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I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me ps

by mabbo 7y ago

I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice. Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good. Going to stop posting here now too. Thanks everyone for the good times.

dfsegoat 7y ago
Just try the noprocrast options in your profile. I have it set so I can basically browse for a bit in the AM, maybe do a comment and then I am locked out until the evening. It's a useful feature for those of us working on discipline + distractibility issues.
- maze-le 7y ago
  I tried it several times, but I am usually a slow typist and English is not my native language, so I sometimes think twice about how to formulate a sentence. Sometimes when I wrote a posting, I ended up hitting the timeout, just when I was about to post. This is the only reason I turned 'noprocrast' off again, otherwise it is a super useful feature!
have_faith 7y ago
I'm going to downvote you, but only because it's what you would have wanted.
- ngngngng 7y ago
  Same, That's exactly what i was thinking seeing this comment ironically at the top. As someone addicted to checking my upvotes on hacker news, please don't upvote those of us that admit that to you ;D
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Half a million Karma in < 2 years? Here, have some downvotes :P
    - agurk 7y ago
      ngngngng's karma is a little over 1.5k. You're looking at their about field.
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        I absolutely am. D'oh!
- croh 7y ago
  I want but I can't
taftster 7y ago
Have an upvote, 17001 now. Seriously though, good luck to you. Have you checked out HN's rate limiting features (maxvisit, minaway, etc.)?
jonfw 7y ago
I really do feel like I get a lot out of having conversations with random people on the internet. Especially a place like this, filled with intelligent people. It's really healthy to have people challenge your ideas sometimes, which happens a lot more on the internet than in real life in my experience. And there is obviously some degree of benefit in being a software developer who is tune with his fellow tech dorks.
- jniedrauer 7y ago
  Having my ideas challenged by strangers on the internet has been very valuable to me over the years. I do wish conversations on forums like this were transient though. It's one of the reasons I really enjoy IRC. I fear that my opinions from $CURRENT_YEAR might come back to bite me someday in the future. I should probably not use my name as a username, but ultimately I think that the BigCorps can resolve usernames to real identities without too much hassle either way.
  - jonfw 7y ago
    Personally, I've decided that if somebody bases their opinion of of me off of an internet comment I made a couple of years ago- their opinion really isn't worth considering. So I've decided not to care about it. Whatever stigma exists online with people who have the "incorrect" opinion- I haven't really seen reflected in real life. The logbook of my opinions is actually really interesting for me to look back on. See how I've reevaluated some opinions, or take a critical look at older arguments that I hadn't considered recently. Of course- I do some sanitation as well, removing certain things that may have been particularly dumb.
wallflower 7y ago
In an interview, Evan Spiegel described Facebook with the single best succinct description in my opinion: “Facebook is a market for attention.” HN can be too, and I like to think that I am asynchronously contributing stuff that may lay off the typical radar of the Venn diagram of typical HN readers.
- appleshore 7y ago
  I don’t think seeking attention is bad as it’s the process of individualization. The opposite is far worse. Being expressive is the only way to connect with others, and often shameless, provocative or wild expression can be charming and relationship building. The problem is our mindsets, our shallow culture and our lack of resilient thinking. We’re being provocative about the wrong things and we’re focusing our creative wonder on only the superficial.
- taurath 7y ago
  Most of the Internet’s economy is a market for attention. HN in particular tends to glorify this as the vast majority of people here make their money from other peoples attention in some respects.
lm28469 7y ago
I override HN's css to not display points just for that.
pjc50 7y ago
I have 50k here and 36k on electronics.stackexchange.com. It's a good thing I'm too ugly for Instagram.
teekert 7y ago
17000? Damn, I really am a nobody.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Meh. HN points are pretty meaningless. I have way more than 17000 and I am still a nobody. I wouldn't put much stock in it.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    I'm a nobody and I have 35,000 HN points (please don't check)
    - mindcrime 7y ago
      It's too bad there isn't something you can do with HN points. If only they were like airline miles or something... :-)
      - teekert 7y ago
        You can change your "topcolor" (the orange bar at the top) at some point. It's something.
    - teekert 7y ago
      296 man, it's like not even worth this reply.
philpem 7y ago
I've gone the same way with Twitter -- from massive amounts of tweeting to posting fairly regularly on here. Though not to the 17,000 points scale... I was around the 700 mark last time I looked (I don't look at the number very often). The difference for me is, on Twitter you get people quote-RTing you to ask their friends to hate you. Here... it's a relatively polite reply explaining why I'm wrong (and I often am!) in their perspective. Or that I've missed some key point which utterly skewers my argument. Maybe it's more like giving up meth and replacing it with codeine...
- iikoolpp 7y ago
  > Here... it's a relatively polite reply explaining why I'm wrong I've never found this. It's generally a three hundred word roundabout way of saying "You're an idiot" to fit in the faux civility guidelines.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    Yes. Somehow you have to play along, otherwise someone will point out that "non-substantial comments are not welcome here". Point is: Sarcasm works best when writing somewhat snarky. But probably most HN readers don't understand sarcasm and that's the problem. (See what I did there?)
  - SubuSS 7y ago
    I have always been curious about this: Are you for real saying you can take an "You're an idiot" comment with the same equanimity as the 300 word option? Email/Forums etc already loses a ton of context. Merge that with semi-anonymity - I don't know how you can do it better with a short form answer. IOW - Your comment is ignorant :D
- rconti 7y ago
  Twitter is a toxic cesspool and I can't fathom the value people get out of it. I don't CARE about influencers think, I don't WANT to see the most re-tweeted comment. Whereas FB is more "flat"; I see what people who I actually care about post. Nice vacation, hey, your kid did something unremarkable, cool, you got a new dog. If your usage pattern is to try to game the system and gather likes and shares, you're probably not someone I'm interested in, hence my distaste for twitter, or, generally, 'following' anyone I'm not personal friends with. Twitter seems to be setup for the latter; I keep trying to like it and use it, but I get uninteresting shit from the "public" figures I try to follow; eg, race drivers I'm interested in, cybersecurity figures, etc.
vidarh 7y ago
I have more HN points than you, but a couple of things makes me feel like it doesn't matter: The lack of any visible sign of new replies removes a lot of compulsion. I only stay engaged with the conversations actually interesting enough to get me to keep reading them. Compare with Reddit where the best thing I learned to do was to decide when I was 'done' and open the list of unread messages while looking away and closing the tab...
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I use a user script in chrome to hide my HN karma count from myself. Super helpful for focusing on what is important when contributing (along with a lot of constructive feedback from the mods over the last 8 years).
  - xurias 7y ago
    Is this publicly available? I've been looking for something like this.
    - skrebbel 7y ago
      This would be a great HN feature actually, fitting in spirit with the existing settings (eg showdead etc). @dang, if you read this, what do you think?
    - username90 7y ago
      Install Stylus or another css extension and then add this style filtered to news.ycombinator.com: .pagetop { visibility:collapse; } .pagetop * { visibility:visible; } .score { visibility:hidden; }
    - arkitaip 7y ago
      If you use an adblocker like uBlock Origin, you can use the following filter to remove the top navbar: news.ycombinator.com##.pagetop
  - bllguo 7y ago
buboard 7y ago
I think i do the same. I shouldn’t have posted this
4ntonius8lock 7y ago
I've found that for me, caring about such things is a larger pattern of 'holding on' too much. So I've made it a conscious decision to constantly be getting rid of things I accumulate. For HN and other such sites, I regularly open new accounts. This is both for ego reasons, as well as doxing: rotating through accounts and usernames helps leave less of a trace.
hammock 7y ago
Never heard of you before mabbo, and I read the comments here every day. If that gives you any motivation to quit.
foxhop 7y ago
If you want trade the cocaine that is HN with a weed variety, you should blog. It's really fufilling. I blog publicly but also journal privately using git and vim. I have been on and off for about 5 years. The raw thoughts rarely show the light of day, but sometimes I synthesize my journal entries as blog posts or HN comments. I refine my true self for the public. This saves me from letter downvotes sway what I believe. By the time I post on HN I've already collected my thoughts in my other journals. I do feel very disconnected from people these days. It's been about a little over a year since moving my of my status updates to Mastodon from Twitter where I follow exactly one IRL friend from high school, a friend from two jobs ago, a person who found me randomly, and a customer for Remarkbox. When I do post on Twitter it's often a link to my Mastodon post, or a link to my blog, or side project I'm working on. It's sort of selfish but I only read tweets on my timeline up to the first ad, which is typically a scroll and a half on my phone. In this way, I sort of use Twitter as a broadcast, like updating a RSS feed with something I'm proud of. I rarely digest the tweets others put on there. This seems selfish, but really it's not.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  > you should blog. It's really fufilling. In what way? Do you write for yourself then make it public not caring if anyone sees? That doesn't sound fulfilling; I have blog posts over the years which I have no idea if anyone ever saw and it feels a bit of a waste. Do you write as if you're trying to contribute to the world? Then doesn't that depend on feedback to know if you are succeeding or failing, and put you in the mind of "I have to create something good" as a competitor in the world of content-creation competition?
  - logram 7y ago
    There's this quote from Kundera's The unbearable lightness of being. Perhaps it makes sense in this context. We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. That is the case with the German singer, the American actress, and even the tall, stooped editor with the big chin. He was accustomed to his readers, and when one day the Russians banned his newspaper, he had the feeling that the atmosphere was suddenly a hundred times thinner. Nothing could replace the look of unknown eyes. He thought he would suffocate. Then one day he realized that he was constantly being followed, bugged, and surreptitiously photographed in the street. Suddenly he had anonymous eyes on him and he could breathe again! He began making theatrical speeches to the microphones in his wall. In the police, he had found his lost public. The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. Marie-Claude and her daughter belong in the second category. Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. Tereza and Tomas belong in the third category. And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, for example. He traveled to the borders of Cambodia only for Sabina. As the bus bumped along the Thai road, he could feel her eyes fixed on him in a long stare.
johnnycab 7y ago
This reminded me of dickfromaccounting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20068269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20068269
ping_pong 7y ago
I routinely nuke my reddit account every year or so, so I stop caring about things like karma. And I've found that my experience hasn't changed one bit, except the relief that I know my older posts can't get linked back to me except with tremendous effort.
inscionent 7y ago
I post not for points. I post because I have something to say. Expressing my self is validating, who cares if others read or agree.
- dumbfounder 7y ago
  "who cares if others read or agree" Too many people.
- foxhop 7y ago
  I post for the same reason, but getting negative points does discourage me from posting half formed thoughts.
  - inscionent 7y ago
    I do try to save the hip shots for twitter.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  Why not just post to a text file if you really don't care?
StavrosK 7y ago
I know this is a bit like saying "just stop having a problem!", but if you stop caring about the number of likes/upvotes/whatever, it's a much more relaxed experience, where you just read what informed, insightful people (and me) have to say. I imagine having to look at upvotes can make it a much more stressful experience.
IanDrake 7y ago
How did you get 17,000 HN points? Did look something like this: https://serendipitygreece.com/wp-content/uploads/comforting-lies-vs-unpleasant-truths-640x480.jpeg https://serendipitygreece.com/wp-content/uploads/comforting-... To me, this is the problem with seeking validation through these systems. You are rewarded for saying pleasing things and for conforming to group think. Why don't you spend down your points by playing devil's advocate? Then, when you run low on points, you can fill-up-the-tank by saying nice things that everyone wants to hear again.
- jotm 7y ago
  Spend down? You mean get flagged and banned? Because that's what will happen.
- Loughla 7y ago
  Or why don't you just post your actual beliefs and thoughts without worrying about the votes, or being devil's advocate needlessly (subsequently, whenever I've encountered someone playing 'devil's advocate' they are saying the things they want to say, but are too afraid of the reaction of those around them to actually own that)? Honestly, if your opinions are being hammered on a site, regardless of the site, you have one of two things: (a) an unhealthy forum/circlejerk (b) shithead opinions. It's up to you to figure out which it is.
aantix 7y ago
Maybe concede that the need for validation never quite goes away? You can remove all externalities but then it becomes an internal barometer. “Did I do enough? Was what I said funny/insightful/smart? Do they like me?” The voice is always there. It just doesn’t have a number assigned to it.
throwaway274903 7y ago
> What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? The alternative view is that you are perfectly normal and that craving validation from strangers is what built human society.
manigandham 7y ago
There's a big difference between superficial mostly-visual social status sharing and having discussions on a tightly moderated text-only forum which de-emphasizes personal identity and has no notifications. FB tends to be a net negative while HN is the opposite (at least for me) because of the content and engagement.
- xurias 7y ago
