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The people of whom you speak would need to be gifted communicators. I'm sure that there are some smart, well informed and well intentioned people on Hacker News

The people of whom you speak would need to be gifted communicators. I'm sure that there are some smart, well informed and well intentioned people on Hacker News that could argue for realistic, multipolar solutions. That said, it's an anglophone site for IT professionals. I feel that most political discussions are steered in the direction of 'good thinking' progressivism and neo-conservative interventionism. It's the majority demographic where many of those people live.

mistermann 7y ago
> The people of whom you speak would need to be gifted communicators. Going about it one way yes, but not all ways. For example, if you could alter the HN guidelines to include new rules like: - do not state speculation as fact - be careful to not confuse beliefs based on facts with beliefs based on heuristics - just as you realize it is foolish to say "people of ethnicity X do (or will do) Y", also realize it is similarly foolish (in most cases) to say things about various groups of people. Realize that you cannot read minds and cannot predict the future, so do not do it in comments. - be mindful that there's a difference between fact and opinion, and it's often very difficult to tell the difference (errors hidden in axioms, etc) - do not lie; try to not write untruths - etc (I can't recall all the ideas I've had over time) If you made some reasonable changes like this, and actually enforced them, do you think it would not (could not?) make a change? Perhaps the very idea seems absurd, but if you stop and think about it for a while, is it really? You can go into any non-technical thread, and it is full of utterly delusional statements, and it keeps getting worse. I simply cannot believe people as intelligent as those who frequent HN are not capable of significantly decreasing this behavior. I also don't see a plausible way that this problem gets fixed otherwise. Perhaps some amazingly persuasive enlightened guru could spring onto the world scene and wake people up, but I have a feeling he wouldn't get a very warm reception, from a wide variety of powerful people.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > You can go into any non-technical thread, and it is full of utterly delusional statements An even better example (although, the "delusional" charge is a bit heavy in this case): I was wrong about spreadsheets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967 Even here, in a largely objective domain, one can clearly see a variety of strong "statements of fact" (or so the author believes), but if one was to dig down into each, I suspect you would likely find that the erroneous thinking ultimately resides at the axioms (heuristics) level. I would love to know if you even somewhat see what I'm getting at, or if this sounds like some form of batshit insanity. Most anyone I run into seems to have a strong aversion to this type of thinking, kind of similar to how people seem to have a natural aversion to certain conversations (discussions in "polite company" that go into too much detail about sex, for example).

mistermann 7y ago

> The people of whom you speak would need to be gifted communicators. Going about it one way yes, but not all ways. For example, if you could alter the HN guidelines to include new rules like: - do not state speculation as fact - be careful to not confuse beliefs based on facts with beliefs based on heuristics - just as you realize it is foolish to say "people of ethnicity X do (or will do) Y", also realize it is similarly foolish (in most cases) to say things about various groups of people. Realize that you cannot read minds and cannot predict the future, so do not do it in comments. - be mindful that there's a difference between fact and opinion, and it's often very difficult to tell the difference (errors hidden in axioms, etc) - do not lie; try to not write untruths - etc (I can't recall all the ideas I've had over time) If you made some reasonable changes like this, and actually enforced them, do you think it would not (could not?) make a change? Perhaps the very idea seems absurd, but if you stop and think about it for a while, is it really? You can go into any non-technical thread, and it is full of utterly delusional statements, and it keeps getting worse. I simply cannot believe people as intelligent as those who frequent HN are not capable of significantly decreasing this behavior. I also don't see a plausible way that this problem gets fixed otherwise. Perhaps some amazingly persuasive enlightened guru could spring onto the world scene and wake people up, but I have a feeling he wouldn't get a very warm reception, from a wide variety of powerful people.

mistermann 7y ago
> You can go into any non-technical thread, and it is full of utterly delusional statements An even better example (although, the "delusional" charge is a bit heavy in this case): I was wrong about spreadsheets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967 Even here, in a largely objective domain, one can clearly see a variety of strong "statements of fact" (or so the author believes), but if one was to dig down into each, I suspect you would likely find that the erroneous thinking ultimately resides at the axioms (heuristics) level. I would love to know if you even somewhat see what I'm getting at, or if this sounds like some form of batshit insanity. Most anyone I run into seems to have a strong aversion to this type of thinking, kind of similar to how people seem to have a natural aversion to certain conversations (discussions in "polite company" that go into too much detail about sex, for example).