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> As you note, the level of technical competence in the subreddits and threads that pertain to technical matters is higher on Reddit. Articles and discussions a
by jules 16y ago
> As you note, the level of technical competence in the subreddits and threads that pertain to technical matters is higher on Reddit. Articles and discussions about just about any facet of any field that requires long-studied domain knowledge will have at least one commenter that really knows their stuff and wants to help people understand it.
This is exactly what I mean. For example in a discussion about D, Walter Bright (the creator of D) joins in. In a discussion on Scala Martin Odersky joins in. That's pretty awesome.
> This does come with the problem that someone who is just crafty with words can create detailed troll paragraphs that laymen can't easily distinguish from legitimate information (and this does happen, and is arguable inevitable once a discussion community grows to contain some ill-defined number of members)
Yes, although surprisingly often the crowd will choose the good comments will to be upvoted. There are exceptions of course. For example jdh30 nearly always gets downvoted no matter what he says, even if his comment is helpful and correct.
> HN also has a much stronger focus on entrepreneurship (understandably so).
Yes, on entrepreneurship topics HN has better discussion. Reddit is a bit anti-entrepreneur (especially anti-bigco).
- kaens 16y agoReddit is a bit anti-entrepreneur Parts of it, certainly. It definitely has a generalized semi-anti-capitalist vibe, and yes, anti-bigco. I don't think too many of those people are against entrepreneurship in the sense of individuals (or small groups thereof) making a living for themselves doing what they are passionate about; I would imagine that the crankiness would tend to arise when an individual or company started going past providing for themselves, to providing for themselves in gross excess at the expense of the livelihoods of other individuals -- possibly many other individuals.
- marknutter 16y agoThey fail to understand that most big businesses started out as small businesses. you cant really be for one and against the other.
- kaens 16y agoIt's not about the size of the business, it's about putting profit motive for a small amount of individuals over the lives and/or well-being of many individuals. you cant really be for one and against the other. This is like saying that a cup of water with a drop of red food dye in it and a cup of red food dye are equivalent because they both contain red food dye. One of them is going to be much more beneficial upon ingestion. That's a terrible analogy. It just so happens that the majority of "big businesses" doesn't really give a fuck about how much suffering they create -- their primary motivation tends to be profit and power, where as the majority of "small businesses" are primarily concerned with providing for the livelihoods of the people in the business, because the people are passionate about whatever they're doing. Don't mistake an argument against viewing people as dollar signs as an argument against big businesses, and don't mistake the tendency for most of the businesses criticized as sociopathic to be big businesses to be indicative of the criticism being of big business itself. People who are anti-bigco tend to be so because of the whole "profit is the only imperative" thing, not because they are businesses that grew.
- jules 16y agoThat logic is flawed. Excuse me for making this comparison: dictators started out as children, you can't really be for one and against the other. Your logic is right one way: big businesses started out small, but not all small businesses become big.