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What makes HN so great is that when a topic is discussed, often someone with direct participation in the topic is somewhere in the thread, to give an inside vie

What makes HN so great is that when a topic is discussed, often someone with direct participation in the topic is somewhere in the thread, to give an inside view. What I miss about mixing HN and politics, is that HN doesn't have politicians who can pop in and say 'oh hi guys I wrote this bill feel free to ask me some questions'. (I'm not saying nobody on HN participates on politics, I remember reading an interesting post about someone who ran for governor(?), but those posts are rare). For example, a podcast I love is Planet Money, and they take the time to interview economists on both sides, people who write some controversial bills, people who take part in lobbying, and even senators. This approach has really opened my eyes to the political process and I have heard many well formed counter arguments which made me reconsider some of my positions. I cannot say I have ever experienced this on an online forum.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
That's a big issue. HN has no special insight on politics so the discussions turn into the same old canards and groupthink on Reddit or anywhere else. There's just very little informative or useful about those discussions. It's pretty often that stuff which is factually wrong but meets emotional needs gets upvoted without a second thought. Disagreement with the notion the world is ending or Trump is literally James Harden and is gonna start the Holocaust (a popular feeling at HN 4 months ago) gets swiftly downvoted because it doesn't meet how people feel. Every time one of those groupthinky discussions happens it makes HN less attractive to informed discussion. I'm sitting at -12 in a thread from yesterday in which a guy responded "No offence you don't seem to have much knowledge of post ww2 history" after he was the one who made a weird historical analogy and I more or less copypastad part of a wiki article on the issue. I don't really care about being wrong or losing Internet points, but when stuff like that happens it just convinces me that even really intelligent people would rather agree with their biases over actually debating something. No thanks. It's the kind of behavior expected on r/politics.
- mowenz 9y ago
  I cant find the thread, but last year someone posted something close to 'all Trump supporters are idiots, I don't know how he got so popular,' and someone replied, 'I have a top uni degree, successful career and I am voting for Trump, so start with reassessing your assumptions about Trump supporters if you want to understand them,' and everyone just downvoted him. Nobody asked him anything. For the record I'm not a Trump supporter, but I can see that when it comes to politics people think emotionally and ideologically, and very few are asking themselves "have I not made any mistakes?" in the same way we do (everyone does make mistakes) when we care about being proficient. I studied economics and had a passion for public policy and realized how corrupt that all is. There's no moral excuse for anyone to still suffer in 2017--but it persists. People are irrational, greedy, and selfish. Not all, but enough.
  - cableshaft 9y ago
    As a counter-anecdote, about half a year ago a a self-described 'Alt Right Trump supporter' posted, and I posted a comment asking him about his beliefs, since I had only heard people hating on 'Alt Right' from my own sources, and was curious why he believed what the believed. You can see it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12971897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12971897 So not everyone here tries to silence alternate viewpoints, at least.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Here's an example. The parent post was at +5 and now it's in the grey. The downvoters don't bother responding, they just downvote, because differing opinions aren't welcomed.
  - dang 9y ago
    It's presumably because you're breaking the HN guidelines by complaining about downvotes and calling names (in the sense we use the term), and posting unsubstantively while complaining about the lack of "informed discussion".
aestetix 9y ago
I would love to have an open and honest (and civil) AMA from people who are writing these bills. Especially "cyber" legislation. I personally helped create a government commission in Oakland, California that now decides on privacy topics that go to city council. We need more things like that.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Here's a challenge: how to enable honest AMA for a politician? Every thing a public figure says is read by the media, which gives a very strong incentive for them to not say anything that could damage their public position. I would absolutely love to get insight into thoughts of politicians and problems they face, but it's hard to trust anything they say on-record, simply because of media pressure.
  - mattferderer 9y ago
    Find a retired politician. They tend to speak the most honest about issues, especially if the issue is over & they're no longer working on it.
  - kradem 9y ago
    There's no "answer" in AMA.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      I must be misunderstanding you. Answers are the whole point of AMAs.
      - kradem 9y ago
        AMA is incomparable to anything society had experienced before and it is that way because ordinary me could ask anything unordinary them. That is unprecedented, and the other part, the answers, are just an usual part of the process - "unordinary they" could use and have used all the tools society has developed since the beginning how to not answer if that suits them. That's called diplomacy.
erikb 9y ago
I think what the article tries to say is that everything that has at least two people is political by heart. HN is political. Giving you the option to respond and upvote and flag is political. You doing any of this is political. You are a politician, automatically just by being here and interacting with me.
- ygaf 9y ago
  The article is ostensibily about explaining that technology is political, with the tacked-on truth that HN must allow more actual politics. If HN 'squelches political debate', I'm not sure if this refers to whole submissions, or the posters within threads - submissions get flagged for appearing to be preachy with no real intrigue, posters get downvoted and detached for derailing threads. At first I wouldn't know why this submission was flagged, but now I understand it comes on the heels of a spam of Paris threads.
  - erikb 9y ago
    Well. PG is a hacker. By creating HN he didn't just write software, he influenced politics and gave us means to be political. How you interpret the article isn't contrary to my interpretation. It's part of it. I'd argue that the article also wants to show that by developing technology you can't avoid being political. PS: Political action does not have to be responsible or ethical. Political just means that it influences other people's life, doesn't have to be positive. And in that regard hackers shouldn't be more responsible but be more aware that they are already participating in politics by writing software, and don't think these are two separate worlds.
humanrebar 9y ago
> a podcast I love is Planet Money, and they take the time to interview economists on both sides Planet Money is better than average on this, but is definitely in the NPR bubble from my perspective. I think EconTalk does the best job of airing different perspectives on (at least tangentially) economics related issues. The host has his own perspective, but he's very candid that he knows he has his own cognitive biases and often invites his guests to enlighten him by challenging those biases. It's also a longer format, so there is more time to unpack issues. ...which is a really good point. I think a lot of shallow political dialogue happens because of a lack of attention and space as much as anything else. Explaining why net neutrality is a big deal in emotional terms takes some technical explanation and some narrative building, for example.
xtracto 9y ago
Personally I do not enjoy seeing politics posts in HackerNews, similarly how I don't enjoy seeing them in /. or /r/programming. Specially because they are usually US politics and I live outside that country. I definitely enjoy my share of the circus that is happening in that space. I watch CNN usually in evenings while having dinner as a form of "light entertainment". And in the mornings I do have my share of political news reading on my preferred sources. But when I get to a science or technology forum, I love to see science or technology news and information. Thus when suddenly the majority of items are related to politics, it turns me off.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I live in the US and still dislike political posts, largely because political differences are such a source of hatred. It always devolves into bad Hitler analogies even among otherwise intelligent people. I imagine there are some people who are just annoyed that HN won't let them spread their thinly veiled political hate; I recognize this isn't a charitable interpretation, but it's been so long since I've heard a productive political conversation online, and I've never heard one involving someone as angsty as the OP.
barrkel 9y ago
There are serving politicians from a variety of legislatures around the world who have accounts on HN and have made comments in the past. I haven't seen one from the US, however.
masondixon 9y ago
> a podcast I love is Planet Money, and they take the time to interview economists on both sides Great tip. The solution to so many problems is to involve challenging opposing points of view. There is a big problem with the left in America rejecting opposing points of view. "Safe space" and "shut it down" culture, etc. Mainstream media newsrooms packed with only liberal reporters, etc. But unfortunately everyone gravitates to places of comfort around people with like-minded views, because its too difficult to constantly be questioning your beliefs or challenging someone else. Good examples are Fox News' Hannity and Colmes and CNN's Crossfire. Both shuttered, and just ended up with replacement shows with one point of view. I find that more and more Trump people can make the arguments of left-wing people, but the inverse is not true.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

That's a big issue. HN has no special insight on politics so the discussions turn into the same old canards and groupthink on Reddit or anywhere else. There's just very little informative or useful about those discussions. It's pretty often that stuff which is factually wrong but meets emotional needs gets upvoted without a second thought. Disagreement with the notion the world is ending or Trump is literally James Harden and is gonna start the Holocaust (a popular feeling at HN 4 months ago) gets swiftly downvoted because it doesn't meet how people feel. Every time one of those groupthinky discussions happens it makes HN less attractive to informed discussion. I'm sitting at -12 in a thread from yesterday in which a guy responded "No offence you don't seem to have much knowledge of post ww2 history" after he was the one who made a weird historical analogy and I more or less copypastad part of a wiki article on the issue. I don't really care about being wrong or losing Internet points, but when stuff like that happens it just convinces me that even really intelligent people would rather agree with their biases over actually debating something. No thanks. It's the kind of behavior expected on r/politics.

mowenz 9y ago
I cant find the thread, but last year someone posted something close to 'all Trump supporters are idiots, I don't know how he got so popular,' and someone replied, 'I have a top uni degree, successful career and I am voting for Trump, so start with reassessing your assumptions about Trump supporters if you want to understand them,' and everyone just downvoted him. Nobody asked him anything. For the record I'm not a Trump supporter, but I can see that when it comes to politics people think emotionally and ideologically, and very few are asking themselves "have I not made any mistakes?" in the same way we do (everyone does make mistakes) when we care about being proficient. I studied economics and had a passion for public policy and realized how corrupt that all is. There's no moral excuse for anyone to still suffer in 2017--but it persists. People are irrational, greedy, and selfish. Not all, but enough.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  As a counter-anecdote, about half a year ago a a self-described 'Alt Right Trump supporter' posted, and I posted a comment asking him about his beliefs, since I had only heard people hating on 'Alt Right' from my own sources, and was curious why he believed what the believed. You can see it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12971897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12971897 So not everyone here tries to silence alternate viewpoints, at least.
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Here's an example. The parent post was at +5 and now it's in the grey. The downvoters don't bother responding, they just downvote, because differing opinions aren't welcomed.
- dang 9y ago
  It's presumably because you're breaking the HN guidelines by complaining about downvotes and calling names (in the sense we use the term), and posting unsubstantively while complaining about the lack of "informed discussion".

