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It's quite frustrating that even hackernews cannot have a reasonable conversation the moment Greta Thunberg is involved. Surely it's not so hard to avoid that a

It's quite frustrating that even hackernews cannot have a reasonable conversation the moment Greta Thunberg is involved. Surely it's not so hard to avoid that at least the initial comments on a submission are ad hominem.

busterarm 7y ago
It's OT anyway. There's so much mainstream news being posted the last few years here, it just keeps getting worse and worse.
Analemma_ 7y ago
I've definitely noticed that there's something people find uniquely infuriating about an intelligent, well-spoken child that makes good points they disagree with. I think it's because suddenly all the usual excuses to dismiss arguments-- they're a paid shill, they're a political agent-- sound ridiculous, and the people don't know how to cope with the fact now that they have to argue for real and they're losing to a kid. It happened with Malala and it's definitely happening with Greta Thunberg too.
- archagon 7y ago
  Good insight. See also: David Hogg.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
epistasis 7y ago
This phenomenon is strongly driven by political and us-vs-them psychology. Climate change denial has been tied to peoples' basic identities, which has been a huge factor in the US's inaction on climate change. This was a conscious strategy by the same PR people that fought tobacco regulation. As documents come out from the oil companies from decades ago, journalists are documenting it. Season 1 of this podcast was extremely enlightening (haven't gotten to further seasons) https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's not purely Greta, it's becoming a common HN tendency on climate emergency related posts. Dozens and dozens of low effort comments, downvotes on every or every other comment, until it triggers some HN flamewar or spam flags and gets buried. Which appears to have already happened in the short time I took to write this. It's gone from top of the front page, to nowhere on the first three pages.
ForHackernews 7y ago
I think Greta Thunberg makes a lot of people feel extremely uncomfortable and guilty about their extravagant lifestyles (I know I do!). She's uncompromising, and she doesn't go in for feel-good fairy tales about how we can save the planet if we all just do a little recycling.
seppin 7y ago
> that even hackernews Why do you think this place is above what happens on Reddit/Twitter? If anything, the concentration of groupthink and demographic is stronger here than anywhere else.

busterarm 7y ago

It's OT anyway. There's so much mainstream news being posted the last few years here, it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Analemma_ 7y ago

I've definitely noticed that there's something people find uniquely infuriating about an intelligent, well-spoken child that makes good points they disagree with. I think it's because suddenly all the usual excuses to dismiss arguments-- they're a paid shill, they're a political agent-- sound ridiculous, and the people don't know how to cope with the fact now that they have to argue for real and they're losing to a kid. It happened with Malala and it's definitely happening with Greta Thunberg too.

archagon 7y ago
Good insight. See also: David Hogg.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

epistasis 7y ago

This phenomenon is strongly driven by political and us-vs-them psychology. Climate change denial has been tied to peoples' basic identities, which has been a huge factor in the US's inaction on climate change. This was a conscious strategy by the same PR people that fought tobacco regulation. As documents come out from the oil companies from decades ago, journalists are documenting it. Season 1 of this podcast was extremely enlightening (haven't gotten to further seasons) https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It's not purely Greta, it's becoming a common HN tendency on climate emergency related posts. Dozens and dozens of low effort comments, downvotes on every or every other comment, until it triggers some HN flamewar or spam flags and gets buried. Which appears to have already happened in the short time I took to write this. It's gone from top of the front page, to nowhere on the first three pages.

ForHackernews 7y ago

I think Greta Thunberg makes a lot of people feel extremely uncomfortable and guilty about their extravagant lifestyles (I know I do!). She's uncompromising, and she doesn't go in for feel-good fairy tales about how we can save the planet if we all just do a little recycling.

seppin 7y ago

> that even hackernews Why do you think this place is above what happens on Reddit/Twitter? If anything, the concentration of groupthink and demographic is stronger here than anywhere else.