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Great article! Just a week or two ago on this forum there were people willing to treat me like a far right conservative or a general anti-vaxxer from the facebo

Great article! Just a week or two ago on this forum there were people willing to treat me like a far right conservative or a general anti-vaxxer from the facebook troll factory, just because I didn't like a private institution’s booster mandate. That was fascinating.

01100011 5y ago
Welcome to the internet. Some of it stems from exhaustion. People sense any sort of deviation from the official dogma and they assume you're another idiot who they'll end up arguing with. It's sad. There is a lot of nuance to many of our cherished positions and discussion strengthens the truth but many people just get offended by genuine curiosity.
- valachio 5y ago
  I remember in the early days of the Internet, people were saying how the Internet would encourage critical discussions and open fruitful debates. Now I think the Internet actually enforces groupthink and eradicates opposing narratives. Platforms like Twitter allows people to dox those with unorthodox ideas and behaviors and cancel them, which is basically a modern day version of "burnt at the stake". It seems that the Internet also ended up give an even more effective podium for authoritarian regimes to push their narrative, best example of this being the Chinese government. At the root of all this is human nature. Perhaps technology won't help humanity transcend, but it will only reinforce what's already there. I have to give Hacker News a thumbs up here. I think Hacker News is much better than a place like Reddit for open-minded discussions. Reddit has become a place where subreddit are often times moderated by a group of mods who act like a single-party state.
  - fullshark 5y ago
    It's now very easy to find someone across the planet that agrees you on 99.9% of things and talk to them instead of have that conversation with your neighbor who only agrees with you on 80% of things and might actually challenge your thinking face to face.
arrakis2021 5y ago
The hivemind has the memory of a goldfish.
- vmception 5y ago
  There isn’t continuity between user names, for most users, so nobody can tell if the person they are responding to has demonstrated different behaviors or ideologies before but it is still interesting how some people would parrot Q1 2020 rationale in Q1 2022 as if everything is the same for everyone else
dehrmann 5y ago
I'm not sure vaccine or booster mandates make sense anymore because they're not effective enough against stopping the spread of omicron. Charging more for insurance for the unvaccinated still makes sense, though.

01100011 5y ago

Welcome to the internet. Some of it stems from exhaustion. People sense any sort of deviation from the official dogma and they assume you're another idiot who they'll end up arguing with. It's sad. There is a lot of nuance to many of our cherished positions and discussion strengthens the truth but many people just get offended by genuine curiosity.

valachio 5y ago
I remember in the early days of the Internet, people were saying how the Internet would encourage critical discussions and open fruitful debates. Now I think the Internet actually enforces groupthink and eradicates opposing narratives. Platforms like Twitter allows people to dox those with unorthodox ideas and behaviors and cancel them, which is basically a modern day version of "burnt at the stake". It seems that the Internet also ended up give an even more effective podium for authoritarian regimes to push their narrative, best example of this being the Chinese government. At the root of all this is human nature. Perhaps technology won't help humanity transcend, but it will only reinforce what's already there. I have to give Hacker News a thumbs up here. I think Hacker News is much better than a place like Reddit for open-minded discussions. Reddit has become a place where subreddit are often times moderated by a group of mods who act like a single-party state.
- fullshark 5y ago
  It's now very easy to find someone across the planet that agrees you on 99.9% of things and talk to them instead of have that conversation with your neighbor who only agrees with you on 80% of things and might actually challenge your thinking face to face.

arrakis2021 5y ago

The hivemind has the memory of a goldfish.

vmception 5y ago
There isn’t continuity between user names, for most users, so nobody can tell if the person they are responding to has demonstrated different behaviors or ideologies before but it is still interesting how some people would parrot Q1 2020 rationale in Q1 2022 as if everything is the same for everyone else

dehrmann 5y ago

I'm not sure vaccine or booster mandates make sense anymore because they're not effective enough against stopping the spread of omicron. Charging more for insurance for the unvaccinated still makes sense, though.