y ago
  You also find a whole lot of echo chambers, fanboys and wannabe-intellectualism. This because anyone can set up a sub-reddit, and thus also moderate them.
yanjuk 10y ago
Great comment, though I'm not sure 'naive political opinion' even exists. If a topic is political then it's controversial and sophisticated expert opinions count just as little as naive layman opinions.
teekert 10y ago
It's also full of people who readily classify deviating opinions under naive political opinions, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. I do agree with you second statement though, often before forwarding a link to colleagues I read the comments and see if my enthusiasm is not easily killed, it often is (and rightly so, in most of the cases).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
that's because you generally agree with those political opinions and groupthink
pjc50 10y ago
I keep meaning to scrape my comments over the years, collate the most upvoted ones, then publish in a blog/ebook somewhere with a bit of commentary on what it appears that HN "likes". The API doesn't quite facilitate this, unlike most sites which will just let you sort your comments by votes. On HN politics, while the comments often have a substantial presence of doctrinaire libertarians, I feel that the voters skew much more liberal/social democrat. Unless there's a bout of "anti-SJW" downvoting and flagging on e.g. "discrimination in tech" stories. (Provisional title "Silicon Valley on ten upvotes a day")
- 3pt14159 10y ago
  I've also had this idea.
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  Long ago, someone wrote a little app that did this. I can't seem to find it now. The premise was something like "you've probably already written a book's worth of HN comments".
- jaredsohn 10y ago
  > unlike most sites which will just let you sort your comments by votes. If you just want to see your comments sorted by net upvotes, use this link: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:pjc50&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:pjc50&sort=byPopularity&pre... You can get all of your comments as JSON via this URL using a site I built: http://hnuser.herokuapp.com/user/pjc50/json/ http://hnuser.herokuapp.com/user/pjc50/json/ You can then run that data through a sort and filter to get what you want.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Thanks, that looks extremely useful.
- DailyHN 10y ago
  I took a shot at this here https://hn.icymi.email/ https://hn.icymi.email/
oldmanjay 10y ago
What you see as "groupthink" is really your bias attempting to dismiss any number of people for disagreeing with you. I understand the point of your post, I just don't find that particular bias funny enough to let it pass uncommemted.
- obstacle1 10y ago
  Or, it could actually be groupthink, and your bias is acting to prevent you from having to admit that a group you identify with expresses positions that are wrong. There's actually no way to prove that either case is true. However, you expressed a position as a certainty -- "what you see as groupthink is really..." -- that is in reality just another opinion. Therefore, your comment is equally as ill informed and myopic as OP's.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
tomcam 10y ago
I was going to write a similar comment, but you said it better in every way. HN comments are a frighteningly important part of my day.

witty_username 10y ago

> blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. I've seen plenty of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" in the comments and complaints about engineers always trying to use the newest technology.

Semiapies 10y ago
Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". And you see a lot of xkcd 927 and "I can't help thinking effort would have been better spent on an existing project" when someone writes any program of any type where other examples exist.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  I only post a 927 when there are >6 different standards in the field, and there's no way a new one will catch on. As for the effort better spent posts, those are awful. Never post those. Instead post about how great emacs is compared to vim: you're more likely to spawn useful discussion.
  - Semiapies 10y ago
    And if you post the xkcd link to a discussion about a piece of software and not a new standard for which many already exist, (and I see that post,) I will proudly downvote you no matter how many examples exist. Just be glad I don't have the magic ability to force anyone to use QED to program their next project in Fortran on a CTSS box.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      Yeah, just don't post 927 on software: that's dumb. Note I said when a new one won't catch on, or is unlikely to do so, particularly of it doesn't have any significant benefits over what's already there.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - 50CNT 10y ago
    I think that it's interesting that there is an etiquette developing on when which XKCD is appropriate.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      XKCD is always appropriate when it's relevant, pretty much. There's only etiquette for 927.
    - Semiapies 10y ago
      Well, here. It's still popular on Reddit to be the first to post an "obligatory" link to a vaguely relevant xkcd. Here, that usually gets downvoted fast.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        I do it sometimes, but only if the XKCD is actually highly relevant. As a result, I've actually never gotten downed for it.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > As for the effort better spent posts, those are awful. Never post those. Except, the issue is when there’s already dozens of standards in the field, and someone decides to make yet another one, and publish factually wrong articles about existing standards to get an advantage.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". I see this a lot, and I don't think it's a valid criticism of the issue. It assumes either that all periods in IT are equally good, or that there's monotonic progress (both of which are wrong), and that there's no such thing as a fad, so anybody pointing one is clearly a "get off my lawn" person. I'm with Alan Kay on this: computer science is a pop culture.
  - Semiapies 10y ago
    It's not a "criticism" of an "issue", it's a description of a behavior that may in some cases and out of some mouths have a point, but is not necessarily rooted in anything worthwhile. The behavior is frequently ad hominem in use and often seems to express insecurity of some form, mixed with the conservative bias towards freaking out about flaws in new things while brushing them off in existing things.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
I did say tendency! I still get surprised the way opinion goes for some posts. I won't be betting on the likely sentiment any time soon! Whichever way opinion leans it rarely stifles discussion.
Chathamization 10y ago
It depends on the subject. Take Mars colonization or self-driving cars. There's recently been a few posts (with a large number of upvotes) that were more or less press releases from companies, with the majority of the comments being very positive and the most up-voted comment in each post complaining about the existence of a few comments that were skeptical.
- planteen 10y ago
  Yep it seems anything by Elon is sacrosanct with much of the HN crew.
  - johnfjacobi 10y ago
    I'm pretty critical of technology and modernity in general, and this Cult of Elon is a large part of the reason I dislike the man and his endeavors. It has nothing to do with his intelligence or person. He's clearly intelligent, and I'm not quite sure he's a person (ha) but I don't know the dude. It's just that he has revived so much technological optimism in a time when skepticism is pretty important, at least imo. He seems to bandy about these technical solutions that are dazzling, for sure --- and extremely interesting --- but just don't cut it, or come with a slew of potentially unintended consequences, or simply aren't putting the focus in the right place. For example, his talk of Mars colonization as an escape hatch to our degradation of biodiversity / carbon emissions / etc. is just awful. What kind of idea is that? It's infuriating because when I say things like, "I'm not convinced that collapse or technical decline would be a bad thing," people can immediately see the criticisms, chief among them being "Won't a lot of people die?" Which is fair. But there is little to no skepticism when Musk presents his idea, when there certainly should be. How many people do you think will make it on those spaceships, and who do you think those people will be? At least in a case of economic or technical decline, many people will have a fighting chance at it not being totally awful.
    - nzp 10y ago
      > For example, his talk of Mars colonization as an escape hatch to our degradation of biodiversity / carbon emissions / etc. is just awful. What kind of idea is that? To be fair, that's not a good characterization of why he's into Mars colonization. He's not advocating colonization so we can disregard life on Earth. He seems very much into preserving life on Earth. Mars colonization is a backup plan (or the initial stage of a backup plan) for the inevitable moment when Earth will have to be abandoned regardless of how well we behave. Regarding “a lot of people dying” angle: the difference is in magnitude of “a lot of people”, and choice. However many people die on SpaceX spaceships, the number can never reach millions or even billions that would result from the collapse or technical decline. People also, in general, will choose to get on a spaceship and dwell on Mars, but they neither choose to be involved in dying from civilization collapsing, nor to have to fight for survival in such a situation — it would be completely forced upon them.
johnfjacobi 10y ago
I've also seen a fair amount of people actually cognizant of the dangers our technological society poses. It's not the majority, but there are far more people here than most discussion-centered places on the internet.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

>It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who invented it. My ADHD brain loves the depth that side topics can get explored and being surrounded by people far cleverer than me This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly.

drieddust 10y ago
> This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly. Thanks for articulating it so well.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  ...okay. You're welcome, I guess, but I'm not sure what's so hard about articulating it that makes doing so praiseworthy. Or were you just being nice? If so, that's totally fine, never mind.
  - andrewflnr 10y ago
    To paraphrase Mark Twain, the difference between the right phrasing and the almost right phrasing is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. We're here for the lightning.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      ...And that was totally the right phrasing. Thanks for explaning so well.
tedmiston 10y ago
^ Very similar for me. A good criticism that invites me to better understand a different viewpoint is worth a lot.

Jimmy 10y ago

>I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic If you stay off the default subreddits and only go on the intellectual/debate subreddits, then I honestly think reddit is better for this. The amount of expertise on reddit is astounding. It's very easy to find someone to rigorously challenge any view I have. I'd go so far as to say that it's the smartest place on the internet (except for maybe places like MathOverflow and some other specialty blogs/forums). They do have a natural advantage because of their huge userbase.

dorfsmay 10y ago
Reddit is the new Usenet with all the good, the bad and the silly. The advantage of small subreddits over HN is that links don't get buried.
- j1vms 10y ago
  > Reddit is the new Usenet with all the good, the bad and the silly. And none of the decentralization that was Usenet unfortunately.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Reddit a crossroads of the usenet and 4chan cultures: it's where they meet. However, Reddit actually doesn't totally adopt the common-carrier approach, and aren't decentralized: they try to take responsibility for their users to a greater degree than either of the previous sites ever did, resulting in things like hateful subreddits getting taken down, and the voat split.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
digi_owl 10y ago
You also find a whole lot of echo chambers, fanboys and wannabe-intellectualism. This because anyone can set up a sub-reddit, and thus also moderate them.

yanjuk 10y ago

Great comment, though I'm not sure 'naive political opinion' even exists. If a topic is political then it's controversial and sophisticated expert opinions count just as little as naive layman opinions.

teekert 10y ago

It's also full of people who readily classify deviating opinions under naive political opinions, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. I do agree with you second statement though, often before forwarding a link to colleagues I read the comments and see if my enthusiasm is not easily killed, it often is (and rightly so, in most of the cases).

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dsfyu404ed 10y ago

that's because you generally agree with those political opinions and groupthink

pjc50 10y ago

I keep meaning to scrape my comments over the years, collate the most upvoted ones, then publish in a blog/ebook somewhere with a bit of commentary on what it appears that HN "likes". The API doesn't quite facilitate this, unlike most sites which will just let you sort your comments by votes. On HN politics, while the comments often have a substantial presence of doctrinaire libertarians, I feel that the voters skew much more liberal/social democrat. Unless there's a bout of "anti-SJW" downvoting and flagging on e.g. "discrimination in tech" stories. (Provisional title "Silicon Valley on ten upvotes a day")

3pt14159 10y ago
I've also had this idea.
steveklabnik 10y ago
Long ago, someone wrote a little app that did this. I can't seem to find it now. The premise was something like "you've probably already written a book's worth of HN comments".
jaredsohn 10y ago
> unlike most sites which will just let you sort your comments by votes. If you just want to see your comments sorted by net upvotes, use this link: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:pjc50&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:pjc50&sort=byPopularity&pre... You can get all of your comments as JSON via this URL using a site I built: http://hnuser.herokuapp.com/user/pjc50/json/ http://hnuser.herokuapp.com/user/pjc50/json/ You can then run that data through a sort and filter to get what you want.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Thanks, that looks extremely useful.
DailyHN 10y ago
I took a shot at this here https://hn.icymi.email/ https://hn.icymi.email/

oldmanjay 10y ago

What you see as "groupthink" is really your bias attempting to dismiss any number of people for disagreeing with you. I understand the point of your post, I just don't find that particular bias funny enough to let it pass uncommemted.

obstacle1 10y ago
Or, it could actually be groupthink, and your bias is acting to prevent you from having to admit that a group you identify with expresses positions that are wrong. There's actually no way to prove that either case is true. However, you expressed a position as a certainty -- "what you see as groupthink is really..." -- that is in reality just another opinion. Therefore, your comment is equally as ill informed and myopic as OP's.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

tomcam 10y ago

I was going to write a similar comment, but you said it better in every way. HN comments are a frighteningly important part of my day.