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> I suspect statistically, the HN for X is HN. I don't find that to be true for certain topics: * unions and unionization (apparently 9 out of 10 HN uncles ag

> I suspect statistically, the HN for X is HN. I don't find that to be true for certain topics: * unions and unionization (apparently 9 out of 10 HN uncles agree unions are bad news for a mountain of uncles' evidence) * current state of research in the social sciences (you have to wade through inescapable trolls who wish to throw out entire fields of research because they once read an eviscerating blog by an angry grad student regarding p-hacking) * geopolitical significance of Wikileaks since its inception (did you know humans can lie by omission? You did? Anyway, let HN concern troll you about it in the form of copy-pasta bots once roughly every full moon.) * cost benefit analyses of Electron (HN almost seems to have made a sport out of overestimating the cost of memory and hard disk space in the year 2021) * veracity of traditional news media (like playing duck-duck-goose except the goose is some poster quoting the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" cocktail story in an attempt to do an end run around reading any of the books written by experts on that topic) * how to absolutely position HTML text over the exact same position as SVG text. (That was my own Stackoverflow holy grail quest, but I'd be willing to bet no one will reply on this thread with the right answer.) I'd love to know what other topics people find here that are typically filled with garbage.

dang 5y ago
There are plenty of pro-union posts here. Of course it's a divisive topic, but it's a cognitive bias to see the other side as "9 out of 10" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Most generalizations people make about HN are subject to this sort of distortion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22false%20feelings%20of%20generality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). When put in "unions" into HN Search and look at the recent comments (excluding things like SQL and credit unions), opinion seems split, with a mild tilt in the pro-union direction. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&query=unions%20-sql%20-tagged%20-credit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&que...
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
Re: social sciences. It is not always trolling. As a physicist, when I look at the abysmally low quality of data analysis and bias in presenting the results I have zero confidence in what is claimed. If there was actual willingness for these journals to publish rigorous papers where bad statistics are rejected, maybe people would have more trust (and not have fun of the "science" often found in the papers)
yesenadam 5y ago
> what other topics people find here that are typically filled with garbage Well, for me, the subjects I know the most about, like (some aspects of) music, philosophy, chess. Full of people who know nothing about the subject misinforming others.

dang 5y ago

There are plenty of pro-union posts here. Of course it's a divisive topic, but it's a cognitive bias to see the other side as "9 out of 10" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Most generalizations people make about HN are subject to this sort of distortion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22false%20feelings%20of%20generality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). When put in "unions" into HN Search and look at the recent comments (excluding things like SQL and credit unions), opinion seems split, with a mild tilt in the pro-union direction. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&query=unions%20-sql%20-tagged%20-credit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&que...

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

Re: social sciences. It is not always trolling. As a physicist, when I look at the abysmally low quality of data analysis and bias in presenting the results I have zero confidence in what is claimed. If there was actual willingness for these journals to publish rigorous papers where bad statistics are rejected, maybe people would have more trust (and not have fun of the "science" often found in the papers)

yesenadam 5y ago

> what other topics people find here that are typically filled with garbage Well, for me, the subjects I know the most about, like (some aspects of) music, philosophy, chess. Full of people who know nothing about the subject misinforming others.