4 ms·

The amount of comments espousing the idea that stable marriages can't be happy is off-putting to me and what I see as a reflection of how Americans value marria

The amount of comments espousing the idea that stable marriages can't be happy is off-putting to me and what I see as a reflection of how Americans value marriage.

dang 6y ago
That would be a non sequitur! This is a classic case of the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20objecti%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Your post, and the upvotes it's getting, are the second wave :)
- enjeyw 6y ago
  How interesting! Would love to see come quantative research into Contrarian Oscillations.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
  - beisner 6y ago
    ... it’s dang.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      I know who it is. I just think it’s funny that that particular guideline is so poorly written that even Dang violates it occasionally.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > I just think it’s funny that that particular guideline is so poorly written that even Dang violates it occasionally. The “guidelines” are, as the name suggests, “more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”
      - tptacek 6y ago
        Ok, write it better.
        AmericanChopper 6y ago
        I think the guideline makes 3 assumptions, and I only consider two of them to be reasonable. The reasonable ones I would say are: 1. Complaining about downvotes is never interesting 2. Discussing HN as if it represented a single unified perspective is never interesting The unreasonable assumption I believe is implied by the guideline is: 3. Meta-discussion is never interesting Dang's comment in the example is essentially a meta-observation which I would say has perfectly fine merit, but goes against the guideline as it's written. While HN (or any other internet community) will never had a single unified perspective, it does seem to have certain prevailing sentiments and opinions about certain topics. We all can (and I'm sure we all do) observe trends in what comments are made on particular topics, and what types of comments are downvoted and upvoted, and I think discussing those observations is perfectly reasonable (as illustrated by the head moderator engaging in such a discussion). If I were to improve it, I would write: > Please do not complain about downvotes. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. If you wish to post meta-commentary keep in mind that the community represents a large variety of view points. The problems you run into with interpreting that is that whether something is "complaining" or not, and whether a piece of meta-commentary is too narrowly framed is clearly open to interpretation. But the system of voting we have is already sufficient to handle that situation. Perhaps it's not very important at all, but it would avoid some instance of a different type of comment, which is also never interesting. The "your comment doesn't follow the guidelines" comment.
        tptacek 6y ago
        See, it's not that easy, is it? Try to say clearly what meta-commentary is OK, and do it without using words that only mean something to the arch-message-board nerds, like "meta-commentary", and do it in a single sentence. I've tried too and run aground almost every time. I don't think what we have now is optimal, or that "If you wish to post meta-commentary keep in mind that the community represents a large variety of view points." helps much. It's an interesting project! I'm not being sarcastic. I've found Dan has been pretty receptive to guideline suggestions and broadly wants the same thing everyone else does: clear, concise guidelines that, well, guide the conversation on HN to the place we're trying to keep it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jacobolus 6y ago
> espousing the idea that stable marriages can't be happy I don't see anyone saying this. Instead the claim is: when divorce is a cultural taboo, people are more likely to stick in an unhappy or even abusive marriage. This claim seems pretty uncontroversial, but at any rate it is a positive claim (not normative) whose accuracy can be judged by empirical data.
- dash2 6y ago
  Agreed on the second point. There's certainly evidence that looser divorce laws allow people to leave unhappy marriages [1], though there's also evidence that these laws made marriage less stable and harmed children, so there are trade-offs [2, but see also 3]. I'm less sure of evidence that cultural taboos have the same effect. Here's some correlational work across countries on divorce norms and gender equality within marriage; this doesn't specifically address violence, though, and it doesn't control for other aspects of culture which probably covary with attitudes to divorce [4]. [1] Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J., 2006. Bargaining in the shadow of the law: Divorce laws and family distress. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(1), pp.267-288. [2] Gruber, J., 2004. Is making divorce easier bad for children? The long-run implications of unilateral divorce. Journal of Labor Economics, 22(4), pp.799-833. [3] Wolfers, J., 2006. Did unilateral divorce laws raise divorce rates? A reconciliation and new results. American Economic Review, 96(5), pp.1802-1820. [4] Yodanis, C., 2005. Divorce culture and marital gender equality: A cross-national study. Gender & society, 19(5), pp.644-659.
hwbehrens 6y ago
What makes it more surprising to me (as a participant in the counter-contrarian dynamic that dang highlighted) is that among the many factors that correlate with reductions in divorce rate, they must surely be over-represented in the HN demographics: higher educations, greater incomes, later marriages, and more technical professions, for example. HN commenters (or the stereotype thereof) who are married would actually be more likely to be in stable marriages, and thus able to weigh first-hand the relative likelihood of a stable/happy correlation.
outworlder 6y ago
What's even more off-putting is that they are commenting on divorce being "taboo". It's clear they have a specific immigrant profile in mind. Immigrants can come from anywhere, and different countries have different views on divorce. Some countries are much less strict than the US on this matter.
- dash2 6y ago
  Many of the cultures cited in the article do indeed have strong norms against divorce. I don't think any stereotypes need be involved.

