6 ms·

> I'm writing this because I think HN is one of the very few communities able to properly discuss ideas with hard science and facts. I propose that if you pay

> I'm writing this because I think HN is one of the very few communities able to properly discuss ideas with hard science and facts. I propose that if you pay very close attention to the nature of discussions, over a long period of time, across a broad spectrum of differing topics, you may notice that the ability to "discuss ideas with hard science and facts" varies greatly according to the topic. Or to be more specific...when the topic involves issues that are "political or values oriented", as this one does, the discussion and thinking styles exhibited in the comments much more resembles that which you would find within less "logically capable" communities.

zaroth 7y ago
I couldn’t agree more. The COVID discussions have been the single most frustrating experience for me on HN since I joined. Ever single comment I’ve made downvoted, even accused of contributing to millions of deaths (an account which was thankfully banned for making the remark). It’s only in the last week or two that it’s started to become remotely possible to have intellectual discussions on COVID, but it’s still overwhelmingly politicized and unscientific.
- clairity 7y ago
  agreed, it's been hard having discerning discussions about this disease. the tide has been turning though in the last few weeks as the hysteria wanes.
  - TTPrograms 7y ago
    The problem is that you have every Jane and Joe who's ever put a line through a set of points making graphs and arguments that conflict with the consensus of epidemiologists/social statisticians. It's fine (and good!) to investigate that sort of thing and share your results, but then you should be sharing "I did this sort of analysis, it seems to conflict with all these other analyses, does anyone know why? Maybe X?". Instead you have "OMG when you do this it looks like Y, the powers that be are lying to us!". For a non-critical issue this would lower the quality of discourse slightly, but it's not an exceptional problem. In the case of critical major issues involving active disinformation this is highly irresponsible behavior.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      > For a non-critical issue this would lower the quality of discourse slightly, but it's not an exceptional problem. In the case of critical major issues involving active disinformation this is highly irresponsible behavior. Assuming your description of "the" problem is accurate (I suspect it isn't - and it's "a" problem, not "the" problem, pardon the nitpicking), what do you propose should be done about it? On an individual basis, a community basis, a governmental basis, etc - what should be do? Because as far as I can tell, we (the citizens of planet Earth) seem to be stuck in this recursive loop of anger, finger pointing, and general failure. And it doesn't seem like anyone else notices. Well, mostly no one. https://i.imgur.com/QA6vSzC.png https://i.imgur.com/QA6vSzC.png
      - TTPrograms 7y ago
        I'd say that behavior is similar to if an individual in, say, a school or assembly, shouted "FIRE" upon witnessing a chemistry demonstration involving a controlled flame. If that somehow caused a stampede resulting in loss of life they might be held accountable by the courts. These acts on social media can be quite similar philosophically, so one would expect that the legal treatment should be similar (albeit perhaps adjusted proportionately for impact and reasonableness of the held belief). I don't necessarily think that's what should be done in practice, but it seems consistent with how western society responds to this behavior in other settings. I don't necessarily think there is a good solution, either - I just mean to say that people who do that, even if they are well-meaning, are behaving unethically. That's because they believe in their own perspective with 100% probability, but that's obviously unreasonable from a Bayesian perspective. If they accounted for even a small probability that they are wrong then their behavior would change dramatically.
        mistermann 7y ago
