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It's an article about pedestrian deaths, my comment was entirely on topic and relevant. I'm not going to be artificially polite about it, I've long since notice

It's an article about pedestrian deaths, my comment was entirely on topic and relevant. I'm not going to be artificially polite about it, I've long since noticed that being polite doesn't matter here. In the past when I've made polite "political" posts I get the same vitriolic replies from people trying to score karma points off my "unpopular" opinions. The net effect of a moderation policy like yours is further entrenching of the status quo, since that's always the most "polite" opinion. Any challenge to power structures or other entrenched ideas is always read as "impolite", because that's how power reacts to a challenge.

dang 6y ago
It's not "politeness" we're after—it's respect and kindness. That has to start with you (i.e. each of us) individually. If you go by how badly other commenters behave, how vitriolic various replies are or you feel they are, and so on, that's a recipe for a downward spiral, because literally everybody feels that way. I'm not saying everybody behaves equally badly (that's not so), or that everybody is equally right on the issues (also not so). I'm saying that everybody is subject to the same cognitive biases, which have hugely distorting effects on perceptions and therefore on behavior. One of these biases is that we evaluate our own behavior in one way and other people's in a completely different way. I've been describing it this way lately: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%2010000%20distortion&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Another bias is that our image of the group is determined by the datapoints that we notice and place the greatest weight on, and those unfortunately tend to be the ones we dislike or find painful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That means that people have a distorted tendency to see the group as worse and more hostile to themselves than it really is, which leads to a "why bother" and eventually a "fuck it" sentiment which you seem to be feeling when you say things like "I've long since noticed that being polite doesn't matter here". The problem with these perceptions is that they end up creating the very situation they feel they're reacting to. The solution is to prioritize taking care of the commons, no matter how badly others are behaving or one feels they are.

dang 6y ago

It's not "politeness" we're after—it's respect and kindness. That has to start with you (i.e. each of us) individually. If you go by how badly other commenters behave, how vitriolic various replies are or you feel they are, and so on, that's a recipe for a downward spiral, because literally everybody feels that way. I'm not saying everybody behaves equally badly (that's not so), or that everybody is equally right on the issues (also not so). I'm saying that everybody is subject to the same cognitive biases, which have hugely distorting effects on perceptions and therefore on behavior. One of these biases is that we evaluate our own behavior in one way and other people's in a completely different way. I've been describing it this way lately: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%2010000%20distortion&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Another bias is that our image of the group is determined by the datapoints that we notice and place the greatest weight on, and those unfortunately tend to be the ones we dislike or find painful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That means that people have a distorted tendency to see the group as worse and more hostile to themselves than it really is, which leads to a "why bother" and eventually a "fuck it" sentiment which you seem to be feeling when you say things like "I've long since noticed that being polite doesn't matter here". The problem with these perceptions is that they end up creating the very situation they feel they're reacting to. The solution is to prioritize taking care of the commons, no matter how badly others are behaving or one feels they are.