  I don't think there is a substantial difference. I had an account (which I've since deleted) with thousands of karma points. I was becoming obsessed with the validation of getting upvotes. And I'm somebody who never cared about likes on Facebook. But validation from the smart people here? It was addictive and really tainted how I interacted with HN. I went into an emotional tailspin if I started getting downvotes.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    I think caring about that kind of validation is a separate issue from the content itself, and requires self-discipline regardless. At least discussion on interesting and educational topics is better than sharing yet another batch of vacation photos.
    - xurias 7y ago
      I'm not so sure. If it's something that impairs you, I think it's negative.
chappi42 7y ago
Imho no need to stop. Just moderate. Suggestion: give up your 17000 HN point mabbo account and start from scratch. Only with moderation this time :-)
- kraftman 7y ago
  Agreed. The answer to doing something too much isn't to cut it out completely and move onto something else that you'll end up doing too much, that doesn't even attempt to address the issue.
itronitron 7y ago
maybe just turn off the upvoting bots
abootstrapper 7y ago
You can check out of Hacker News but you can never leave. No seriously, you can’t delete your account.
moosey 7y ago
Just turn on the procrastination monitor. I did it and with my reading habits, I can only post something like one or two comments a day.
michaelcampbell 7y ago
I've used a combination of tampermonkey type scripts and "ublock origin" block elements to remove all karma from here and reddit. I find it a lot nicer.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
So I've never had "Social Media", but I read Hacker News too much, and contribute a bit. I'm wondering if Hacker News is better or worse than Facebook/Instagram. At least on Facebook and Instagram, you usually interact with your friends, right? Here, I feel like I read a lot of insightful posts and stories and have good discussions. But I'm not making any friends or strengthening any friendships. Is it worth the time? I don't know. I'm definitely addicted.
- everdrive 7y ago
  I think it can be as addicting, but HN is far less vapid. Does this make it better? It's hard to say. With FB, I'd find myself reloading, and looking, and not being happy I spent any time there, all to do it again the next day.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
theandrewbailey 7y ago
I remember about 15 years ago, having a MySpace profile. I poked around for a while, but just didn't understand it, and eventually stopped using it. (All your friends are here, they said. The only one I could find was my idiot friend.) When Facebook/Twitter/et al. came around, I avoided them, and about 5 years ago, realized that I made the right call.
slothtrop 7y ago
Well HN is less a validation peddler and like other aggregators offers rapid doses of news, little info-hits that can leave us feeling scatterbrained when overindulged. It can be too distracting but from a healthiness standpoint seems vastly superior.
pawelduda 7y ago
I did the opposite, I left a very toxic environment after over 4 years, which caused a lot of people whom I used to consider mates, or even friends to cut off any contact with me (I suspect they might have been influenced by some bad actors but this is outside of my control and will to be controlled anymore). I started being more active on social media (only to an extent - for example I use the built-in Instagram timer to only allow up to 15 minutes of usage a day) to cope with the lack of interactions I used to have at work and around it. Some of the old 'friends' found and started to add/follow me but there was no other meaningful interaction from their side. Before they would call and ask to go out and do something after work - not anymore. I reached out to some of them a few times but felt that there is an imbalance in both quality and quantity in communication from their side. Since I found that to be very shallow, I started regularly wiping my contacts who are there just to leech on my private life and give nothing in return. Some people aren't your friends, they just happen to spend time with you because of common activities in your and their lives - they're simply stuck with you in the same place and time. I cut these people off from my life and trust me, it has been over 2 months and I have less relationships but only the high quality ones survived - it makes me much happier, less drained on a daily basis and more content knowing that they're the few good ones. There is no need to be attached to people who aren't attached to you. And there is no need to force anything - it will only cause harm.
FussyZeus 7y ago
I have to say I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that "social media bad." I've learned tons of things from communities I follow, including this one, and a number of reddits. I keep in touch with friends of varying distances, and even make plans in my own town. I'm not saying that the way social media tries to suck you in doesn't make you unhealthy, or their ideal patterns of engagement won't make you miserable, but in my mind that's like saying that Smirnoff's ideal of your consumption will make you an alcoholic, therefore alcohol is bad. Alcohol and social media are perfectly able to be consumed responsibly; perhaps not by everyone, and I would never begrudge someone not partaking if they don't want to. I just get tired of the drumbeat that "social media bad, delete your facebook, don't post on instagram" when I've had and have Facebook, Instagram, Hacker News, Reddit, on and on and they don't make me miserable because I don't obsess over them. Just saying.

