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I want to say this as respectfully as I can, but it isn't easy: the quality of discourse on these topics is really low on HN. At the same time I do think it's

I want to say this as respectfully as I can, but it isn't easy: the quality of discourse on these topics is really low on HN. At the same time I do think it's really important for them to be discussed. Time and again, though, I'm disappointed by how reductive and unmeditative these discussions are. I'm also surprised by how angry people seem. This is a site used by a lot of very smart people, but I think there is an element of people transferring the confidence of their domain expertise from one area into another, without noticing that they've crossed that border. I think people need to approach these topics with a humility they wouldn't need to bring to say, hashing algorithms or distributed databases. edit: typo

noam87 9y ago
This week has really lowered my opinion of this industry and its members (and people in general, once again). From the flimsy and arrogant arguments presented on one side, to the inexcusable hysteria and verbal abuse coming from the other. I've lost trust and respect for developers I followed and had for some reason assumed were level-headed adults. This is highschool stuff guys. It's embarrassing. More generally, if we can't trust our most capable minds to not act like children and blood-thirsty mobs, what hope is there for general discource as a society.
jtmarmon 9y ago
can you be more specific? in what way do you think the HN comments are generally reductive and unmeditative?
- yorwba 9y ago
  In case you missed the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952787 Personally, I think quite a lot of the comments in that thread are reasonable, some even insightful and the majority are definitely well-intentioned. I didn't read completely through, because it's just so much and there is a lot of repetition with different people saying the same things replying to different other people. But well worth reading at least a bit if you somehow missed the controversy.
kbart 9y ago
HN has the most civil, quality and supported (from both sides) discussion I've seen out there. Sure, there are some emotional, unsubstantial posts, but they get downvoted to the bottom fast. Just because you don't agree with the points made, doesn't make discussion of lower quality. If you want to live in a bubble, get on Facebook etc. and join your echo chamber social circles, there are plenty of those on both (and any in-between) sides. "At the same time I do think it's really important for them to be discussed." This directly affects my chances of getting employed in top tech companies, how on earth it's not important for me (and most people here)??
Bartweiss 9y ago
I strongly agree with this. In the past, I've valued HN as source of uncommonly good discussion. I still feel that way about how pure-tech topics are handled here, and I think HN remains better than 90% of other discussion fora for politics. (Twitter, anyone?) But "better than 90% of alternatives" is completely compatible with "reductive, vicious, and uninformed". A particular frustration of mine: the scattering of dialogue across multiple comment trees over multiple posts. There are snippets of quality discussion, but they're broken across ~8 different posts. There's no particular way to find them when they're not highly voted, or keep the quality high after they become popular. Meanwhile every single post has multiple instances of "The original essay is clearly inaccurate, so..." "Sources?" (Or conversely: "Is clearly backed by science, so..." "Sources?") I'm not sure either person in the exchange is behaving badly - the first person wants to make a conditional point without litigating the condition, the second person doesn't want to concede something uncited as objective fact. But the result is that every post is full of horrible, discussion derailing fights over whatever sources two random people can throw at each other. However one feels about a given exchange, it ought to be fairly obvious that replaying the dispute fifty times with varying sources and no acknowledgement of the other instances is a terrible way to make any kind of progress. I don't know what can be done about it within the HN format, though.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  > I don't know what can be done about it within the HN format, though. It's not the HN format. The nature vs. nurture [1] debate is one of the oldest in psychology. It's a spectrum, and we're not sure about a lot of things, so people discuss it often in the hopes that someone will provide research answering some new part this fundamental question of our lives. It's been going on for centuries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

noam87 9y ago

This week has really lowered my opinion of this industry and its members (and people in general, once again). From the flimsy and arrogant arguments presented on one side, to the inexcusable hysteria and verbal abuse coming from the other. I've lost trust and respect for developers I followed and had for some reason assumed were level-headed adults. This is highschool stuff guys. It's embarrassing. More generally, if we can't trust our most capable minds to not act like children and blood-thirsty mobs, what hope is there for general discource as a society.

jtmarmon 9y ago

can you be more specific? in what way do you think the HN comments are generally reductive and unmeditative?

yorwba 9y ago
In case you missed the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952787 Personally, I think quite a lot of the comments in that thread are reasonable, some even insightful and the majority are definitely well-intentioned. I didn't read completely through, because it's just so much and there is a lot of repetition with different people saying the same things replying to different other people. But well worth reading at least a bit if you somehow missed the controversy.

kbart 9y ago

HN has the most civil, quality and supported (from both sides) discussion I've seen out there. Sure, there are some emotional, unsubstantial posts, but they get downvoted to the bottom fast. Just because you don't agree with the points made, doesn't make discussion of lower quality. If you want to live in a bubble, get on Facebook etc. and join your echo chamber social circles, there are plenty of those on both (and any in-between) sides. "At the same time I do think it's really important for them to be discussed." This directly affects my chances of getting employed in top tech companies, how on earth it's not important for me (and most people here)??

Bartweiss 9y ago

I strongly agree with this. In the past, I've valued HN as source of uncommonly good discussion. I still feel that way about how pure-tech topics are handled here, and I think HN remains better than 90% of other discussion fora for politics. (Twitter, anyone?) But "better than 90% of alternatives" is completely compatible with "reductive, vicious, and uninformed". A particular frustration of mine: the scattering of dialogue across multiple comment trees over multiple posts. There are snippets of quality discussion, but they're broken across ~8 different posts. There's no particular way to find them when they're not highly voted, or keep the quality high after they become popular. Meanwhile every single post has multiple instances of "The original essay is clearly inaccurate, so..." "Sources?" (Or conversely: "Is clearly backed by science, so..." "Sources?") I'm not sure either person in the exchange is behaving badly - the first person wants to make a conditional point without litigating the condition, the second person doesn't want to concede something uncited as objective fact. But the result is that every post is full of horrible, discussion derailing fights over whatever sources two random people can throw at each other. However one feels about a given exchange, it ought to be fairly obvious that replaying the dispute fifty times with varying sources and no acknowledgement of the other instances is a terrible way to make any kind of progress. I don't know what can be done about it within the HN format, though.

unityByFreedom 9y ago
> I don't know what can be done about it within the HN format, though. It's not the HN format. The nature vs. nurture [1] debate is one of the oldest in psychology. It's a spectrum, and we're not sure about a lot of things, so people discuss it often in the hopes that someone will provide research answering some new part this fundamental question of our lives. It's been going on for centuries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture