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Unpopular opinion: I hold /pol/ and rest of 4chan in higher regard than most of the internet precisely because the lack of filtering allows a lot of quality con

Unpopular opinion: I hold /pol/ and rest of 4chan in higher regard than most of the internet precisely because the lack of filtering allows a lot of quality content to come through that would otherwise be silenced, and it's on you, the reader, to make up your mind and do your own research, rather than be told what to think and read through downvote/thoughtpurging mechanisms that websites, such as HN, embrace. 4chan has a handful of good boards on there that are not filled with racist diatribe. You're going to find content on there long before it hits anywhere else - if it hits anywhere else to begin with. Even /pol/ itself, prior to the 2016 election, had plenty of interesting discussion. Hopefully once this drama blows over it will return to a more nuanced place. As for Vice trying to paint /pol/ as this ultra-edgy super radical place, I can't help but laugh at how hard they're trying. It's a board full of early 20-something year old shitposters. Give up the nonsense RWDS-tier fearmongering please. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373, which is as valid today as it was back then. Replace whatever tech with "Rust", and read through the last three days worth of self-aggrandizing submissions.

sudosysgen 6y ago
This is a pretty absurd take. /pol/ has it's own upvote mechanism, commenting, and the sage mechanism. There is essentially nothing of value in /pol/. Serious commentary is swallowed by the endless sea of nazism and nazi-adjacent rhetoric. There is no going back to pre-2016 times, it's seriously over. It's not even full of 20-somethings anymore, it has aged significantly. As for a lack of filtering, that's not a thing, either. Janitors will remove your posts if they are left leaning and make too much sense. There is a serious manipulation effort. Just as an aside, there is no need for them to lie about /pol/ is. /pol/ is less outrageous today because of the election, but here are some gems from /pol/ a week ago: >A post about running over protesters and how hilarious that is >Abrahamic religion is a jewish plot to destroy the white race by turning them away from paganism >The FBI is a tool of the radical left in order to destroy America, you should get ready to kill protesters >People that are making fun of the hunter biden tapes are "tranny shills" trying to make us queer to destroy our masculinity There is hardly any need to lie. The portrayal of /pol/ is accurate.
- troughway 6y ago
  I'm not going to bother refuting this. Like I said, it's an unpopular opinion. You're welcome to think whatever you like, including that I said anyone lied.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    >As for Vice trying to paint /pol/ as this ultra-edgy super radical place, I can't help but laugh at how hard they're trying. It's a board full of early 20-something year old shitposters. Give up the nonsense RWDS-tier fearmongering please. You're saying that Vice lied by contradiction or omission here.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  The "upvote" mechanism is more based on attention grabbing than popularity though, which definitely leads to a different sort of dynamic due to the different incentives.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    While this is kinda true, this is kind of negated by the ability to sage.
disown 6y ago
It's far better than vice. The world would be a better place if vice didn't exist. It would be a worse place if 4chan didn't exist. But both should exist and the people should decide. Not a bunch of privileged elites at vice or their corporate masters. Also, they aren't upset about the "racism". They are upset about the lack of political control. It's the same bullshit they pulled with reddit, facebook, youtube, etc. Maybe one day these worthless "journalists" will disappear and people can be free. But in the short term, it seems like they will become more entrenched.
- TheButlerian 6y ago
  Fuck off clown.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  Is this satire?
  - evgen 6y ago
    It is yet another ignorant edgelord trying to provoke a reaction to compensate for his empty existence. Just ignore him and eventually he will crawl back into his hole.
    - raxxorrax 6y ago
      You are correct that people with such scathing judgement have often empty lives.
the_only_law 6y ago
> Replace whatever tech with "Rust", and read through the last three days worth of self-aggrandizing submissions. Hardly. The rust evangelism strike force (and similar hype movements) we're obnoxious, but these days I'm more annoyed by comments whining and derailing threads because they don't like the language someone chose for their project.
- troughway 6y ago
  That's been a staple of HN for the last decade as well. >"Why C#, why not Go?" >Proceeds to write some half-assed impl. as an HN comment.
greenduck 6y ago
Hard disagree. Whatever magic they had back when I spent time on there is gone and it isn't coming back anytime soon. They've been overrun by neo-nazi circle jerking as nazi's have been excised from other platforms.
73628bshs 6y ago
/pol/ is basically an agitprop prototyping board. Or at least it was circa 2016. Imo, the racism is incidental to a broad array of antisocial behaviors that are rewarded and reinforced by the culture of the board. Spending too much time on there is not healthy. One of my buddies got sucked into it and started acting out in ways that had negatively impact on his life. Social contagion is real.
- troughway 6y ago
  >negatively impact on his life. Social contagion is real. Wait til you hear about what happened on the rest of the internet.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  I had a colleague spend too much time there and start using degrading insults that were targeted against me in my presence around the height of /pol/s popularity in 2016. I caused a scene. I still think about it because of the way they embraced an exaggerated stereotype that didn't actually in any way reflect the people they actually knew with that identity for years. The stereotype was so different from the reality that I think at some point they stopped making the connection between the two. I never heard anybody in my group of friends make a 4chan reference again, I can't help but think that incident served as an alarm bell that people were getting out of touch with reality, and people seemed to either stop using the site or started visiting it less. Human's historically have not existed in social environments like 4chan and I think the site, especially when indulged in frequently, can lead to a sort of psychosis.
Kaze404 6y ago
This has to be a joke. Even the gaming boards are filled with transphobic remarks and literal targeted harassment. I was part of the community of a niche video game and experienced those things first hand, targeted at people I knew who did nothing but contribute to the game and the community. Turns out if you fill your website with literal garbage, people will report on it.
- troughway 6y ago
  Yes this is what 4chan is about since the early days. It’s an outlet for youth to explore edgy memes and dark humour in the confines of the internet. You’d find transphobia and crude racist remarks all the way back on 90s Internet, and you wouldn’t have to go looking for it. Gamers were never the soft bunch and online communities of younger guys were known to be competitive and ruthless. I hope this is still the case. I would rather have an Internet where a bit of thicker skin is required but freedom to say anything is maintained, than one where we are shielding and coddling people from uncomfortable thoughts - whether or not they are morally or factually right/wrong is an exercise left to the reader. You choose your own level of involvement. Again, just my opinion. PS. I’m not justifying the raiding they did on your community. Merely saying it’s par for the course of an unhinged internet. This stuff happened across the Internet. 4chan made it out alive for us to heckle and deride.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    Many people have difficulty distinguishing between what they enjoy, and what benefits humanity. For example, a group of children might derive pleasure from singling out and making fun of a classmate. That they enjoy behaving so doesn't mean it improves their school. There are online communities that service humanity's worst instincts. It would be nice if people who get off on sites like that were able to recognize that their enjoyment doesn't make the sites a net benefit to everyone else.
    - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

sudosysgen 6y ago

This is a pretty absurd take. /pol/ has it's own upvote mechanism, commenting, and the sage mechanism. There is essentially nothing of value in /pol/. Serious commentary is swallowed by the endless sea of nazism and nazi-adjacent rhetoric. There is no going back to pre-2016 times, it's seriously over. It's not even full of 20-somethings anymore, it has aged significantly. As for a lack of filtering, that's not a thing, either. Janitors will remove your posts if they are left leaning and make too much sense. There is a serious manipulation effort. Just as an aside, there is no need for them to lie about /pol/ is. /pol/ is less outrageous today because of the election, but here are some gems from /pol/ a week ago: >A post about running over protesters and how hilarious that is >Abrahamic religion is a jewish plot to destroy the white race by turning them away from paganism >The FBI is a tool of the radical left in order to destroy America, you should get ready to kill protesters >People that are making fun of the hunter biden tapes are "tranny shills" trying to make us queer to destroy our masculinity There is hardly any need to lie. The portrayal of /pol/ is accurate.

troughway 6y ago
I'm not going to bother refuting this. Like I said, it's an unpopular opinion. You're welcome to think whatever you like, including that I said anyone lied.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  >As for Vice trying to paint /pol/ as this ultra-edgy super radical place, I can't help but laugh at how hard they're trying. It's a board full of early 20-something year old shitposters. Give up the nonsense RWDS-tier fearmongering please. You're saying that Vice lied by contradiction or omission here.
TheOperator 6y ago
The "upvote" mechanism is more based on attention grabbing than popularity though, which definitely leads to a different sort of dynamic due to the different incentives.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  While this is kinda true, this is kind of negated by the ability to sage.

disown 6y ago

It's far better than vice. The world would be a better place if vice didn't exist. It would be a worse place if 4chan didn't exist. But both should exist and the people should decide. Not a bunch of privileged elites at vice or their corporate masters. Also, they aren't upset about the "racism". They are upset about the lack of political control. It's the same bullshit they pulled with reddit, facebook, youtube, etc. Maybe one day these worthless "journalists" will disappear and people can be free. But in the short term, it seems like they will become more entrenched.

TheButlerian 6y ago
Fuck off clown.
uniqueid 6y ago
Is this satire?
- evgen 6y ago
  It is yet another ignorant edgelord trying to provoke a reaction to compensate for his empty existence. Just ignore him and eventually he will crawl back into his hole.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    You are correct that people with such scathing judgement have often empty lives.

the_only_law 6y ago

> Replace whatever tech with "Rust", and read through the last three days worth of self-aggrandizing submissions. Hardly. The rust evangelism strike force (and similar hype movements) we're obnoxious, but these days I'm more annoyed by comments whining and derailing threads because they don't like the language someone chose for their project.

troughway 6y ago
That's been a staple of HN for the last decade as well. >"Why C#, why not Go?" >Proceeds to write some half-assed impl. as an HN comment.

greenduck 6y ago

Hard disagree. Whatever magic they had back when I spent time on there is gone and it isn't coming back anytime soon. They've been overrun by neo-nazi circle jerking as nazi's have been excised from other platforms.

73628bshs 6y ago

/pol/ is basically an agitprop prototyping board. Or at least it was circa 2016. Imo, the racism is incidental to a broad array of antisocial behaviors that are rewarded and reinforced by the culture of the board. Spending too much time on there is not healthy. One of my buddies got sucked into it and started acting out in ways that had negatively impact on his life. Social contagion is real.

troughway 6y ago
>negatively impact on his life. Social contagion is real. Wait til you hear about what happened on the rest of the internet.
TheOperator 6y ago
I had a colleague spend too much time there and start using degrading insults that were targeted against me in my presence around the height of /pol/s popularity in 2016. I caused a scene. I still think about it because of the way they embraced an exaggerated stereotype that didn't actually in any way reflect the people they actually knew with that identity for years. The stereotype was so different from the reality that I think at some point they stopped making the connection between the two. I never heard anybody in my group of friends make a 4chan reference again, I can't help but think that incident served as an alarm bell that people were getting out of touch with reality, and people seemed to either stop using the site or started visiting it less. Human's historically have not existed in social environments like 4chan and I think the site, especially when indulged in frequently, can lead to a sort of psychosis.

Kaze404 6y ago

This has to be a joke. Even the gaming boards are filled with transphobic remarks and literal targeted harassment. I was part of the community of a niche video game and experienced those things first hand, targeted at people I knew who did nothing but contribute to the game and the community. Turns out if you fill your website with literal garbage, people will report on it.

troughway 6y ago
Yes this is what 4chan is about since the early days. It’s an outlet for youth to explore edgy memes and dark humour in the confines of the internet. You’d find transphobia and crude racist remarks all the way back on 90s Internet, and you wouldn’t have to go looking for it. Gamers were never the soft bunch and online communities of younger guys were known to be competitive and ruthless. I hope this is still the case. I would rather have an Internet where a bit of thicker skin is required but freedom to say anything is maintained, than one where we are shielding and coddling people from uncomfortable thoughts - whether or not they are morally or factually right/wrong is an exercise left to the reader. You choose your own level of involvement. Again, just my opinion. PS. I’m not justifying the raiding they did on your community. Merely saying it’s par for the course of an unhinged internet. This stuff happened across the Internet. 4chan made it out alive for us to heckle and deride.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- uniqueid 6y ago
  Many people have difficulty distinguishing between what they enjoy, and what benefits humanity. For example, a group of children might derive pleasure from singling out and making fun of a classmate. That they enjoy behaving so doesn't mean it improves their school. There are online communities that service humanity's worst instincts. It would be nice if people who get off on sites like that were able to recognize that their enjoyment doesn't make the sites a net benefit to everyone else.
  - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]