by mabbo 7y ago

dfsegoat 7y ago

Just try the noprocrast options in your profile. I have it set so I can basically browse for a bit in the AM, maybe do a comment and then I am locked out until the evening. It's a useful feature for those of us working on discipline + distractibility issues.

maze-le 7y ago
I tried it several times, but I am usually a slow typist and English is not my native language, so I sometimes think twice about how to formulate a sentence. Sometimes when I wrote a posting, I ended up hitting the timeout, just when I was about to post. This is the only reason I turned 'noprocrast' off again, otherwise it is a super useful feature!

have_faith 7y ago

I'm going to downvote you, but only because it's what you would have wanted.

ngngngng 7y ago
Same, That's exactly what i was thinking seeing this comment ironically at the top. As someone addicted to checking my upvotes on hacker news, please don't upvote those of us that admit that to you ;D
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Half a million Karma in < 2 years? Here, have some downvotes :P
  - agurk 7y ago
    ngngngng's karma is a little over 1.5k. You're looking at their about field.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      I absolutely am. D'oh!
croh 7y ago
I want but I can't

taftster 7y ago

Have an upvote, 17001 now. Seriously though, good luck to you. Have you checked out HN's rate limiting features (maxvisit, minaway, etc.)?

jonfw 7y ago

I really do feel like I get a lot out of having conversations with random people on the internet. Especially a place like this, filled with intelligent people. It's really healthy to have people challenge your ideas sometimes, which happens a lot more on the internet than in real life in my experience. And there is obviously some degree of benefit in being a software developer who is tune with his fellow tech dorks.

jniedrauer 7y ago
Having my ideas challenged by strangers on the internet has been very valuable to me over the years. I do wish conversations on forums like this were transient though. It's one of the reasons I really enjoy IRC. I fear that my opinions from $CURRENT_YEAR might come back to bite me someday in the future. I should probably not use my name as a username, but ultimately I think that the BigCorps can resolve usernames to real identities without too much hassle either way.
- jonfw 7y ago
  Personally, I've decided that if somebody bases their opinion of of me off of an internet comment I made a couple of years ago- their opinion really isn't worth considering. So I've decided not to care about it. Whatever stigma exists online with people who have the "incorrect" opinion- I haven't really seen reflected in real life. The logbook of my opinions is actually really interesting for me to look back on. See how I've reevaluated some opinions, or take a critical look at older arguments that I hadn't considered recently. Of course- I do some sanitation as well, removing certain things that may have been particularly dumb.

wallflower 7y ago

In an interview, Evan Spiegel described Facebook with the single best succinct description in my opinion: “Facebook is a market for attention.” HN can be too, and I like to think that I am asynchronously contributing stuff that may lay off the typical radar of the Venn diagram of typical HN readers.

appleshore 7y ago
I don’t think seeking attention is bad as it’s the process of individualization. The opposite is far worse. Being expressive is the only way to connect with others, and often shameless, provocative or wild expression can be charming and relationship building. The problem is our mindsets, our shallow culture and our lack of resilient thinking. We’re being provocative about the wrong things and we’re focusing our creative wonder on only the superficial.
taurath 7y ago
Most of the Internet’s economy is a market for attention. HN in particular tends to glorify this as the vast majority of people here make their money from other peoples attention in some respects.

lm28469 7y ago

I override HN's css to not display points just for that.

pjc50 7y ago

I have 50k here and 36k on electronics.stackexchange.com. It's a good thing I'm too ugly for Instagram.

teekert 7y ago

17000? Damn, I really am a nobody.

mindcrime 7y ago
Meh. HN points are pretty meaningless. I have way more than 17000 and I am still a nobody. I wouldn't put much stock in it.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  I'm a nobody and I have 35,000 HN points (please don't check)
  - mindcrime 7y ago
    It's too bad there isn't something you can do with HN points. If only they were like airline miles or something... :-)
    - teekert 7y ago
      You can change your "topcolor" (the orange bar at the top) at some point. It's something.
  - teekert 7y ago
    296 man, it's like not even worth this reply.

philpem 7y ago

I've gone the same way with Twitter -- from massive amounts of tweeting to posting fairly regularly on here. Though not to the 17,000 points scale... I was around the 700 mark last time I looked (I don't look at the number very often). The difference for me is, on Twitter you get people quote-RTing you to ask their friends to hate you. Here... it's a relatively polite reply explaining why I'm wrong (and I often am!) in their perspective. Or that I've missed some key point which utterly skewers my argument. Maybe it's more like giving up meth and replacing it with codeine...

