3 ms·

Your down voters are clearly proving your point. It seems that despite HN audience comprising mostly smart people, they are no less ideologically blinkered tha

Your down voters are clearly proving your point. It seems that despite HN audience comprising mostly smart people, they are no less ideologically blinkered than other forums. I am continually disappointed that on non-tech threads, HN is just as biased (and in the same direction) as reddit. A further disappointment is that even tech threads so often end up devolving into discussions of politics and Trump, with the predictable outcome.

mistermann 8y ago
Bias is to be expected, after all, even the smartest humans are filled with all sorts of evolutionary extras that may have been useful in the past. But what's new, and should be obvious to anyone who's been on this site for 5+ years, is the increasingly bizarre nature of these disagreements. Yes, people have always gotten emotional and disrespectful from time to time, but if you pay attention, you may notice a new phenomenon where people are starting exhibit signs of not being able to distinguish the person they're communicating with from an imaginary caricature of the person. People will passionately respond to specific claims, sometimes even fairly complex, that literally haven't even been hinted at by the actual person in the actual conversation. It's like people are arguing with their imagination. Man, if people on HN can't keep it together, I don't know what to think. It's easy to say this is just how it is online, people in the real world are much more reasonable, and there's a lot of truth to that. But at the same time, I believe the contagion is spreading, and might be even more influential in future elections. And outside of the very rare post like yours (which unsurprisingly has a dim grey color to it), there seems to be almost no support for a voice of reason, at least not ones that happen to dissent in the slightest.

3 ms·

Your down voters are clearly proving your point. It seems that despite HN audience comprising mostly smart people, they are no less ideologically blinkered tha

by Bendingo 8y ago

mistermann 8y ago
Bias is to be expected, after all, even the smartest humans are filled with all sorts of evolutionary extras that may have been useful in the past. But what's new, and should be obvious to anyone who's been on this site for 5+ years, is the increasingly bizarre nature of these disagreements. Yes, people have always gotten emotional and disrespectful from time to time, but if you pay attention, you may notice a new phenomenon where people are starting exhibit signs of not being able to distinguish the person they're communicating with from an imaginary caricature of the person. People will passionately respond to specific claims, sometimes even fairly complex, that literally haven't even been hinted at by the actual person in the actual conversation. It's like people are arguing with their imagination. Man, if people on HN can't keep it together, I don't know what to think. It's easy to say this is just how it is online, people in the real world are much more reasonable, and there's a lot of truth to that. But at the same time, I believe the contagion is spreading, and might be even more influential in future elections. And outside of the very rare post like yours (which unsurprisingly has a dim grey color to it), there seems to be almost no support for a voice of reason, at least not ones that happen to dissent in the slightest.