4 ms·

Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists. I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away

by glogla 5y ago

Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists. I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will. I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to kill ourselves via climate change, but we would deserve it.

qsort 5y ago
I really hope dang sees this. It's a nice candidate for inclusion in his list of [f"most people on HN are {x}" for x in ridiculous_ideologies]
mdp2021 5y ago
Upvote and downvote do not work that way at HN and should not be interpreted that way without analysis. Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense. Experience mostly reflects the principle (some noise must be expected).
- dang 5y ago
  I think you may have a mistaken impression of how downvotes work on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
- moistly 5y ago
  Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate. In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places. By the way: > a story HN members tell themselves to feel special Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.
    - moistly 5y ago
      Whatever you gotta tell yourself, I guess. Feel special!
      - mdp2021 5y ago
        Our individual CVs, skills and perks are none of your business. In fact, back to the point, HN is very surely different from other places because this comment of yours has no whatsoever place here. That you afford to utter it confirms your misunderstanding of the place: you must have not read the guidelines properly, nor have verified them vis-a-vis the actual threads.
        moistly 5y ago
        Never asked for shit from you, buddy, so feel free to keep your biz your biz. Back to the point, after thirty-two years of hanging out in BBS networks, Usenet, and dozens of web social media sites, I see nothing special about HNs denizens, other than an inflated sense of their own worth. This site has as many idiots and blowhards as any other.
lliamander 5y ago
There are probably quite a few ancaps, and I've seen a fair few communists, but I have yet to see a genuine fascist. That suggests to me your using the term more as a slur than as a word that actually means something.
dang 5y ago
> most of people on HN are ancap or fascists This sort of generalization is notoriously unreliable and subject to cognitive bias. People are far more likely to notice what they dislike, and to weight it more heavily. This produces false feelings of generality: 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... 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... That's why users with opposing views to yours make the opposite generalization [1]. It's not that HN is any different—they simply dislike different things. This is one of the most reliable phenomena I've seen on HN. It's so reliable that one can accurately predict people's politics (or other preferences) simply by flipping a bit on the generalizations they make. [1] A few are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875. Edit: it looks like we've had this conversation before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343865 (July 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14200623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14200623 (April 2017)
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Since we are here, Daniel, and also with reference to something I wrote nearby: I think the guidelines should be augmented, in terms of "downvoting without justification should be frowned upon". Otherwise, some would be tempted to just downvote something because they "feel differently": posts are not polls ("how many like strawberry, how many dislike it"). In general, downvoting should be accompanied by posting the underlying reasons - it should take posts evidently inconsistent with the purpose (cheap cheer, cheap joke etc.) to be exceptionally downvoted silently. I understand HN is pretty conservative in terms of structure and rules, but I believe this should be a general norm that would be consistent with the spirit of the site (intellectuality and promotion of meaningful posts), and beneficial if made explicit.
  - dang 5y ago
    It is a common suggestion but I think it would be a mistake to require people to post reasons for their downvotes. It would produce a ton of noise (because people would just make shit up) and dramatically increase meta-bickering about downvotes, which we already have too much of. Edit: here's a partial list of past explanations about this, in case anyone is interested in seeing how it has come up over the years: https://news.ycombinator.com/downvote-reasons https://news.ycombinator.com/downvote-reasons

by glogla 5y ago

qsort 5y ago

I really hope dang sees this. It's a nice candidate for inclusion in his list of [f"most people on HN are {x}" for x in ridiculous_ideologies]

mdp2021 5y ago

Upvote and downvote do not work that way at HN and should not be interpreted that way without analysis. Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense. Experience mostly reflects the principle (some noise must be expected).

dang 5y ago
I think you may have a mistaken impression of how downvotes work on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
moistly 5y ago
Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate. In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places. By the way: > a story HN members tell themselves to feel special Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.
  - moistly 5y ago
    Whatever you gotta tell yourself, I guess. Feel special!
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      Our individual CVs, skills and perks are none of your business. In fact, back to the point, HN is very surely different from other places because this comment of yours has no whatsoever place here. That you afford to utter it confirms your misunderstanding of the place: you must have not read the guidelines properly, nor have verified them vis-a-vis the actual threads.
      - moistly 5y ago
        Never asked for shit from you, buddy, so feel free to keep your biz your biz. Back to the point, after thirty-two years of hanging out in BBS networks, Usenet, and dozens of web social media sites, I see nothing special about HNs denizens, other than an inflated sense of their own worth. This site has as many idiots and blowhards as any other.

lliamander 5y ago

There are probably quite a few ancaps, and I've seen a fair few communists, but I have yet to see a genuine fascist. That suggests to me your using the term more as a slur than as a word that actually means something.

dang 5y ago

> most of people on HN are ancap or fascists This sort of generalization is notoriously unreliable and subject to cognitive bias. People are far more likely to notice what they dislike, and to weight it more heavily. This produces false feelings of generality: 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... 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... That's why users with opposing views to yours make the opposite generalization [1]. It's not that HN is any different—they simply dislike different things. This is one of the most reliable phenomena I've seen on HN. It's so reliable that one can accurately predict people's politics (or other preferences) simply by flipping a bit on the generalizations they make. [1] A few are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875. Edit: it looks like we've had this conversation before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343865 (July 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14200623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14200623 (April 2017)

mdp2021 5y ago
Since we are here, Daniel, and also with reference to something I wrote nearby: I think the guidelines should be augmented, in terms of "downvoting without justification should be frowned upon". Otherwise, some would be tempted to just downvote something because they "feel differently": posts are not polls ("how many like strawberry, how many dislike it"). In general, downvoting should be accompanied by posting the underlying reasons - it should take posts evidently inconsistent with the purpose (cheap cheer, cheap joke etc.) to be exceptionally downvoted silently. I understand HN is pretty conservative in terms of structure and rules, but I believe this should be a general norm that would be consistent with the spirit of the site (intellectuality and promotion of meaningful posts), and beneficial if made explicit.
- dang 5y ago
  It is a common suggestion but I think it would be a mistake to require people to post reasons for their downvotes. It would produce a ton of noise (because people would just make shit up) and dramatically increase meta-bickering about downvotes, which we already have too much of. Edit: here's a partial list of past explanations about this, in case anyone is interested in seeing how it has come up over the years: https://news.ycombinator.com/downvote-reasons https://news.ycombinator.com/downvote-reasons