iikoolpp 7y ago
> Here... it's a relatively polite reply explaining why I'm wrong I've never found this. It's generally a three hundred word roundabout way of saying "You're an idiot" to fit in the faux civility guidelines.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Yes. Somehow you have to play along, otherwise someone will point out that "non-substantial comments are not welcome here". Point is: Sarcasm works best when writing somewhat snarky. But probably most HN readers don't understand sarcasm and that's the problem. (See what I did there?)
- SubuSS 7y ago
  I have always been curious about this: Are you for real saying you can take an "You're an idiot" comment with the same equanimity as the 300 word option? Email/Forums etc already loses a ton of context. Merge that with semi-anonymity - I don't know how you can do it better with a short form answer. IOW - Your comment is ignorant :D
rconti 7y ago
Twitter is a toxic cesspool and I can't fathom the value people get out of it. I don't CARE about influencers think, I don't WANT to see the most re-tweeted comment. Whereas FB is more "flat"; I see what people who I actually care about post. Nice vacation, hey, your kid did something unremarkable, cool, you got a new dog. If your usage pattern is to try to game the system and gather likes and shares, you're probably not someone I'm interested in, hence my distaste for twitter, or, generally, 'following' anyone I'm not personal friends with. Twitter seems to be setup for the latter; I keep trying to like it and use it, but I get uninteresting shit from the "public" figures I try to follow; eg, race drivers I'm interested in, cybersecurity figures, etc.

vidarh 7y ago

I have more HN points than you, but a couple of things makes me feel like it doesn't matter: The lack of any visible sign of new replies removes a lot of compulsion. I only stay engaged with the conversations actually interesting enough to get me to keep reading them. Compare with Reddit where the best thing I learned to do was to decide when I was 'done' and open the list of unread messages while looking away and closing the tab...

toomuchtodo 7y ago
I use a user script in chrome to hide my HN karma count from myself. Super helpful for focusing on what is important when contributing (along with a lot of constructive feedback from the mods over the last 8 years).
- xurias 7y ago
  Is this publicly available? I've been looking for something like this.
  - skrebbel 7y ago
    This would be a great HN feature actually, fitting in spirit with the existing settings (eg showdead etc). @dang, if you read this, what do you think?
  - username90 7y ago
    Install Stylus or another css extension and then add this style filtered to news.ycombinator.com: .pagetop { visibility:collapse; } .pagetop * { visibility:visible; } .score { visibility:hidden; }
  - arkitaip 7y ago
    If you use an adblocker like uBlock Origin, you can use the following filter to remove the top navbar: news.ycombinator.com##.pagetop
- bllguo 7y ago

buboard 7y ago

I think i do the same. I shouldn’t have posted this

4ntonius8lock 7y ago

I've found that for me, caring about such things is a larger pattern of 'holding on' too much. So I've made it a conscious decision to constantly be getting rid of things I accumulate. For HN and other such sites, I regularly open new accounts. This is both for ego reasons, as well as doxing: rotating through accounts and usernames helps leave less of a trace.

hammock 7y ago

Never heard of you before mabbo, and I read the comments here every day. If that gives you any motivation to quit.

foxhop 7y ago

If you want trade the cocaine that is HN with a weed variety, you should blog. It's really fufilling. I blog publicly but also journal privately using git and vim. I have been on and off for about 5 years. The raw thoughts rarely show the light of day, but sometimes I synthesize my journal entries as blog posts or HN comments. I refine my true self for the public. This saves me from letter downvotes sway what I believe. By the time I post on HN I've already collected my thoughts in my other journals. I do feel very disconnected from people these days. It's been about a little over a year since moving my of my status updates to Mastodon from Twitter where I follow exactly one IRL friend from high school, a friend from two jobs ago, a person who found me randomly, and a customer for Remarkbox. When I do post on Twitter it's often a link to my Mastodon post, or a link to my blog, or side project I'm working on. It's sort of selfish but I only read tweets on my timeline up to the first ad, which is typically a scroll and a half on my phone. In this way, I sort of use Twitter as a broadcast, like updating a RSS feed with something I'm proud of. I rarely digest the tweets others put on there. This seems selfish, but really it's not.

