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I agree. As of very recently, a VERY large proportion of my comments have been downvoted, and some of them even went greyed out. I used to often post against th

I agree. As of very recently, a VERY large proportion of my comments have been downvoted, and some of them even went greyed out. I used to often post against the grain of broad consensus of the site (think: the "Tenth Man" style rule, whether it's fictional or not) to inject a perspective of someone from a very different background. Nobody had a problem with that. It's as if people are far more irritable these days and just won't engage with the comment beyond hitting the downvote button. For the anti-tech and pro-regulation sentiment, I admit I've been a part of that. I cannot disagree that hundreds of posts saying the same thing are monotonous, but I cannot bring myself to criticise it because then I'd be silencing a PoV that is mine.

krapp 5y ago
>It's as if people are far more irritable these days and just won't engage with the comment beyond hitting the downvote button. Given the viputerative nature of discussions here, that's probably better for the health of the community (and your own mental and emotional health) than posting a comment most of the time..
xkbarkar 5y ago
Fully agree. I see very many well written though provoking comments these days almost completely greyed out. In 2019 they would have provoked discussion and created interesting threads. I am pretty sure the people that follow have not changed all that much. I kinda suspect bots and big scale opinion moderation. You can usually tell in the comments and weird down/upvote spikes that the concensus is artificially generated. The only discorse censored are one way. Against concensus. Up until early 2020, being agains concensus was perfectly fine on HN granted you provided a quality source. And usually made for fun though provoking reads. HN has not sunken so low on opinion sharing that it had become the absolute disaster that reddit has. Sadly its getting close though.
demygale 5y ago
Here’s my tenth man take: playing devils advocate is the laziest form of intellectual engagement and lends weight to positions that should have no weight at all.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  I don't play devil's advocate position for fun. I do it because my stance on a lot of issues deviates from the HN's consensus, and I want my point of view to be at least considered.

krapp 5y ago

>It's as if people are far more irritable these days and just won't engage with the comment beyond hitting the downvote button. Given the viputerative nature of discussions here, that's probably better for the health of the community (and your own mental and emotional health) than posting a comment most of the time..

xkbarkar 5y ago

Fully agree. I see very many well written though provoking comments these days almost completely greyed out. In 2019 they would have provoked discussion and created interesting threads. I am pretty sure the people that follow have not changed all that much. I kinda suspect bots and big scale opinion moderation. You can usually tell in the comments and weird down/upvote spikes that the concensus is artificially generated. The only discorse censored are one way. Against concensus. Up until early 2020, being agains concensus was perfectly fine on HN granted you provided a quality source. And usually made for fun though provoking reads. HN has not sunken so low on opinion sharing that it had become the absolute disaster that reddit has. Sadly its getting close though.

demygale 5y ago

Here’s my tenth man take: playing devils advocate is the laziest form of intellectual engagement and lends weight to positions that should have no weight at all.

selfhoster11 5y ago
I don't play devil's advocate position for fun. I do it because my stance on a lot of issues deviates from the HN's consensus, and I want my point of view to be at least considered.