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Sometimes an article and the upvoting thereof express HN's insecurities so well it makes me wonder if every single post is in someway tainted by similar psychol

Sometimes an article and the upvoting thereof express HN's insecurities so well it makes me wonder if every single post is in someway tainted by similar psychological issues.

tomxor 8y ago
You can probably extend that to 90% of what everyone in the world verbalises or writes, we aren't robots, even when being objective we are driven by feelings. It doesn't mean everything is "tainted", just that everything we say and do is entwined with our thread of history, that's a more interesting reality than one where everything is clinical entirely distinct and independent - such a reality would be so inert life probably isn't even possible... what are we talking about?
- 1auralynn 8y ago
  In general the crowd at hacker news prides themselves on being super objective, so I think it's worthwhile to recognize the fundamental subjectivity of being a human.
  - tomxor 8y ago
    Yes, when looking deeper into objective comments all kinds of things will be revealed, the more you look, the more that "objective" can often seem linguistically superficial. I think it's an important thing to recognise especially in the worst case when some people exploit this to convincingly present opinion as fact... anyway i'm way off topic, my point was in response to wufufufu: I don't wonder if posts on HN have some kind of psychological biases, I am confident they do, in spite of perceived objectivity.
jerf 8y ago
Once you start down that dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. (If you can manage it safely, it's not a bad thing to consider. But it really easily turns into a cognitive hammer big enough to beat any fact into submission to your prior beliefs, and seals you off from intellectual discourse.)
simonsarris 8y ago
This is true of almost everything written. Most think-pieces and opinion columns by even professional journalists are just humans wishing out loud for a world reordered so that they are made more important or attractive.
Bakary 8y ago
Everything is tainted by psychological issues. If not, there would be no reason to prefer one state of the world over another.

Sometimes an article and the upvoting thereof express HN's insecurities so well it makes me wonder if every single post is in someway tainted by similar psychological issues.

tomxor 8y ago

You can probably extend that to 90% of what everyone in the world verbalises or writes, we aren't robots, even when being objective we are driven by feelings. It doesn't mean everything is "tainted", just that everything we say and do is entwined with our thread of history, that's a more interesting reality than one where everything is clinical entirely distinct and independent - such a reality would be so inert life probably isn't even possible... what are we talking about?

1auralynn 8y ago
In general the crowd at hacker news prides themselves on being super objective, so I think it's worthwhile to recognize the fundamental subjectivity of being a human.
- tomxor 8y ago
  Yes, when looking deeper into objective comments all kinds of things will be revealed, the more you look, the more that "objective" can often seem linguistically superficial. I think it's an important thing to recognise especially in the worst case when some people exploit this to convincingly present opinion as fact... anyway i'm way off topic, my point was in response to wufufufu: I don't wonder if posts on HN have some kind of psychological biases, I am confident they do, in spite of perceived objectivity.

jerf 8y ago

Once you start down that dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. (If you can manage it safely, it's not a bad thing to consider. But it really easily turns into a cognitive hammer big enough to beat any fact into submission to your prior beliefs, and seals you off from intellectual discourse.)

simonsarris 8y ago

This is true of almost everything written. Most think-pieces and opinion columns by even professional journalists are just humans wishing out loud for a world reordered so that they are made more important or attractive.

Bakary 8y ago

Everything is tainted by psychological issues. If not, there would be no reason to prefer one state of the world over another.