18 ms·

I honestly think the only solution is for individuals to recuse themselves from those networks (I say on one of those networks), lower the trust they place in d

by _bxg1 6y ago

I honestly think the only solution is for individuals to recuse themselves from those networks (I say on one of those networks), lower the trust they place in digital information, etc. It's become clear that the downward spiral is intrinsic to the medium itself (or possibly just the scale). I don't believe that any amount of technology, or product-rethinking, or UX will change that. We just weren't meant to interact this way. My only hope is that people eventually get disenchanted or burned-out enough that they simply stop engaging. I replied to the original tweet too ("what would you do if you were Jack Dorsey?"). I said I'd shut the whole thing down.

asah 6y ago
Sadly, the level headed people recuse themselves which only adds to the toxicity.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Actually what happens is the level headed people on one side of an issue divide recuse themselves, leaving a "seemingly level-headed consensus echo chamber" behind. IMHO, that's worse. This account exists largely to counter exactly that trend. It's important (to me) that newcomers to the site don't get the idea that "hackers" are all fringe libertarians on every non-technical subject.
  - dang 6y ago
    This site may feel like a "consensus echo chamber" but in reality it is nothing remotely close to that. I think you may be running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since you report noticing fringe libertarians, we can be sure that you dislike fringe libertarianism. We can also be sure that they have just the opposite picture of HN, since everyone crafts their picture in the image of what they dislike, without realizing that they're doing that. It just feels like an objective picture. I can list dozens of examples of this, but I'll restrain myself for once and spare you. Unfortunately, these extremely contradictory subjective images of HN seem to be a consequence of its structure, being non-siloed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20non-siloed&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... This creates a paradox where precisely because the site is less divisive it feels more divisive—in the sense that it feels to people like it is dominated by their enemies, whoever their enemies may be. That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it, other than post a version of this comment every time it comes up. Thanks for caring about level-headeness, in any case.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      The sensitivity with which you replied just tells me I'm probably right about this. I assure you that, having dealt with HN readers in real life contexts on both sides of that divide, that the perception absolutely isn't symmetric. HN is seen as a "safe space" for some demographics and definitely as hostile by others. (Edit: I'll just say it. I've had multiple conversations with real life women where I have to make excuses for the perspective of posters here and explain why it's still a valuable forum anyway.) I mean, I agree with you that we all have biases and blind spots in our perception. Which means... so do the mods. I comment because I want HN to continue to be a site that people like me want to comment on. The site that "people whose comments dang likes" want to comment on surely looks different.
      - dang 6y ago
        I totally empathize with what it's like to try to defend HN as a worthy place to participate when you're talking with someone who has extremely strong feelings about how awful it is, and the fact that you're willing to do that makes me feel much more sympathy and common ground with you than any disagreement we may have on other points. But I think your explanation of why this is is much too simplistic. The difference seems to be that you aren't being bombarded every day with utterly contradictory extremely strong feelings about how awful it is. If you were, you wouldn't be able to write what you just posted. Your judgment that the perception "isn't symmetric" is wildly out of line with what I encounter here, so one of us must be dealing with an extremely skewed sample. Perhaps you read more HN posts and talk to a wider variety of people about HN than I do. From my perspective, the links below are typical—and there are countless more where these came from. Of course, there are also countless links claiming exactly the opposite, but since you already believe that, they aren't the medicine in this case. I sample that list when responding to commenters who see things this way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 A sample email, for a change of pace: "It's clear ycombinator is clearly culling right-wing opinions and thoughts. The only opinions allowed to remain on the site are left wing [...] What a fucking joke your site has become." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343
  - randallsquared 6y ago
    I assume you're using "this account" to mean some series of accounts you've created over time, since it's only about 80 days old, and the days when libertarianism was arguably a majority view on HN had been long gone for years by then. In this respect HN is about ten years behind the trend of the rest of the web, culturally; even r/libertarian comments in 2020 are probably less reliably libertarian than comments on not-explicitly-political forums anywhere on the web in 2000.
  - friendlybus 6y ago
    The site is anchored to YC and PG's perspective. I don't agree with them the majority of the time, but that's what gives this place an identity and a location in the world to draw it's internal culture from. This place is always going to lean into predictable US tech politics. A website detached from a real world purpose accumulates so much more moderating requirements, simply being a part of YC and means that a lot of the public self-selects not to be here. And boy it does get too repetitive sometimes, but it's not all things to all men, it's a US tech forum.
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806806. (Trying to prune the larger sub-subthreads.)
zo1 6y ago
I agree, but unfortunately a lot of our culture and society revolves around these social networks right now. It drives the culture at this point, and having reasonable people disengaging from the platform en-masse might accelerate the toxic effects these social networks are having on our society even more. The toxic network effects have need to be identified, quantified and stopped. By regulation most likely.

