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And yet these comments are not downvoted or dead. Just the claim of bias isn't evidence of bias. I would also confidently say, the nature of the comments you li

And yet these comments are not downvoted or dead. Just the claim of bias isn't evidence of bias. I would also confidently say, the nature of the comments you linked are very much different: I didn't merely stated "but the other side!1!!", but argued about the inherent power dynamics of HN's workings. Let me ask you, should my comment be flagged and downvoted? The right has adapted a generalized "No U!" line of discourse, most prominent in the moral panic of "cancel culture". It's always based on the distortion of semantics and therefor false equivalency, ignoring context. Please show me examples of actual arguments leaning politically left, which got upvoted and tolerated by the Hivemind. Please, try it yourself. It is not both sides. There is a difference in intention and semantics.

dang 6y ago
The comments I linked to above were downvoted and dead. I unkilled them so that readers who clicked on the link (and don't have 'showdead' turned on in their profile) could read what they were linking to. > Let me ask you, should my comment be flagged and downvoted? If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903933, of course it should! It breaks more than one of the site guidelines, e.g. the ones that ask you please not to use HN for ideological battle and please not to go on about downvotes. I'm sorry, but the phenomenon I'm talking about could hardly be clearer: the hivemind, to use your term, has both right-leaning and left-leaning devotees, some of whom are extremely passionate; the deep irony of the situation is how much they resemble each other. Both show up a lot on HN—their presence in the comments is likely far greater than their numbers in the community, because passion makes one more likely to comment on the internet. Both deny that their side is as common or as influential as it really is, and both make out that the other side is the dominant one and that therefore HN is under its control or in its pocket. All that is just empirical observation. Whether the psychological mechanism I'm proposing to explain it is true or not, I don't know, but the empirical observation is the important part. No one can look at these things objectively and not see the similarity, indeed the isomorphism, between them.
- monopoledance 6y ago
  Fair point about the unkilling. Otherwise, I guess we have to agree to disagree.

dang 6y ago

The comments I linked to above were downvoted and dead. I unkilled them so that readers who clicked on the link (and don't have 'showdead' turned on in their profile) could read what they were linking to. > Let me ask you, should my comment be flagged and downvoted? If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903933, of course it should! It breaks more than one of the site guidelines, e.g. the ones that ask you please not to use HN for ideological battle and please not to go on about downvotes. I'm sorry, but the phenomenon I'm talking about could hardly be clearer: the hivemind, to use your term, has both right-leaning and left-leaning devotees, some of whom are extremely passionate; the deep irony of the situation is how much they resemble each other. Both show up a lot on HN—their presence in the comments is likely far greater than their numbers in the community, because passion makes one more likely to comment on the internet. Both deny that their side is as common or as influential as it really is, and both make out that the other side is the dominant one and that therefore HN is under its control or in its pocket. All that is just empirical observation. Whether the psychological mechanism I'm proposing to explain it is true or not, I don't know, but the empirical observation is the important part. No one can look at these things objectively and not see the similarity, indeed the isomorphism, between them.

monopoledance 6y ago
Fair point about the unkilling. Otherwise, I guess we have to agree to disagree.