jodrellblank 7y ago
> you should blog. It's really fufilling. In what way? Do you write for yourself then make it public not caring if anyone sees? That doesn't sound fulfilling; I have blog posts over the years which I have no idea if anyone ever saw and it feels a bit of a waste. Do you write as if you're trying to contribute to the world? Then doesn't that depend on feedback to know if you are succeeding or failing, and put you in the mind of "I have to create something good" as a competitor in the world of content-creation competition?
- logram 7y ago
  There's this quote from Kundera's The unbearable lightness of being. Perhaps it makes sense in this context. We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. That is the case with the German singer, the American actress, and even the tall, stooped editor with the big chin. He was accustomed to his readers, and when one day the Russians banned his newspaper, he had the feeling that the atmosphere was suddenly a hundred times thinner. Nothing could replace the look of unknown eyes. He thought he would suffocate. Then one day he realized that he was constantly being followed, bugged, and surreptitiously photographed in the street. Suddenly he had anonymous eyes on him and he could breathe again! He began making theatrical speeches to the microphones in his wall. In the police, he had found his lost public. The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. Marie-Claude and her daughter belong in the second category. Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. Tereza and Tomas belong in the third category. And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, for example. He traveled to the borders of Cambodia only for Sabina. As the bus bumped along the Thai road, he could feel her eyes fixed on him in a long stare.

johnnycab 7y ago

This reminded me of dickfromaccounting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20068269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20068269

ping_pong 7y ago

I routinely nuke my reddit account every year or so, so I stop caring about things like karma. And I've found that my experience hasn't changed one bit, except the relief that I know my older posts can't get linked back to me except with tremendous effort.

inscionent 7y ago

I post not for points. I post because I have something to say. Expressing my self is validating, who cares if others read or agree.

dumbfounder 7y ago
"who cares if others read or agree" Too many people.
foxhop 7y ago
I post for the same reason, but getting negative points does discourage me from posting half formed thoughts.
- inscionent 7y ago
  I do try to save the hip shots for twitter.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
Why not just post to a text file if you really don't care?

StavrosK 7y ago

I know this is a bit like saying "just stop having a problem!", but if you stop caring about the number of likes/upvotes/whatever, it's a much more relaxed experience, where you just read what informed, insightful people (and me) have to say. I imagine having to look at upvotes can make it a much more stressful experience.

IanDrake 7y ago

How did you get 17,000 HN points? Did look something like this: https://serendipitygreece.com/wp-content/uploads/comforting-lies-vs-unpleasant-truths-640x480.jpeg https://serendipitygreece.com/wp-content/uploads/comforting-... To me, this is the problem with seeking validation through these systems. You are rewarded for saying pleasing things and for conforming to group think. Why don't you spend down your points by playing devil's advocate? Then, when you run low on points, you can fill-up-the-tank by saying nice things that everyone wants to hear again.

jotm 7y ago
Spend down? You mean get flagged and banned? Because that's what will happen.
Loughla 7y ago
Or why don't you just post your actual beliefs and thoughts without worrying about the votes, or being devil's advocate needlessly (subsequently, whenever I've encountered someone playing 'devil's advocate' they are saying the things they want to say, but are too afraid of the reaction of those around them to actually own that)? Honestly, if your opinions are being hammered on a site, regardless of the site, you have one of two things: (a) an unhealthy forum/circlejerk (b) shithead opinions. It's up to you to figure out which it is.

aantix 7y ago

Maybe concede that the need for validation never quite goes away? You can remove all externalities but then it becomes an internal barometer. “Did I do enough? Was what I said funny/insightful/smart? Do they like me?” The voice is always there. It just doesn’t have a number assigned to it.

throwaway274903 7y ago

> What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? The alternative view is that you are perfectly normal and that craving validation from strangers is what built human society.

manigandham 7y ago

There's a big difference between superficial mostly-visual social status sharing and having discussions on a tightly moderated text-only forum which de-emphasizes personal identity and has no notifications. FB tends to be a net negative while HN is the opposite (at least for me) because of the content and engagement.