by _bxg1 6y ago

asah 6y ago

Sadly, the level headed people recuse themselves which only adds to the toxicity.

newacct583 6y ago
Actually what happens is the level headed people on one side of an issue divide recuse themselves, leaving a "seemingly level-headed consensus echo chamber" behind. IMHO, that's worse. This account exists largely to counter exactly that trend. It's important (to me) that newcomers to the site don't get the idea that "hackers" are all fringe libertarians on every non-technical subject.
- dang 6y ago
  This site may feel like a "consensus echo chamber" but in reality it is nothing remotely close to that. I think you may be running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since you report noticing fringe libertarians, we can be sure that you dislike fringe libertarianism. We can also be sure that they have just the opposite picture of HN, since everyone crafts their picture in the image of what they dislike, without realizing that they're doing that. It just feels like an objective picture. I can list dozens of examples of this, but I'll restrain myself for once and spare you. Unfortunately, these extremely contradictory subjective images of HN seem to be a consequence of its structure, being non-siloed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20non-siloed&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... This creates a paradox where precisely because the site is less divisive it feels more divisive—in the sense that it feels to people like it is dominated by their enemies, whoever their enemies may be. That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it, other than post a version of this comment every time it comes up. Thanks for caring about level-headeness, in any case.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    The sensitivity with which you replied just tells me I'm probably right about this. I assure you that, having dealt with HN readers in real life contexts on both sides of that divide, that the perception absolutely isn't symmetric. HN is seen as a "safe space" for some demographics and definitely as hostile by others. (Edit: I'll just say it. I've had multiple conversations with real life women where I have to make excuses for the perspective of posters here and explain why it's still a valuable forum anyway.) I mean, I agree with you that we all have biases and blind spots in our perception. Which means... so do the mods. I comment because I want HN to continue to be a site that people like me want to comment on. The site that "people whose comments dang likes" want to comment on surely looks different.
    - dang 6y ago
      I totally empathize with what it's like to try to defend HN as a worthy place to participate when you're talking with someone who has extremely strong feelings about how awful it is, and the fact that you're willing to do that makes me feel much more sympathy and common ground with you than any disagreement we may have on other points. But I think your explanation of why this is is much too simplistic. The difference seems to be that you aren't being bombarded every day with utterly contradictory extremely strong feelings about how awful it is. If you were, you wouldn't be able to write what you just posted. Your judgment that the perception "isn't symmetric" is wildly out of line with what I encounter here, so one of us must be dealing with an extremely skewed sample. Perhaps you read more HN posts and talk to a wider variety of people about HN than I do. From my perspective, the links below are typical—and there are countless more where these came from. Of course, there are also countless links claiming exactly the opposite, but since you already believe that, they aren't the medicine in this case. I sample that list when responding to commenters who see things this way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 A sample email, for a change of pace: "It's clear ycombinator is clearly culling right-wing opinions and thoughts. The only opinions allowed to remain on the site are left wing [...] What a fucking joke your site has become." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343
- randallsquared 6y ago
  I assume you're using "this account" to mean some series of accounts you've created over time, since it's only about 80 days old, and the days when libertarianism was arguably a majority view on HN had been long gone for years by then. In this respect HN is about ten years behind the trend of the rest of the web, culturally; even r/libertarian comments in 2020 are probably less reliably libertarian than comments on not-explicitly-political forums anywhere on the web in 2000.
- friendlybus 6y ago
  The site is anchored to YC and PG's perspective. I don't agree with them the majority of the time, but that's what gives this place an identity and a location in the world to draw it's internal culture from. This place is always going to lean into predictable US tech politics. A website detached from a real world purpose accumulates so much more moderating requirements, simply being a part of YC and means that a lot of the public self-selects not to be here. And boy it does get too repetitive sometimes, but it's not all things to all men, it's a US tech forum.

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806806. (Trying to prune the larger sub-subthreads.)

zo1 6y ago

I agree, but unfortunately a lot of our culture and society revolves around these social networks right now. It drives the culture at this point, and having reasonable people disengaging from the platform en-masse might accelerate the toxic effects these social networks are having on our society even more. The toxic network effects have need to be identified, quantified and stopped. By regulation most likely.