The amount of comments espousing the idea that stable marriages can't be happy is off-putting to me and what I see as a reflection of how Americans value marriage.

dang 6y ago

That would be a non sequitur! This is a classic case of the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20objecti%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Your post, and the upvotes it's getting, are the second wave :)

enjeyw 6y ago
How interesting! Would love to see come quantative research into Contrarian Oscillations.
AmericanChopper 6y ago
Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
- beisner 6y ago
  ... it’s dang.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I know who it is. I just think it’s funny that that particular guideline is so poorly written that even Dang violates it occasionally.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > I just think it’s funny that that particular guideline is so poorly written that even Dang violates it occasionally. The “guidelines” are, as the name suggests, “more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Ok, write it better.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        I think the guideline makes 3 assumptions, and I only consider two of them to be reasonable. The reasonable ones I would say are: 1. Complaining about downvotes is never interesting 2. Discussing HN as if it represented a single unified perspective is never interesting The unreasonable assumption I believe is implied by the guideline is: 3. Meta-discussion is never interesting Dang's comment in the example is essentially a meta-observation which I would say has perfectly fine merit, but goes against the guideline as it's written. While HN (or any other internet community) will never had a single unified perspective, it does seem to have certain prevailing sentiments and opinions about certain topics. We all can (and I'm sure we all do) observe trends in what comments are made on particular topics, and what types of comments are downvoted and upvoted, and I think discussing those observations is perfectly reasonable (as illustrated by the head moderator engaging in such a discussion). If I were to improve it, I would write: > Please do not complain about downvotes. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. If you wish to post meta-commentary keep in mind that the community represents a large variety of view points. The problems you run into with interpreting that is that whether something is "complaining" or not, and whether a piece of meta-commentary is too narrowly framed is clearly open to interpretation. But the system of voting we have is already sufficient to handle that situation. Perhaps it's not very important at all, but it would avoid some instance of a different type of comment, which is also never interesting. The "your comment doesn't follow the guidelines" comment.
        tptacek 6y ago
        See, it's not that easy, is it? Try to say clearly what meta-commentary is OK, and do it without using words that only mean something to the arch-message-board nerds, like "meta-commentary", and do it in a single sentence. I've tried too and run aground almost every time. I don't think what we have now is optimal, or that "If you wish to post meta-commentary keep in mind that the community represents a large variety of view points." helps much. It's an interesting project! I'm not being sarcastic. I've found Dan has been pretty receptive to guideline suggestions and broadly wants the same thing everyone else does: clear, concise guidelines that, well, guide the conversation on HN to the place we're trying to keep it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

jacobolus 6y ago

> espousing the idea that stable marriages can't be happy I don't see anyone saying this. Instead the claim is: when divorce is a cultural taboo, people are more likely to stick in an unhappy or even abusive marriage. This claim seems pretty uncontroversial, but at any rate it is a positive claim (not normative) whose accuracy can be judged by empirical data.

dash2 6y ago
Agreed on the second point. There's certainly evidence that looser divorce laws allow people to leave unhappy marriages [1], though there's also evidence that these laws made marriage less stable and harmed children, so there are trade-offs [2, but see also 3]. I'm less sure of evidence that cultural taboos have the same effect. Here's some correlational work across countries on divorce norms and gender equality within marriage; this doesn't specifically address violence, though, and it doesn't control for other aspects of culture which probably covary with attitudes to divorce [4]. [1] Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J., 2006. Bargaining in the shadow of the law: Divorce laws and family distress. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(1), pp.267-288. [2] Gruber, J., 2004. Is making divorce easier bad for children? The long-run implications of unilateral divorce. Journal of Labor Economics, 22(4), pp.799-833. [3] Wolfers, J., 2006. Did unilateral divorce laws raise divorce rates? A reconciliation and new results. American Economic Review, 96(5), pp.1802-1820. [4] Yodanis, C., 2005. Divorce culture and marital gender equality: A cross-national study. Gender & society, 19(5), pp.644-659.

hwbehrens 6y ago

What makes it more surprising to me (as a participant in the counter-contrarian dynamic that dang highlighted) is that among the many factors that correlate with reductions in divorce rate, they must surely be over-represented in the HN demographics: higher educations, greater incomes, later marriages, and more technical professions, for example. HN commenters (or the stereotype thereof) who are married would actually be more likely to be in stable marriages, and thus able to weigh first-hand the relative likelihood of a stable/happy correlation.

outworlder 6y ago

What's even more off-putting is that they are commenting on divorce being "taboo". It's clear they have a specific immigrant profile in mind. Immigrants can come from anywhere, and different countries have different views on divorce. Some countries are much less strict than the US on this matter.

dash2 6y ago
Many of the cultures cited in the article do indeed have strong norms against divorce. I don't think any stereotypes need be involved.