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Tolerating the spread of false and manipulative information and opinions does much worse things than destroying "curious conversation." As i said - society is s

Tolerating the spread of false and manipulative information and opinions does much worse things than destroying "curious conversation." As i said - society is sitting on a high horse with its choice to tolerate nonsense for the sake of "guidelines" and inclusion and that has proven detrimental for everyone but the undertakers. Do you have a button in the admin panel that will save the next person who believed that they're part of the "overwhelming majority of adults are at no risk?"

dang 5y ago
Maybe so, but that doesn't make it ok to post name-calling rants on divisive topics, which is directly against HN's rules. If you want to do something about false information, there are ways to do that which don't break the HN guidelines. As a bonus, they're also more likely to be persuasive (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). I've noticed that when people use phrases like "the spread of false and manipulative information and opinions", they generally just seem to mean "I think X is wrong and I feel strongly about it" (because such comments generally contain no information to disambiguate what they're saying from the latter). In other words, phrases like "manipulative information", "dis/misinformation", and so on, are generally pejoratives that express an intensified feeling. If we take such statements at the level of their components, i.e. "X is false" and "I feel strongly", it's easier to see how to deal with them in the intended spirit of this site: X is false – patiently provide better information and explain how it is correct; I feel strongly – take responsibility for regulating one's own feelings rather than venting them into language that blasts the opposing side. There's nothing wrong with strong feelings, but it's important not to let them morph into aggression towards the perceived source of the feeling, such as by calling people who disagree with you stupid, and so on. We can't have that here because it destroys conversation. When other people who also feel strongly get hit with that, they respond in kind—where "in kind" means escalating, because it always feels like the other person is doing worse. That's how we get a downward spiral and we're trying to avoid that here (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&da...). You've done this kind of thing repeatedly before (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28192074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28192074 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26744307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26744307). Even if you feel like you're nobly defending society by addressing others that way, it's seriously against HN's rules and we ban accounts that keep doing it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

dang 5y ago

Maybe so, but that doesn't make it ok to post name-calling rants on divisive topics, which is directly against HN's rules. If you want to do something about false information, there are ways to do that which don't break the HN guidelines. As a bonus, they're also more likely to be persuasive (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). I've noticed that when people use phrases like "the spread of false and manipulative information and opinions", they generally just seem to mean "I think X is wrong and I feel strongly about it" (because such comments generally contain no information to disambiguate what they're saying from the latter). In other words, phrases like "manipulative information", "dis/misinformation", and so on, are generally pejoratives that express an intensified feeling. If we take such statements at the level of their components, i.e. "X is false" and "I feel strongly", it's easier to see how to deal with them in the intended spirit of this site: X is false – patiently provide better information and explain how it is correct; I feel strongly – take responsibility for regulating one's own feelings rather than venting them into language that blasts the opposing side. There's nothing wrong with strong feelings, but it's important not to let them morph into aggression towards the perceived source of the feeling, such as by calling people who disagree with you stupid, and so on. We can't have that here because it destroys conversation. When other people who also feel strongly get hit with that, they respond in kind—where "in kind" means escalating, because it always feels like the other person is doing worse. That's how we get a downward spiral and we're trying to avoid that here (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&da...). You've done this kind of thing repeatedly before (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28192074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28192074 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26744307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26744307). Even if you feel like you're nobly defending society by addressing others that way, it's seriously against HN's rules and we ban accounts that keep doing it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.