4 ms·

"Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy." Good god. It's crazy how

"Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy." Good god. It's crazy how politically driven people immediately demand nobody talk about politics as soon as they get their way. The guy was ranting and raving about end of democracy. Now that thiel is out, he wants everyone to be silent. Truly an "unhacker" type of mindset which has gained such a prominent foothold on HN. Censorship truly gives power to the people who shouldn't have it.

meritt 9y ago
Any sort of forum that enforces rampant censorship, mods personally scold users for looking into another users post history, and flags/deletes/bans any comments touching taboo topics (politics is the big one here) makes it very difficult to have a decent conversation. Couple that with the anonymity and rampant upvote/downvote based on disagreements (My comments on this thread rapidly oscillate between -5 and +5 -- it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) in an attempt to silence ideas you don't like.. Yeah it's really fucked up. We need a new discussion forum format, that isn't so easily manipulated like HN and Reddit due to vote manipulation.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  From past experience talking to people "on the other side" here on Hacker News, I agree with the mods that is better to stifle posts/threads that might become too controversial. There's plenty of places on the internet to have that kind of conversation, HN doesn't need to be everything to everyone.
  - meritt 9y ago
    HN is just as bad on language/technology wars though, and that doesn't get censored. Rampant vote manipulation on comments and story visibility in general leads to very pigeonholed ways of viewing things and leads to echo chambers that effectively shut down any conversation on topics which are viewed competitive to those that happen to be popular (or intentionally manipulated to be made popular) at the moment. Some examples of over the past decade: MongoDB, NodeJS, Docker, React, Tensorflow, Blockchain Regardless of the quality of the technologies listed above, anything negative about those topics (during their prime anyway -- it's acceptable to shit on MongoDB once again) would get downvoted/flagged to the point of not existing. My issue isn't particularly on removal of off-topic threads (e.g. no politics in HN), that's totally acceptable. What I don't agree with is removal (either by mods or by massive swarms of downvoting "users") of unpopular thoughts/ideas.
- wfo 9y ago
  >it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) >Yeah it's really fucked up. We need a new discussion forum format, that isn't so easily manipulated like HN and Reddit due to vote manipulation. Are you sure you aren't just whining because you think more people agree with you than actually do? It's awfully convenient that since people online don't like it that you are dredging up comments from years ago stalking people's accounts and attacking them in support of a horribly unpopular position that is actively destroying things important to tech people, that it's the fault of the format and vote manipulation, and censorship, and mods, and it's all someone else's fault, I'm actually right and everyone is on my side. You conclude it's hard to have a conversation because people don't agree with you, because the conversation isn't going exactly how you want. It's shocking how people who support him even pick up on his conversational tics; blame anything that you don't like on external enemies, the powers that be, claim everyone actually likes you despite all evidence to the contrary, that your crowd was huge, that it's just the lying liberal elites that control everything out to get you.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Couple that with the anonymity and rampant upvote/downvote based on disagreements (My comments on this thread rapidly oscillate between -5 and +5 -- it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) I think you are making an unjustified and inaccurate guess as to the source of your downvotes.

meritt 9y ago

Any sort of forum that enforces rampant censorship, mods personally scold users for looking into another users post history, and flags/deletes/bans any comments touching taboo topics (politics is the big one here) makes it very difficult to have a decent conversation. Couple that with the anonymity and rampant upvote/downvote based on disagreements (My comments on this thread rapidly oscillate between -5 and +5 -- it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) in an attempt to silence ideas you don't like.. Yeah it's really fucked up. We need a new discussion forum format, that isn't so easily manipulated like HN and Reddit due to vote manipulation.

dguaraglia 9y ago
From past experience talking to people "on the other side" here on Hacker News, I agree with the mods that is better to stifle posts/threads that might become too controversial. There's plenty of places on the internet to have that kind of conversation, HN doesn't need to be everything to everyone.
- meritt 9y ago
  HN is just as bad on language/technology wars though, and that doesn't get censored. Rampant vote manipulation on comments and story visibility in general leads to very pigeonholed ways of viewing things and leads to echo chambers that effectively shut down any conversation on topics which are viewed competitive to those that happen to be popular (or intentionally manipulated to be made popular) at the moment. Some examples of over the past decade: MongoDB, NodeJS, Docker, React, Tensorflow, Blockchain Regardless of the quality of the technologies listed above, anything negative about those topics (during their prime anyway -- it's acceptable to shit on MongoDB once again) would get downvoted/flagged to the point of not existing. My issue isn't particularly on removal of off-topic threads (e.g. no politics in HN), that's totally acceptable. What I don't agree with is removal (either by mods or by massive swarms of downvoting "users") of unpopular thoughts/ideas.
wfo 9y ago
>it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) >Yeah it's really fucked up. We need a new discussion forum format, that isn't so easily manipulated like HN and Reddit due to vote manipulation. Are you sure you aren't just whining because you think more people agree with you than actually do? It's awfully convenient that since people online don't like it that you are dredging up comments from years ago stalking people's accounts and attacking them in support of a horribly unpopular position that is actively destroying things important to tech people, that it's the fault of the format and vote manipulation, and censorship, and mods, and it's all someone else's fault, I'm actually right and everyone is on my side. You conclude it's hard to have a conversation because people don't agree with you, because the conversation isn't going exactly how you want. It's shocking how people who support him even pick up on his conversational tics; blame anything that you don't like on external enemies, the powers that be, claim everyone actually likes you despite all evidence to the contrary, that your crowd was huge, that it's just the lying liberal elites that control everything out to get you.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Couple that with the anonymity and rampant upvote/downvote based on disagreements (My comments on this thread rapidly oscillate between -5 and +5 -- it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) I think you are making an unjustified and inaccurate guess as to the source of your downvotes.