        > I don't necessarily think there is a good solution, either - I just mean to say that people who do that, even if they are well-meaning, are behaving unethically. That's because they believe in their own perspective with 100% probability, but that's obviously unreasonable from a Bayesian perspective. If they accounted for even a small probability that they are wrong then their behavior would change dramatically. Completely agree, but I believe this behaviour applies to 90%+ of those who express confident opinions on the matters of the day, and downvote anyone who dares question those opinions when they can't put together a convincing argument for their strong assertions. Some evidence for the frequency of this behaviour exists, we could have insight into it, but I suspect we shall choose to not discuss such things. Only downvote them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility https://behavioralscientist.org/epistemic-humility-coronavirus-knowing-your-limits-in-a-pandemic/ https://behavioralscientist.org/epistemic-humility-coronavir... https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ (These links are not directed at you personally, just to be clear).
vorpalhex 7y ago
One part of being a community is slowly building values in new members. Many communities, many subreddits as an example, form monocultures and ruthlessly stamp out opinions not aligned to the deigned philosophy (and then being monocultures, they die a slow death). HN as a community places value on interesting, well informed debates, but that value isn't universally shared outside of HN. It takes regular exposure to build that value in new members but over time they'll either embrace it or wash out of the community as long as we do our best to consistently embrace it positively. Keep debating and pushing forward on interesting conversations, keep doing it politely and in the interest of meaningful debate.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > One part of being a community is slowly building values in new members. Many communities, many subreddits as an example, form monocultures and ruthlessly stamp out opinions not aligned to the deigned philosophy (and then being monocultures, they die a slow death). Yes indeed. Reddit is famous for this, and getting worse by the day. But how might we know, for sure, the degree to which that also happens here? And I don't mean that rhetorically. We can all instantaneously generate "an" answer to that question, based on heuristics, but how accurate is that answer? To gain some certainty, it would require looking at actual data, which is firstly dependent on a willingness to look at the data, which is firstly dependent on a willingness to consider the idea that there may be a problem. This last point seems like a rather touchy subject. "building values in new members" also seems like a well-accepted but heuristically-based idea. Is it, in fact, only new members who lack these values? Luckily, HN profiles contain an "accounted_created" attribute...with a little effort writing some scraping code (something I don't presently know how to do), I suspect some more precise, evidence-based answers would quickly reveal themselves. What would be even more revealing would be if one had access to voting history. This way, we could get a decent feel for how certain individuals feel about this general topic. But alas, you and I don't have access to that data. But someone does (see: willingness to look at the data). Shall we truly pursue righteousness, or should we just declare ourselves to be, by fiat, as seems to be the most popular approach in broad society? > HN as a community places value on interesting, well informed debates... In the abstract, principled[1] sense, sure. But, how well do we "walk the talk"? Once again: what does the data say? > as long as we do our best to consistently embrace it positively And consistently. But now we're back to where we started. > Keep debating and pushing forward on interesting conversations, keep doing it politely and in the interest of meaningful debate. Despite the obvious unpopularity, and repeatedly inconsistent (again, based on topic) evaluation of "meaningful debate", as well as the HN Guidelines in general, I seem unable to stop lol [1] "Lord, I promise not to sin!" Inconsistent adherence to an ideology, however strongly held in theory or principle, is not a problem only within the domain of religion, I suspect. Rather, it seems more like something inherent in human beings. Failure rates may vary fairly significantly across domains (or may not!), but this is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind.

