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I upvoted you because I think it's a good question. One problem is that nowadays, people often don't get presented with the entirety of the available evidence

by arijun 7y ago

I upvoted you because I think it's a good question. One problem is that nowadays, people often don't get presented with the entirety of the available evidence on politically charged questions (like gender equality). Whatever pundit or facebook friend will cherry pick the evidence that suits their agenda, even if that evidence has been thoroughly debunked. So while I agree with you that in the context of academic curiosity, everything that can pass peer review should be published, sometimes publishing something that you know will be debunked later could lead to a net societal loss and should therefore be avoided. Then again, I'm very against silencing opinions, even for the "greater good" (within some framework I'm sure you could describe China's censorship as for the "greater good")

XorNot 7y ago
No one is obligated to amplify opinions either though. HN has a bizzare streak that private publishers and organisations must grant their medium to every controversial opinion that asks, which is bizarre on a forum that is based on letting downvotes directly silence an opinion (and where down votes are only enabled once you clear the bar of a certain amount of up votes in the first place)
- weberc2 7y ago
  I’m not familiar with that. I’m familiar with the notion that social media giants should behave more like utilities, but that view is based on the sheer volume of speech that they can manipulate even to manipulate our democracies. However, even that view is not ubiquitous here. The other meme that is more widely held that seems similar to what you are describing is support for net neutrality, which again asks private ISPs to behave as utilities, but for different reasons than those given for social media giants.
- arijun 7y ago
  >a forum that is based on letting downvotes directly silence an opinion I cannot express just how strongly opposed to that approach I am. I reserve my use of the downvote to low effort comments, factually inaccuracies, and the like. If we silence people we disagree with we end up with propaganda, not discussion. I’m often hesitant to downvote any comments that espouse a political opinion I disagree with, even if they are eg low effort, because I’m worried about silencing the opposition. Surprisingly (to me), I don’t see anything about what you should or shouldn’t downvote in the site guidelines, so it’s possible my views don’t align with the hn community as a whole. But I really like being able to have constructive discussion, and would hate to have hn’s quality degrade to that of a political subreddit.

by arijun 7y ago

XorNot 7y ago

No one is obligated to amplify opinions either though. HN has a bizzare streak that private publishers and organisations must grant their medium to every controversial opinion that asks, which is bizarre on a forum that is based on letting downvotes directly silence an opinion (and where down votes are only enabled once you clear the bar of a certain amount of up votes in the first place)

weberc2 7y ago
I’m not familiar with that. I’m familiar with the notion that social media giants should behave more like utilities, but that view is based on the sheer volume of speech that they can manipulate even to manipulate our democracies. However, even that view is not ubiquitous here. The other meme that is more widely held that seems similar to what you are describing is support for net neutrality, which again asks private ISPs to behave as utilities, but for different reasons than those given for social media giants.
arijun 7y ago
>a forum that is based on letting downvotes directly silence an opinion I cannot express just how strongly opposed to that approach I am. I reserve my use of the downvote to low effort comments, factually inaccuracies, and the like. If we silence people we disagree with we end up with propaganda, not discussion. I’m often hesitant to downvote any comments that espouse a political opinion I disagree with, even if they are eg low effort, because I’m worried about silencing the opposition. Surprisingly (to me), I don’t see anything about what you should or shouldn’t downvote in the site guidelines, so it’s possible my views don’t align with the hn community as a whole. But I really like being able to have constructive discussion, and would hate to have hn’s quality degrade to that of a political subreddit.