xurias 7y ago
I don't think there is a substantial difference. I had an account (which I've since deleted) with thousands of karma points. I was becoming obsessed with the validation of getting upvotes. And I'm somebody who never cared about likes on Facebook. But validation from the smart people here? It was addictive and really tainted how I interacted with HN. I went into an emotional tailspin if I started getting downvotes.
- manigandham 7y ago
  I think caring about that kind of validation is a separate issue from the content itself, and requires self-discipline regardless. At least discussion on interesting and educational topics is better than sharing yet another batch of vacation photos.
  - xurias 7y ago
    I'm not so sure. If it's something that impairs you, I think it's negative.

chappi42 7y ago

Imho no need to stop. Just moderate. Suggestion: give up your 17000 HN point mabbo account and start from scratch. Only with moderation this time :-)

kraftman 7y ago
Agreed. The answer to doing something too much isn't to cut it out completely and move onto something else that you'll end up doing too much, that doesn't even attempt to address the issue.

itronitron 7y ago

maybe just turn off the upvoting bots

abootstrapper 7y ago

You can check out of Hacker News but you can never leave. No seriously, you can’t delete your account.

moosey 7y ago

Just turn on the procrastination monitor. I did it and with my reading habits, I can only post something like one or two comments a day.

michaelcampbell 7y ago

I've used a combination of tampermonkey type scripts and "ublock origin" block elements to remove all karma from here and reddit. I find it a lot nicer.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

So I've never had "Social Media", but I read Hacker News too much, and contribute a bit. I'm wondering if Hacker News is better or worse than Facebook/Instagram. At least on Facebook and Instagram, you usually interact with your friends, right? Here, I feel like I read a lot of insightful posts and stories and have good discussions. But I'm not making any friends or strengthening any friendships. Is it worth the time? I don't know. I'm definitely addicted.

everdrive 7y ago
I think it can be as addicting, but HN is far less vapid. Does this make it better? It's hard to say. With FB, I'd find myself reloading, and looking, and not being happy I spent any time there, all to do it again the next day.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

theandrewbailey 7y ago

I remember about 15 years ago, having a MySpace profile. I poked around for a while, but just didn't understand it, and eventually stopped using it. (All your friends are here, they said. The only one I could find was my idiot friend.) When Facebook/Twitter/et al. came around, I avoided them, and about 5 years ago, realized that I made the right call.

slothtrop 7y ago

Well HN is less a validation peddler and like other aggregators offers rapid doses of news, little info-hits that can leave us feeling scatterbrained when overindulged. It can be too distracting but from a healthiness standpoint seems vastly superior.

pawelduda 7y ago

I did the opposite, I left a very toxic environment after over 4 years, which caused a lot of people whom I used to consider mates, or even friends to cut off any contact with me (I suspect they might have been influenced by some bad actors but this is outside of my control and will to be controlled anymore). I started being more active on social media (only to an extent - for example I use the built-in Instagram timer to only allow up to 15 minutes of usage a day) to cope with the lack of interactions I used to have at work and around it. Some of the old 'friends' found and started to add/follow me but there was no other meaningful interaction from their side. Before they would call and ask to go out and do something after work - not anymore. I reached out to some of them a few times but felt that there is an imbalance in both quality and quantity in communication from their side. Since I found that to be very shallow, I started regularly wiping my contacts who are there just to leech on my private life and give nothing in return. Some people aren't your friends, they just happen to spend time with you because of common activities in your and their lives - they're simply stuck with you in the same place and time. I cut these people off from my life and trust me, it has been over 2 months and I have less relationships but only the high quality ones survived - it makes me much happier, less drained on a daily basis and more content knowing that they're the few good ones. There is no need to be attached to people who aren't attached to you. And there is no need to force anything - it will only cause harm.

FussyZeus 7y ago

I have to say I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that "social media bad." I've learned tons of things from communities I follow, including this one, and a number of reddits. I keep in touch with friends of varying distances, and even make plans in my own town. I'm not saying that the way social media tries to suck you in doesn't make you unhealthy, or their ideal patterns of engagement won't make you miserable, but in my mind that's like saying that Smirnoff's ideal of your consumption will make you an alcoholic, therefore alcohol is bad. Alcohol and social media are perfectly able to be consumed responsibly; perhaps not by everyone, and I would never begrudge someone not partaking if they don't want to. I just get tired of the drumbeat that "social media bad, delete your facebook, don't post on instagram" when I've had and have Facebook, Instagram, Hacker News, Reddit, on and on and they don't make me miserable because I don't obsess over them. Just saying.