aestetix 9y ago

I would love to have an open and honest (and civil) AMA from people who are writing these bills. Especially "cyber" legislation. I personally helped create a government commission in Oakland, California that now decides on privacy topics that go to city council. We need more things like that.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Here's a challenge: how to enable honest AMA for a politician? Every thing a public figure says is read by the media, which gives a very strong incentive for them to not say anything that could damage their public position. I would absolutely love to get insight into thoughts of politicians and problems they face, but it's hard to trust anything they say on-record, simply because of media pressure.
- mattferderer 9y ago
  Find a retired politician. They tend to speak the most honest about issues, especially if the issue is over & they're no longer working on it.
- kradem 9y ago
  There's no "answer" in AMA.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I must be misunderstanding you. Answers are the whole point of AMAs.
    - kradem 9y ago
      AMA is incomparable to anything society had experienced before and it is that way because ordinary me could ask anything unordinary them. That is unprecedented, and the other part, the answers, are just an usual part of the process - "unordinary they" could use and have used all the tools society has developed since the beginning how to not answer if that suits them. That's called diplomacy.

erikb 9y ago

I think what the article tries to say is that everything that has at least two people is political by heart. HN is political. Giving you the option to respond and upvote and flag is political. You doing any of this is political. You are a politician, automatically just by being here and interacting with me.

ygaf 9y ago
The article is ostensibily about explaining that technology is political, with the tacked-on truth that HN must allow more actual politics. If HN 'squelches political debate', I'm not sure if this refers to whole submissions, or the posters within threads - submissions get flagged for appearing to be preachy with no real intrigue, posters get downvoted and detached for derailing threads. At first I wouldn't know why this submission was flagged, but now I understand it comes on the heels of a spam of Paris threads.
- erikb 9y ago
  Well. PG is a hacker. By creating HN he didn't just write software, he influenced politics and gave us means to be political. How you interpret the article isn't contrary to my interpretation. It's part of it. I'd argue that the article also wants to show that by developing technology you can't avoid being political. PS: Political action does not have to be responsible or ethical. Political just means that it influences other people's life, doesn't have to be positive. And in that regard hackers shouldn't be more responsible but be more aware that they are already participating in politics by writing software, and don't think these are two separate worlds.

humanrebar 9y ago

> a podcast I love is Planet Money, and they take the time to interview economists on both sides Planet Money is better than average on this, but is definitely in the NPR bubble from my perspective. I think EconTalk does the best job of airing different perspectives on (at least tangentially) economics related issues. The host has his own perspective, but he's very candid that he knows he has his own cognitive biases and often invites his guests to enlighten him by challenging those biases. It's also a longer format, so there is more time to unpack issues. ...which is a really good point. I think a lot of shallow political dialogue happens because of a lack of attention and space as much as anything else. Explaining why net neutrality is a big deal in emotional terms takes some technical explanation and some narrative building, for example.

xtracto 9y ago

Personally I do not enjoy seeing politics posts in HackerNews, similarly how I don't enjoy seeing them in /. or /r/programming. Specially because they are usually US politics and I live outside that country. I definitely enjoy my share of the circus that is happening in that space. I watch CNN usually in evenings while having dinner as a form of "light entertainment". And in the mornings I do have my share of political news reading on my preferred sources. But when I get to a science or technology forum, I love to see science or technology news and information. Thus when suddenly the majority of items are related to politics, it turns me off.

weberc2 9y ago
I live in the US and still dislike political posts, largely because political differences are such a source of hatred. It always devolves into bad Hitler analogies even among otherwise intelligent people. I imagine there are some people who are just annoyed that HN won't let them spread their thinly veiled political hate; I recognize this isn't a charitable interpretation, but it's been so long since I've heard a productive political conversation online, and I've never heard one involving someone as angsty as the OP.

barrkel 9y ago

There are serving politicians from a variety of legislatures around the world who have accounts on HN and have made comments in the past. I haven't seen one from the US, however.

masondixon 9y ago

> a podcast I love is Planet Money, and they take the time to interview economists on both sides Great tip. The solution to so many problems is to involve challenging opposing points of view. There is a big problem with the left in America rejecting opposing points of view. "Safe space" and "shut it down" culture, etc. Mainstream media newsrooms packed with only liberal reporters, etc. But unfortunately everyone gravitates to places of comfort around people with like-minded views, because its too difficult to constantly be questioning your beliefs or challenging someone else. Good examples are Fox News' Hannity and Colmes and CNN's Crossfire. Both shuttered, and just ended up with replacement shows with one point of view. I find that more and more Trump people can make the arguments of left-wing people, but the inverse is not true.