zaroth 7y ago

I couldn’t agree more. The COVID discussions have been the single most frustrating experience for me on HN since I joined. Ever single comment I’ve made downvoted, even accused of contributing to millions of deaths (an account which was thankfully banned for making the remark). It’s only in the last week or two that it’s started to become remotely possible to have intellectual discussions on COVID, but it’s still overwhelmingly politicized and unscientific.

clairity 7y ago
agreed, it's been hard having discerning discussions about this disease. the tide has been turning though in the last few weeks as the hysteria wanes.
- TTPrograms 7y ago
  The problem is that you have every Jane and Joe who's ever put a line through a set of points making graphs and arguments that conflict with the consensus of epidemiologists/social statisticians. It's fine (and good!) to investigate that sort of thing and share your results, but then you should be sharing "I did this sort of analysis, it seems to conflict with all these other analyses, does anyone know why? Maybe X?". Instead you have "OMG when you do this it looks like Y, the powers that be are lying to us!". For a non-critical issue this would lower the quality of discourse slightly, but it's not an exceptional problem. In the case of critical major issues involving active disinformation this is highly irresponsible behavior.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > For a non-critical issue this would lower the quality of discourse slightly, but it's not an exceptional problem. In the case of critical major issues involving active disinformation this is highly irresponsible behavior. Assuming your description of "the" problem is accurate (I suspect it isn't - and it's "a" problem, not "the" problem, pardon the nitpicking), what do you propose should be done about it? On an individual basis, a community basis, a governmental basis, etc - what should be do? Because as far as I can tell, we (the citizens of planet Earth) seem to be stuck in this recursive loop of anger, finger pointing, and general failure. And it doesn't seem like anyone else notices. Well, mostly no one. https://i.imgur.com/QA6vSzC.png https://i.imgur.com/QA6vSzC.png
    - TTPrograms 7y ago
      I'd say that behavior is similar to if an individual in, say, a school or assembly, shouted "FIRE" upon witnessing a chemistry demonstration involving a controlled flame. If that somehow caused a stampede resulting in loss of life they might be held accountable by the courts. These acts on social media can be quite similar philosophically, so one would expect that the legal treatment should be similar (albeit perhaps adjusted proportionately for impact and reasonableness of the held belief). I don't necessarily think that's what should be done in practice, but it seems consistent with how western society responds to this behavior in other settings. I don't necessarily think there is a good solution, either - I just mean to say that people who do that, even if they are well-meaning, are behaving unethically. That's because they believe in their own perspective with 100% probability, but that's obviously unreasonable from a Bayesian perspective. If they accounted for even a small probability that they are wrong then their behavior would change dramatically.
      - mistermann 7y ago
        > I don't necessarily think there is a good solution, either - I just mean to say that people who do that, even if they are well-meaning, are behaving unethically. That's because they believe in their own perspective with 100% probability, but that's obviously unreasonable from a Bayesian perspective. If they accounted for even a small probability that they are wrong then their behavior would change dramatically. Completely agree, but I believe this behaviour applies to 90%+ of those who express confident opinions on the matters of the day, and downvote anyone who dares question those opinions when they can't put together a convincing argument for their strong assertions. Some evidence for the frequency of this behaviour exists, we could have insight into it, but I suspect we shall choose to not discuss such things. Only downvote them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility https://behavioralscientist.org/epistemic-humility-coronavirus-knowing-your-limits-in-a-pandemic/ https://behavioralscientist.org/epistemic-humility-coronavir... https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ (These links are not directed at you personally, just to be clear).

vorpalhex 7y ago

One part of being a community is slowly building values in new members. Many communities, many subreddits as an example, form monocultures and ruthlessly stamp out opinions not aligned to the deigned philosophy (and then being monocultures, they die a slow death). HN as a community places value on interesting, well informed debates, but that value isn't universally shared outside of HN. It takes regular exposure to build that value in new members but over time they'll either embrace it or wash out of the community as long as we do our best to consistently embrace it positively. Keep debating and pushing forward on interesting conversations, keep doing it politely and in the interest of meaningful debate.

mistermann 7y ago
> One part of being a community is slowly building values in new members. Many communities, many subreddits as an example, form monocultures and ruthlessly stamp out opinions not aligned to the deigned philosophy (and then being monocultures, they die a slow death). Yes indeed. Reddit is famous for this, and getting worse by the day. But how might we know, for sure, the degree to which that also happens here? And I don't mean that rhetorically. We can all instantaneously generate "an" answer to that question, based on heuristics, but how accurate is that answer? To gain some certainty, it would require looking at actual data, which is firstly dependent on a willingness to look at the data, which is firstly dependent on a willingness to consider the idea that there may be a problem. This last point seems like a rather touchy subject. "building values in new members" also seems like a well-accepted but heuristically-based idea. Is it, in fact, only new members who lack these values? Luckily, HN profiles contain an "accounted_created" attribute...with a little effort writing some scraping code (something I don't presently know how to do), I suspect some more precise, evidence-based answers would quickly reveal themselves. What would be even more revealing would be if one had access to voting history. This way, we could get a decent feel for how certain individuals feel about this general topic. But alas, you and I don't have access to that data. But someone does (see: willingness to look at the data). Shall we truly pursue righteousness, or should we just declare ourselves to be, by fiat, as seems to be the most popular approach in broad society? > HN as a community places value on interesting, well informed debates... In the abstract, principled[1] sense, sure. But, how well do we "walk the talk"? Once again: what does the data say? > as long as we do our best to consistently embrace it positively And consistently. But now we're back to where we started. > Keep debating and pushing forward on interesting conversations, keep doing it politely and in the interest of meaningful debate. Despite the obvious unpopularity, and repeatedly inconsistent (again, based on topic) evaluation of "meaningful debate", as well as the HN Guidelines in general, I seem unable to stop lol [1] "Lord, I promise not to sin!" Inconsistent adherence to an ideology, however strongly held in theory or principle, is not a problem only within the domain of religion, I suspect. Rather, it seems more like something inherent in human beings. Failure rates may vary fairly significantly across domains (or may not!), but this is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind.