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Do I get back the 3,000 HN Karma points I lost to downvotes after years of suggesting fasting as a viable treatment for a whole host of "diseases"? One day peop

by aviv 8y ago

Do I get back the 3,000 HN Karma points I lost to downvotes after years of suggesting fasting as a viable treatment for a whole host of "diseases"? One day people will see it as obvious as "smoking is bad for you". One day.

mirceal 8y ago
Why do you care about karma so much? Express your opinion and forget about “internet points”.
- 1996 8y ago
  Because you want to join in the conversation, and with lower amounts of magical points you get more often messages telling you to "slow down" AFTER you have carefully written a message in 5 to to 10 minutes. This is infuriating when english is not your native language and writing understandable language is slow, especially to communicate complex thought that may be not evident. Due to my unpopular opinions about how some countries and companies are often targetted in US media, even on unrelated articles, this happens to me. I like taking breaks on HN, but the more it happens, the more I am going to other places instead. This is not about being true or being right - just whether your conversation is following the mainstream opinion or not. If later it proves to be right? Too bad for you. This is the case on most forums with up and downvoting, and it forces dissent out. I am interested in conversation for learning and sharing. The post I read the more carefully are greyed out or dead. Most are ads or crankpots, but in 1% of the time I get gems. Sinple example: would you have preferred to learn about intermittent fasting now, or 5 years ago? Me: 5 years ago, but too many downvotes may have pushed out of the community people like the parent poster.
  - LinuxBender 8y ago
    I find it useful to take notes on discussions that seem illogical, unscientific, dogmatic, etc. Later on, one can always post their counter arguments on github [1] or their own site [2] where it won't be grey text. You could even start your own forum, where you can set the guidelines. [1] - https://github.com/ https://github.com/ [2] - http://n-gate.com/ http://n-gate.com/ Not my sites, just an example. You can make the text as big, bold and readable as you wish. I prefer really simple stylesheets.
    - bitwize 8y ago
      That site (starts with N and ends with gate) doesn't like to be mentioned here on Hackernews. If you link to there from here, it will pull a jwz -- albeit thankfully, without the nutsack, just a fake "captcha" that's really a looping "Loading" gif.
      - LinuxBender 8y ago
        That's too funny. I suppose I've never clicked on a link from here to there. I also block javascript so maybe that is also why I have not seen it.
    - 1996 8y ago
      We seem to have the same approach to unpopular content: this is what we can get the most innovative ideas from Thanks a lot for the gate suggestion, after checking it it seems to post a contrarian analysis - basically singling out the post I will be interested in reading!
  - mirceal 8y ago
    personally i've learned about IF on reddit. I think it's good to have diverse sources of information and to also apply your own filters on the info you get. I sometimes will get into a heated discussion w/ other on hn or reddit or you_name it. And maybe lose "virtual points" for this. At the end of the day the way I look at it is this: if the other person learns something or finds out something new, even if they don't agree, or I learn or find something new it's a win.
- aviv 8y ago
  I don't care, I said it tongue in cheek to illustrate how close minded many HNers are when it comes to health and how to improve one's own health without reliance on pharmaceuticals and other "modern medicine" inventions. Fasting is just one such example. I hope that by the time I reach 0 karma, fasting will be as mainstream as knowing you shouldn't be smoking.

by aviv 8y ago

mirceal 8y ago

Why do you care about karma so much? Express your opinion and forget about “internet points”.

1996 8y ago
Because you want to join in the conversation, and with lower amounts of magical points you get more often messages telling you to "slow down" AFTER you have carefully written a message in 5 to to 10 minutes. This is infuriating when english is not your native language and writing understandable language is slow, especially to communicate complex thought that may be not evident. Due to my unpopular opinions about how some countries and companies are often targetted in US media, even on unrelated articles, this happens to me. I like taking breaks on HN, but the more it happens, the more I am going to other places instead. This is not about being true or being right - just whether your conversation is following the mainstream opinion or not. If later it proves to be right? Too bad for you. This is the case on most forums with up and downvoting, and it forces dissent out. I am interested in conversation for learning and sharing. The post I read the more carefully are greyed out or dead. Most are ads or crankpots, but in 1% of the time I get gems. Sinple example: would you have preferred to learn about intermittent fasting now, or 5 years ago? Me: 5 years ago, but too many downvotes may have pushed out of the community people like the parent poster.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  I find it useful to take notes on discussions that seem illogical, unscientific, dogmatic, etc. Later on, one can always post their counter arguments on github [1] or their own site [2] where it won't be grey text. You could even start your own forum, where you can set the guidelines. [1] - https://github.com/ https://github.com/ [2] - http://n-gate.com/ http://n-gate.com/ Not my sites, just an example. You can make the text as big, bold and readable as you wish. I prefer really simple stylesheets.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    That site (starts with N and ends with gate) doesn't like to be mentioned here on Hackernews. If you link to there from here, it will pull a jwz -- albeit thankfully, without the nutsack, just a fake "captcha" that's really a looping "Loading" gif.
    - LinuxBender 8y ago
      That's too funny. I suppose I've never clicked on a link from here to there. I also block javascript so maybe that is also why I have not seen it.
  - 1996 8y ago
    We seem to have the same approach to unpopular content: this is what we can get the most innovative ideas from Thanks a lot for the gate suggestion, after checking it it seems to post a contrarian analysis - basically singling out the post I will be interested in reading!
- mirceal 8y ago
  personally i've learned about IF on reddit. I think it's good to have diverse sources of information and to also apply your own filters on the info you get. I sometimes will get into a heated discussion w/ other on hn or reddit or you_name it. And maybe lose "virtual points" for this. At the end of the day the way I look at it is this: if the other person learns something or finds out something new, even if they don't agree, or I learn or find something new it's a win.
aviv 8y ago
I don't care, I said it tongue in cheek to illustrate how close minded many HNers are when it comes to health and how to improve one's own health without reliance on pharmaceuticals and other "modern medicine" inventions. Fasting is just one such example. I hope that by the time I reach 0 karma, fasting will be as mainstream as knowing you shouldn't be smoking.