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I love you, Hacker News, but you’re toxic

• npteljes 5y ago
  To me the post sounds like OP projected his problem into HN. Also, why couldn't MySQL run on that laptop?
• roamerz 5y ago
  FB is toxic. I have found HN and the super intelligent people here have taught me think a bit before I actually write a comment. There is no such culture available on FB. Like thinkers encourage extreme thoughts. Unwanted comments to or from friends that don’t see eye to eye tend to deteriorate relationships.
• m1117 5y ago
  It's not that HN is toxic, it's the people in general are toxic on the internet. This also can be classified as toxic: "I love you, Hacker News, but you’re toxic"
• itbeho 5y ago
  "After nearly a year of using HN every day for several hours a day.." What would that time be worth if spent building a product or service? Either for yourself or someone else that paid you for that time? I'd wager you'd learn more focusing on more productive efforts than you could from reading anything here. (and I'm a fan of HN)
• gorgoiler 5y ago
  I’ve been a real dick here, sometimes. dang called me out for it once and that made a bit of a difference. I’ve also had some pretty honest interactions that felt like the most meaningful I could possibly have with strangers on the internet, much more than I would have expected elsewhere. There is hope.
• new_guy 5y ago
  People need to learn to take personal responsibility and grow as a person instead of blaming 'social media' because they're a self-admitted asshole.
• edwnj 5y ago
  You just realised your becoming an asshole.. Leave hacker news out of this man.
  • corndoge 5y ago
    This is meta commentary, right?
  • thefourthchime 5y ago
    Let me tell you how you are wrong!
  • rhacker 5y ago
    "you're" you idiot
    • efdee 5y ago
      You forgot a comma.
  • agucova 5y ago
    I think you may have demonstrated his point.
• newaccount2021 5y ago
• livinglist 5y ago
  what I like about HN is civilized debates with detailed researches. you can always just read the articles without looking into the comment section.
  • m348e912 5y ago
    Same, even if I don't agree, I appreciate a well thought-out and well researched perspective.
  • gear_envy 5y ago
    I get the general sense that people debate in good faith on here. I rarely see comment chains devolve into name calling and personal attacks like on Reddit. Sometimes you come across a comment on here that seems a little whackadoodle, but even the weirdest takes I’ve seen at least includes some amount of reasoning behind a particular position. I mostly attribute these types of comments to the nerdy tech filter bubble we’re all living in.
  • SloopJon 5y ago
    I think "debate" is the key feature of HN (indeed, most online discourse) that the author has identified. It's easy to base a comment on a flaw in an article, or someone else's comment on the article, so HN discussions can seem very contrarian, almost adversarial. Randall Munroe may have said it best with his "Duty Calls" comic: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
• thefourthchime 5y ago
  "My dad told me that he wants to dabble in programming, but MySQL isn’t compatible with his laptop. My response? "Yeah there’s no way that’s true. MySQL will work on anything." Instead of taking a look at this laptop and working on the problem with him, I just told him that he's wrong and he doesn't know what he's doing (basically)." I catch myself doing this, without realizing it far too often. It's good to catch yourself and try to change.
  • jstrong 5y ago
    the reaction I had was, don't speak to your Dad with the same tone you would use in a HN thread.
    • micromacrofoot 5y ago
      why speak to anyone that way at all?
      • fortuna86 5y ago
        Exactly.
  • collegeburner 5y ago
    Same tbh, this article made me realize I do it lots. But also did it since way back before I started reading HN.
  • gatonegro 5y ago
    The problem in those examples is not rejecting the premise, it's doing so in a dismissive, arrogant way. I've had customers, friends, and family members tell me time and time again that they can't do some common, everyday thing on their computers because it's "not compatible", or it "won't let them", or it "doesn't work". If they're wrong, I show them where they're wrong, what they need to do to fix the problem and avoid similar ones in the future. No need to be dismissive, or berate them for not knowing something. It ends up being a nice "today I learned" situation for them, and we all win.
• polyterative 5y ago
  My opinion is somewhat similar. This site is filled with judges
  • ddingus 5y ago
    Trying to remove judgement from my comments has made a huge positive change. I think your comment is true, and I think most of those people mean well. I just don't know that they understand the implications. I sure didn't.
  • maxk42 5y ago
    Everyone judges. That's why we have judgement. As the ancient saying goes "To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing."
  • stock_toaster 5y ago
    I still haven’t received my powdered wig and gavel, even after all these years. Karma must not be high enough yet..
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• zozbot234 5y ago
  > As a 20-something-year-old tech bro Not to blatantly "pick the most controversial part of the article", but this explains a lot. Being analytical and having a skeptical attitude about things is not "toxic". But doing the same things and being insufferably rude about it can often be. The rest is just a matter of how you fix that state of things. Once you are so far gone as to even wear the "techbro" moniker as a badge of honor, I'd kinda suggest that you might want to change that attitude.
  • abernard1 5y ago
    One of my favorite genres of HN posts is the "hey I'm 25 and got into a FAANG, lemme tell ya about life" posts. It's second only to my all time favorite of "I left a company, and here's a blog post about why you should care" post. Only in this industry can people lack the self-awareness and realization that nobody cares.
    • bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
      There are plenty of other industries where lack of the realization that nobody cares is front and center.
      • coldtea 5y ago
        I came to write something similar, about the influencers, fashion, and celebrity gossip industries... but then it occured to me that there, people, sadly, do care...
        • WJW 5y ago
          Do they though? In most of those scenes 99% of the audience is other, less-famous starlets who want to improve their status by being seen in connection <big shot name in the respective industry>. They don't care at all about what the big shot is actually doing or saying.
          • 5y ago
• m348e912 5y ago
  You really have to separate your life from comments on hacker news. Did a website really make you decide to be a dismissive jerk to your girlfriend and father? I'm glad you are at least recognizing your behavior and hopefully taking steps to improve.
  • saagarjha 5y ago
    Ever had a friend spend a lot of time on 4chan? You'll often be able to tell that they've changed.
    • projectazorian 5y ago
      Yeah it's so easy to tell when people in my life have been back on that site. Not dissimilar to what you see from an addict who starts using again.
  • oxplot 5y ago
    > You really have to separate your life from comments on hacker news. Except, that's not how human brain works. You learn whatever you see often. That's why it's considered counterproductive to learn by bad examples. The common brain learns by repetition - it doesn't distinguish if what's being repeated is good or bad. > Did a website really make you decide to be a dismissive jerk to your girlfriend and father? You'd be surprised! If you're not influenced by regular behavior you encounter, then lucky you. Most of the rest of us do get influenced by simple things like the people's accents, to how they deal with anger and other emotions (e.g. learning passive aggression from a co-worker).
    • 0x008 5y ago
      The point is, that the author is trying to point out Hacker News - a discussion forum - is toxic for having a reflex to give contrarian opinions. Wheras the author is doing it in real life in settings where not both parties agree it is a discussion in the first place. That is the toxic behavior, but he tries to paint HN as being toxic.
• peakaboo 5y ago
  I've met plenty of people who needs to be right and don't even try to be nice. Usually overly intellectual types. But I've also met very smart people who helps others a lot and cares about how they feel. I think it's about emotional intelligence a lot. Do you have it or don't you.
  • toomuchtodo 5y ago
    If you don’t have it, this is a fine place to grow it with community prodding.
    • brimble 5y ago
      Hard disagree. ;-) I'd concur with another post way up-thread that there's a kind of "HN voice" that gets you a pass on moderation, but you can be very nasty while staying within that, and usually threads are full of that kind of thing. HN is a great place to learn to put the "aggression" in "passive aggression".
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Sometimes you turn over a rock and there's beauty beneath it, sometimes the revealed snake bites your hand. There is still value in turning over the rock for when the diamonds are found.
      • Jensson 5y ago
        > there's a kind of "HN voice" that gets you a pass on moderation, but you can be very nasty while staying within that That is what they call social skills. Knowing where the line is drawn and how to say things without being too offending is social skills, they navigated the social environment to get the results they wanted.
• ddingus 5y ago
  I like this kind of post. Here we've got somebody thinking it through trying to be a better human. Nothing wrong with that. We're all better for having done some of that work.
  • pessimizer 5y ago
    I have to disagree. Ascribing your own real life behavior to an online forum seems like an avoidance of introspection, not the opposite. It's good to want to be a better person, though.
    • ddingus 5y ago
      You have a reasonable basis. But, I do not find it compelling given my own experiences and how online discourse does influence me. The big win was recognizing that and then taking an active role in managing it toward what I see as better, or good.
    • blurker 5y ago
      I don't know, I think there are all sorts of things that can influence our behavior, why not an online forum? A random example, in the past when my friend and I were doing some manual labour work in construction, some of our family friends noticed how we started swearing more. I think this type of social chameleon behavior is very common. We adapt to fit the groups we are a part of. And I think it's totally reasonable to say that a community like HN would influence your behavior if your spend a lot of time interacting with it. Besides, I think the author's point is less that HN made them act a certain way and more that they've noticed a lot of negativity here and that we should be aware of that.
• rhacker 5y ago
  Definitely agree. If I ever did get brilliant one day and make something useful or simply exist, I don't think I would post it here. Inevitably the comments would scar me. I get that founders quickly learn to get past that stuff, but I'm probably too much of a softy.
• peter_retief 5y ago
  There are definitely cliques of thought on HN, it is probably good that politics is largely off limits. I do not like Microsoft being of an age that saw the anti competitive behaviour and trashing of open source but there is a large group of pro Microsoft people on HN (It is OK). What would you like to see more of or less of?
• orang2tang 5y ago
  I know I'm being negative like your article says but your font / background color absolutely obliterated my ability to see for about 30 seconds after closing.
  • SquibblesRedux 5y ago
    I had the same thing happen. I thought it was just me and my old eyes, but I imagine there is some sort of afterimage effect occurring. (Although I am sure my eyes are not without some amount of blame.)
• dariusj18 5y ago
  I love Britney Spears' Toxic. But seriously, thew world is toxic, rejoice if you ever find a place you feel is not toxic, and then lament that it will invariably become so. Or recognize that the simple happenstance that led you to find it will also be it's downfall because other people will find it via the same means and either you or them are not welcome by a portion of those already on the platform.
• _zllx 5y ago
  If you're still looking for something to fill the void, I'd suggest an RSS reader like NewsBlur. I've been bringing in blogs that I've seen on HN into my feeds. I could easily see myself snoozing the feed (a feature of NewsBlur) for HN for a few days if they have a bad day and start repeatedly throwing fits about cryptocurrency again. There's plenty of content in my other feeds that holds my attention. Also, hey, I hope you add an RSS/Atom/JSON feed to your thoughts section. Remember to put the meta tags linking to the feed in the HTML!
  • xiphias2 5y ago
    Thanks for the advice, this is why HN is amazing...you can be constructive even with a negative article. Do you have a list of RSS sites available?
    • _zllx 5y ago
      There's been a few threads asking for blogs, most of which probably have feeds, here's the one most readily available from my browser history: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30245247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30245247
• everyone 5y ago
  So skepticism, critiquing ideas, and debate = being toxic now?
  • garbagecoder 5y ago
    Yes and it has been for a while now, unfortunately. Society has really doubled-down on emotional blackmail dominating reason.
  • agucova 5y ago
    You can be skeptic and offer constructive critique while being kind. It's more about the attitude than the content of the message.
• themodelplumber 5y ago
  > The article explains that people who are "intelligent," or just over analytical in nature, end up being less happy. They see through the BS of everyday life and are able to spot the negatives faster than any positives. This is the problem with HN: The community is too smart for its own good. Starting from the position "this article's POV is true, and a relevant POV here" and jumping to "and therefore HN is too smart for its own good" seems a bit under-justified. Also the whole "if you're so smart, then why..." thing has always had its own "I'm clever, check this out" signaling aspect too. It's a subjective hand-wave of its own and it kind of muddies the waters here. I think it's interesting to keep in mind that some people here have shared that they are measuring their happiness using third-party tools and methods, and checking out just fine. Or they have made huge strides to overcome challenging mental illnesses and taxing life lessons. Those events can even become so exciting that they obscure one's ability to effectively attend to others' pain and suffering, when that is appropriate. So I'd add that despite your best efforts, you can be very happy and also come off completely toxic, which highlights the POV that toxicity is a very subjective perception. If you really want empathy and kindness to happen more often in an informational community, IMO it's a good idea to separate that informative effort (which is laudable on its own) from your effort to critique the community at large. Such info-driven communities often have signs and guides all around which signal that more community critique has been received than can be meaningfully processed. (P.S. The "People get so smart that they see through all the BS and therefore become unhappy for all their intellect" trope can be really damaging to personal growth. It may be a stage of exhaustion reached after a period of growth-stress, and it may be a stage of imminent breakthrough. We also may not have the right socio-cultural tags and memes to help people understand how to contextualize and mine the follow-on stages for resilience and improved mood levels. So I wish we could be gentler and more nuanced with our analysis of this particular issue. There are some hints that such stages can even lead us to see our ideals reached meaningfully without wearing ourselves down so much, and that's a huge mood lift by itself.)
• xiphias2 5y ago
  The key to HN is not to take non-tech-specific controversial things (like this thread) seriously. If the author wants only the non-toxic parts, stay with threads on Boeing plane safety (where aeroengineers chime in), startups (where the CEO answers), Zig (the language designer is always here), Rust (some folks from the core team are always hanging around), or some weird detail of a processor/GPU/TPU/AWS/low level M1 processor reverse engineering. Also don't talk about cryptocurrencies, no matter if it's good or bad.
  • joshgachnang 5y ago
    Yeah, that's been my approach. I definitely steer clear of anything politics or politics-adjacent here, because I've found a lot of the conversation pretty disappointing and often toxic. Anything about crypto, Apple, Google, Tesla, etc all have a mixed bag of good content and hater-type comments that make me eye roll and move on. But for all of that, this is still my favorite social media site.
  • sjg007 5y ago
    >don't talk about cryptocurrencies, no matter if it's good or bad. Or Covid.
  • zozbot234 5y ago
    The original threads on the Boeing 737-MAX safety incident had plenty of toxicity. Many people here were outright angry that such a massive screwup could be allowed to happen, and made sure to let everyone else here know about it, in the strongest possible terms. Arguably, that "toxic" anger helped save lives by making it apparent to outside observers just how serious the problem was.
• tinalumfoil 5y ago
  I think you're blaming your own personality problems on HN. I'm sorry that you wrote your Dad off without helping him, but it's completely appropriate that a commenter here will tell you you're wrong without sitting down and helping you. We're not your "Tech Brothers", but your Dad is your Dad, so treat him as such.
  • saagarjha 5y ago
    Stepping back a bit: why are you telling people they are wrong if the goal is not to help them? Why are you commenting on this site if all you want to do is say people are wrong without providing further feedback? Serious question, not intended to be snarky at all.
    • tinalumfoil 5y ago
      Being told you're wrong is helpful. It helps you build up a correct view of the world and figure out the right direction to go. If you're driving in the wrong direction it's better to be told that sooner rather than later, even if that doesn't tell you what turn to make.
• the_cat_kittles 5y ago
  the most toxic thing about hn is that it cant quite admit that its mostly a money worshipping cult
• givemeethekeys 5y ago
  I disagree. For a community as diverse as Hacker News, I've found it to be anything but toxic. The quality of posts is generally high and the people who comment tend to keep things on topic and impersonal. Personal attacks and jabs are not common and people don't just say things for the sake of winning arguments. Of course, I don't click on every single story - I stick to the things that interest me, which admittedly are narrowing as of late, unlike in my early 20s.
  • mrtranscendence 5y ago
    It can be a little more toxic than I'd like, but I don't find the issue to be how nice people are about correcting others' mistakes. Instead it's the undercurrent I occasionally see of reactionary politics and weird misinformation. It's not usually horrible, but I tend to stay away when the subject turns to politics or social justice.
    • projectazorian 5y ago
      Yeah, what a community tolerates in such discussions reveals a lot about its values, and I don't like what I've seen from HN.
  • boc 5y ago
    The main thing I've noticed on HN is that having a contrarian mindset is rewarded, even in situations where it doesn't add to the conversation. If you read the two examples the author gave, he's actually being reflexively contrarian, not a know-it-all. In my opinion, that's the "toxic" behavior he's trying to identify, not personal attacks or glib jabs.
    • bepzi 5y ago
      "Reflexively contrarian" is an excellent way to describe this phenomenon. I think you've hit the nail on the head.
    • fivea 5y ago
      > The main thing I've noticed on HN is that having a contrarian mindset is rewarded, even in situations where it doesn't add to the conversation. Is it really being contrarian, or supporting multiple views in intellectually stimulating discussions? A few days ago there was a discussion on CORS where some people defended the thesis it made sites less secure, and others stepped in and defended that CORS in fact improved security. Both sides posted their rationales. Arguably neither position was right or wrong. It just depends on perspective. A glass can be half full and half empty at the same time. Is anyone being contrarian to point out either interpretation?
• zalebz 5y ago
  I made the same realization in myself, but unfortunately in my 30s rather than my 20s. Engineering, whether software or hardware, is all about thoroughly understanding a problem and dissecting it to the nth degree. The better you are at this, the quicker you notice the problems with an initial, creative idea. "It's easy to be a critic." If left unchecked, all that is done is the refinement of a skill that is able to find the potential hurdles/blockers in any problem space. However, when part of a balanced team this attribute can save time going down dead-end paths. But it requires a yin to the yang - a perpetual optimist that won't take no for an answer. For those of us that are on the analytical end of the spectrum, it is important to realize that noticing an early issue does not equate to the problem space being a waste of time that is unsolvable.1 Instead, use your super-power for good to accelerate finding the efficienct solution to the problem that some has identified and clearly expressed (which is itself itself a super power; and you may have just found your startup founder).
  • svnt 5y ago
    Well said. It is often better to “learn it” later I think. You may have higher standards for learning and instead really mean integrating and internalizing it. When someone writes a blog post, in my experience, they are often only expressing an idea or reaction that they will soon leave behind.
• stefan_ 5y ago
  This is not a Hacker News problem, this is a "20 years old male" problem. There is a reason people coined the term mansplaining.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• skilled 5y ago
  I get a lot of interesting ideas from HN, the comment quality here is unprecedented if you can look past some of the more invested perspectives. But, for the most part, HN is my way of keeping up with trends in tech/development. And, lately, we have been seeing a lot more articles that aren't strictly tech but also science and life. And honestly, I welcome those. HN reminds of what IRC used to be like back in the day. You make the discourse what you want it to be. I'd honestly not take a platform like this for granted.
• TrevorJ 5y ago
  Perhaps the idea that you can, or should, replace social media with yet another website where you spend 20% of your waking hours is misguided. Like so many things in life, the dosage matters.
• commandlinefan 5y ago
  Hacker News is the absolute pinnacle of non-toxicity on a site that allows essentially everybody to contribute. If everybody is going to have a voice, somebody is going to be offended by it. If you consider this toxic, you consider message boards in particular and the internet itself in general toxic.
  • druadh 5y ago
    AKA "Humans are toxic"
    • danans 5y ago
      Humans absent an accountability structure are toxic. Accountability structures are provided by real in person institutions that have standards. For example, nobody is spurting toxic speech at their fellow churchgoers, because there would be a personal price for that. The anonymous Internet for better or worse removes much of the skin in the game for commenters, thereby incentivizing toxicity.
  • hamburglar 5y ago
    HN definitely has a toxic "shoot it down" mentality when new things are presented. As an example, I recall a post where someone posted a browser-based implementation of some very nice airplane cockpit instruments, and I was not at all surprised when the top comment was about how stupid and dangerous it is to try to implement flight controls in a browser. The controls were intended for training purposes. It's as if the prevailing attitude often starts with "your idea is wrong and stupid and I know better even though the first thought I've ever put into the topic was 30 seconds ago." I often just shake my head at people's inability to sit back and appreciate what's interesting about something, rather than try to find things that are wrong with it.
    • TrevorJ 5y ago
      Rose colored takes on new technology are not in short supply. What's difficult, is to find well reasoned and thoughtful discussions that pick apart new ideas. Yes, discussions on HN tend to bend towards the latter, but it's a useful counterbalance to the larger environment around technology.
• _ea1k 5y ago
  "My dad told me that he wants to dabble in programming, but MySQL isn’t compatible with his laptop. My response? "Yeah there’s no way that’s true. MySQL will work on anything." Instead of taking a look at this laptop and working on the problem with him, I just told him that he's wrong and he doesn't know what he's doing (basically)." Now I just want to know if MySQL really was incompatible, and if so, why?
• aaomidi 5y ago
  > Or another example: My dad told me that he wants to dabble in programming, but MySQL isn’t compatible with his laptop. My response? "Yeah there’s no way that’s true. MySQL will work on anything." Instead of taking a look at this laptop and working on the problem with him, I just told him that he's wrong and he doesn't know what he's doing (basically). Yeaaaaah this was fucking eye opening for me and now I need to go re-evaluate a bunch of things. Thanks for this piece. I have a lot to work on now.
• akomtu 5y ago
  This skepticism and cynism is like acid where lies don't survive. It's really hard to push typical corp bs when people who 2x smarter than you (but maybe not as socially aware) are allowed to pick the lies apart and expose their logical inconsistences. Liars don't like to look like fools in public. Sometimes this acid burns well meaning people, but it's a small and acceptable price to pay.
  • krapp 5y ago
    >This skepticism and cynism is like acid where lies don't survive. On the contrary, the hardest skeptics and cynics will often buy into conspiracy theories and propaganda simply because they can't allow themselves to accept a status quo narrative under any circumstance, which makes them no more capable of discerning truth (or dismantling lies with their acid wit) than people who only trust the status quo.
• HowTheStoryEnds 5y ago
  All I know is he's reading a different HN than I am, if this is shadowbanning then it's great. XD
• wiseowise 5y ago
  Toxic kindness is as toxic as toxic negativity, change my mind.
  • agucova 5y ago
    Sure, but he is not arguing for toxic kindness.
  • 0x4d464d48 5y ago
    Are you referring to smarm specifically? I don't really believe there is such a thing as toxic kindness when that kindness is genuine. Smarm, on the other hand, is disingenuous by definition and can be extremelly toxic.
    • celdon25 5y ago
      > I don't really believe there is such a thing as toxic kindness Spend some time in Seattle, you'll change your mind.
    • BitwiseFool 5y ago
      When I think of Toxic Kindness the concept of mollycoddling comes to mind. There's an emphasis on avoiding negativity and criticism as not to invalidate someone's feelings. Growing up I remember being told, "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all". Roughly, that represents the general concept. But what I've found is that a lot of the toxic positivity types still hold a lot of negative emotion. However they can't express it without some justification. That justification usually comes in the form of attacking someone who has committed a transgression of expected kindness.
      • 0x4d464d48 5y ago
        "But what I've found is that a lot of the toxic positivity types still hold a lot of negative emotion. However they can't express it without some justification. That justification usually comes in the form of attacking someone who has committed a transgression of expected kindness." I notice that too. It seems some people look for a social hedge or 'permission' before they'll say something disagreeable to save face. I'm not so sure I buy the idea that holding back disagreeable opinions or observations is an act of "kindness" per say. To me it seems more like trying to navigate social relationships with tact. I can loosely see how holding back the urge to "let that son of a bitch know what I really think" can be construed as such but I don't really believe that fits the bill either. There's a massive difference between the idea of kindness coming from a place of understanding where you're letting people know you see their struggle and genuinely believe in their inherant worth and ability to overcome or cope with those struggles vs subtle or overt manipulation for the sake of being socially placating.
• druadh 5y ago
  > So many posts on HN are met with skepticism, pessimism, or just an overall negative tone. Being analytical / skeptical attitude is fine, but many of the messages on here could be delivered with more tact. I would never post a Show HN, for example - the criticism is generally useful, but folks sure like to ruthlessly gut each other while providing the critique. I try to never forget that each "Show HN" was probably like 6+ months of blood/sweat/tears, regardless of quality.
• rajin444 5y ago
  > I care more about being right than being kind It’s funny that we view this with disdain but are ok with unlimited kindness at the expense of correctness. Both ends should be tempered so we do not favor one over the other. Otherwise, you end up with things like “lived experience” and “emotional safety” becoming axioms of debate - which is a disservice to the truth and our society.
  • cloudier 5y ago
    The vast majority of HN comments care much more about being right than being kind, and this has also been my experience within the tech industry in general. I doubt that the author thinks that unlimited kindness at the expense of correctness is the ideal.
• pm90 5y ago
  A lot of HN readers harbor borderline or explicitly racist views. That’s more toxic to me than being unhappy because of overthinking things.
  • pessimizer 5y ago
    Sadly, that's just how the world is and has been. If you have to avoid it for your mental health, rely on loved ones and math/tech manuals and writing. Racists who aren't A) doing it as a troll or B) trying to make a career out of it, are actually just normal people trying their best to understand the world. If you have the strength to help them, you should; if you don't, it's alright to retreat for a while.
• lisper 5y ago
  > After nearly a year of using HN every day for several hours a day Well, there's yer problem right there. It's not that HN it toxic, it's that you're addicted to it.
  • agucova 5y ago
    How does that change the toxicity he has observed? It's still as present, that doesn't do anything to change his argument.
    • lisper 5y ago
      That's the wrong question. There's a lot of sub-text hiding under the phrase, "You [HN] are toxic." It is strongly implied that this is a problem that needs to be solved and the only way to solve it is for HN to change to become less toxic. I dispute that. The problem is not that HN is toxic. It may well be, but that is not what matters. If you think it's toxic, the solution is not to complain about it in the hopes that HN will change to better fit your model of non-toxicity, the solution is to stop spending multiple hours of your life every single day using it. The world is full of toxicity. That will never change. It's part and parcel of being alive, of having to compete for resources in a Darwinian world, a direct and necessary consequence of the laws of physics. The way to avoid toxicity is not to try to get rid of it because you will fail. It is to simply choose not to spend multiple hours every day wallowing in it.
      • balfirevic 5y ago
        > If you think it's toxic, the solution is not to complain about it in the hopes that HN will change to better fit your model of non-toxicity, the solution is to stop spending multiple hours of your life every single day using it. It might still be helpful to complain if it causes some people to rethink how much time they spend on, what they're getting out of it, and possibly reduce that time (if they come to the same conclusion as the author).
        • lisper 5y ago
• kelseyfrog 5y ago
  I'm guilty of this. There is a certain way to write HN comments that won't get you banned and have the appearance of being a well-reasoned discussion but which at the core are no more substantial than 2000-era flame wars. HN taught me how to write discourse in a particular style and voice, but it's the same process that's behind other stories like "Google Search Is Dying"[1]. Incentives for well-reasoned discussions tend to result in the appearance of being well-reasoned[2], rather than actually being so in the same way that SEO results in the appearance of good search results more than actual good search results and in both cases they modify authorial behavior to superficially produce content aligned with these incentives. It's still fun though if you put on the airs of intellectualism knowingly so, then every post becomes a bit of performance art. You can subvert the expectations of the medium in subtle ways that say things without necessarily spelling them out. Treating it as a role-playing exercise detaches things just enough for me that I don't really take things to heart anymore. 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719 2 - Such as sprinkling in footnotes like this one.
  • giraffe_lady 5y ago
    the new yorker did a profile of HN and its mods a few years ago and I've never been able to get this description out of my head: > The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition—hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—often masks a deeper recklessness. Ill-advised citations proliferate; thought experiments abound; humane arguments are dismissed as emotional or irrational. Logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify broad moral positions. The most admired arguments are made with data, but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data tend to be ancillary concerns. The message-board intellectualism that might once have impressed V.C. observers like Graham has developed into an intellectual style all its own. It's just such an accurate accounting of the 'house style' around here and its limitations.
    • saagarjha 5y ago
      There was a great comment a while back that I can't find now along the lines of "Hacker News might not have people screaming obscenities at each other but it turns out of you dress things up in polite words you can get away with saying some truly awful things here". And, while I trust the moderation here, they are invariably drawn towards the more obvious examples of toxic behavior, making it very easy for people to continue to advocate for trans erasure, genocide, repealing disability rights, etc. all under the banner of civil, "rational" conversation.
• Beltalowda 5y ago
  For all its faults, it's still the best place to discus things; including controversial topics. My experience on other platforms is significantly less good. I guess that with thousands (tens of thousands?) active users there's no real way to filter out all "toxicity", and neither should we. Some people are just a bit more abrasive, or state things a little too absolutely, or are a little bit too critical. I think part of building an inclusive and diverse community also means accepting that people aren't perfect, and not be overly sensitive about this. Of course there are limits, but sometimes people get a little bit over-sensitive about "toxicity". You do have some amount of choice whether you "take offence" or not. Part of that is just adjusting your expectations, and also reminding yourself that they probably mean well even if they're coming off as a bit of an ass. Exceptions apply, of course, and of course there are limits: personal insults are right out, as are condescending dismissals and such. But someone being a bit too arrogant? Meh. Part of the problem is that unlike a coworker or friend with whom you have a relationship, almost everyone here is a "stranger": you never had a beer with them, or went bowling, or whatever. So less-than-great interactions stand out as a single data point for an entire person, rather than a single data point among many. Add to this non-native speakers, different cultures, etc. and it's easy to become dismayed, especially if you spend "several hours/day". Remember that negative interactions register much stronger, too: for every HN conversation where I end up being frustrated there are dozens where this didn't happen.
  • deltaonefour 5y ago
    There are controversial topics that are moderated by dang. Starting stuff on Gender politics and racial politics will get you a warning.
    • Beltalowda 5y ago
      I think that's a good thing, as these things have a tendency to devolve to "shouting matches" quite quickly. I've never ended up on the "wrong side of the mod tools" and I've frequently engaged in conversation on these kind of topics, often with a viewpoint that doesn't match the current US "politically correct" one (I dislike that term, but I can't think of a better way to phrase it concisely right now). Just remain respectful, be on-topic, and write more than a one-line dismissal or the like and you should be good.
• electrondood 5y ago
  Blind is toxic. HN is pretty cool.
• Karawebnetwork 5y ago
  "Idiocy Saturation: Online, people who don't think before they post are able to post more often than people who do. As a result, the average social media post is stupider than the average social media user. Worth remembering whenever Twitter dumbassery drives you to despair."¹² This covers it all, in my opinion. By the time someone is done posting a six paragraph long analysis that includes sources, a dozen of less pertinent comments will have been posted. This is what the downvote feature and the flag feature are for. Ideally, all of us are downvoting cheap humor and unrelated online trends ("first!", etc.) ¹https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1492256294023143426 https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1492256294023143426 ²Apologies for the wording, I personally would have avoided using "stupid" and "idiocy"
  • pklausler 5y ago
    An idea for combatting less-thoughtful more-frequent posting: allow at most one post per day. If one gets but one chance to express something, the choice of topic and the care taken in expression may be more thoughtful. (Or maybe one post and one reply to a response; otherwise, nobody would get a question answered in a timely manner.)
    • Karawebnetwork 5y ago
      I manage a lot of spaces on Facebook and they recently'ish added a feature like this that moderators can enable on posts. It limits users to one comment every 5 minutes. It makes a difference - a big one. Some posts that would not have been approved end up being approved when this feature is enabled. Instead of wars of words and knee-jerk reactions, people know they can only leave one post every five minutes, so the first few replies take a few minutes to appear. Then, responses to those responses are even more cautious. People avoid commenting on multiple threads because they can't interact with all of them at once.
      • DoreenMichele 5y ago
        Potential downside: Evaporative cooling. Your best and brightest people are often prolific posters who may interact sporadically and post a lot in fits and spurts. When they can't get their needs met they may leave and then others grow bored and stop bothering.
• vxnul 5y ago
  Hacker News is less toxic than one might expect it to be, given the widespread historical association of Y Combinator with DVFs (a Bay Area acronym meaning "Domestic Violence Founder", referring to the high rate of DV issues involving startup founders). YC has cleaned up its image of late, and I think SamA really did want to make it better, but it's still YC and capitalism is still capitalism. You'd think that a website supporting an organization so dedicated to capitalism would be filled entirely with toxic personalities, but in reality, it's only about 50% toxic. The other half are genuinely interesting people who actually want to make the world a better place (although, if they do what capitalism wants them to do, they will fail in doing so).
• 0x4d464d48 5y ago
  I have a couple of years on the author, but he's right. I think it's similar to what happens on reddit or any community that seems to attract the "my IQ is north of 125 and I know it" crowd. I'm guilty of generating some of that toxicity too. There are still tons of gems on HackerNews and I usually try to limit my interaction to engaging with that content and bypassing the comments altogether. HackerNews is at its best when it's sharing useful content with people and at its absolute worst when you try to engage with that person who's wrong on the internet. Aside from stroking one's own ego there's nothing to gain by engaging with people to try and set them straight. In sum. Sharing is caring and that asshole on the internet is still wrong.
• t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
  just struck me that almost everything you love turns toxic at some point because you'll tend to overdose deliberately.
• caaqil 5y ago
  I like it here but HN can be a bit much, it takes itself way too seriously. To balance/negate the grandiosity and toxicity of HN, it's best to occasionally visit some satire/circlejerk forums specifically about HN (favorites include: n-gate and PCJ). Only then will you get to enjoy the full HN experience, while having a laugh at the unintentionally hilarious/absurd side of it.
• soneca 5y ago
  > "These are typical, HN-esque responses that may get upvotes online, but they hurt personal relationships." As a regular, I disagree completely. Comments that point out that something is wrong and have the empathy to try to help and identify a solution are much more upvoted that cynical ones that just point out that something is wrong without much caring for the other part. If you dig up HN only paying attention to potentially toxic comments, you will find them. It doesn't make HN toxic. If you create the habit of reading yesterday's posts, giving them enough time for the best comments to be upvoted and settle at the top, you will see much much less toxicity. It seems to me that the author is trying to get away from a certain behavior and, in the process, everywhere they look they just fit what they see in that exact behavior. Like when Woody Woodpecker is hungry.
  • nosianu 5y ago
    > If you dig up HN only paying attention to potentially toxic comments (and the entire comment really, to the and including and especially the last sentence) Uhm... this is the kind of response the blog post was talking about. Kind of funny, your comment, only that it isn't.
    • joemi 5y ago
      Disagreeing doesn't make something toxic.
      • hitekker 5y ago
        If anything, the GP feels unpleasant for trying to present its parent comment in the worst possible light, in an overly snarky tone.
        • fivea 5y ago
          > If anything, the GP feels unpleasant for trying to present its parent comment in the worst possible light, in an overly snarky tone. Pointing factually and patently wrong assertions is not a personal attack nor being toxic. A comment or article does not have first-move advantage for making false claims free from negative opinions or corrections. If you make a blatantly false claim and you're called on it then that's the Hallmark of a healthy community having healthy discussions.
• e12e 5y ago
  I think the author makes some valid points, but I don't think he makes a good argument for hn being "toxic". The headline comes off as hyperbole (but not, in fact, as "toxic"). In my experience the vast majority of negative comments on hn tend to be well founded, and mostly well intended. Contrast this with a happy photo sharing site that seems optimized for teaching body shaming and inducing self-harm, depression and suicidal tendencies... That's the kind of social media I think of as "toxic". Or as Webster's say in part: > 1: containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation > toxic waste > a toxic radioactive gas > an insecticide highly toxic to birds > 3: extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful > toxic sarcasm
• idrios 5y ago
  Kind of a recently I had a friend get published in Nature, have her work featured on the BBC, and inevitably that was posted here to HN. The work was actually revolutionary, something that in college I had been taught was impossible, she had made closer to being possible. There were basically 2 types of comments on HN: "Don't get your hopes up, they only got this to work on mice" and "is it ethical to do this kind of research in mice". Valid comments sure, but these are equally valid for every single research endeavor performed on any animal model, and no discussion was given to the technology that had been discovered/invented that could save countless lives for the rest of human history. Since then, it's been harder for me to take criticism here very seriously.
  • drBonkers 5y ago
    That's why a lot of people here think today's Science™ is a joke. Peer-review is not a substitute for replication.
    • joelbondurant3 5y ago
  • svnt 5y ago
    It’s easy for academics to bound a box and say something is impossible. And often no better way to get people to exert effort trying to do it. None of those boxes are bounded anywhere but in individual or collective understanding.
  • tome 5y ago
    > Since then, it's been harder for me to take criticism here very seriously. It's the HN version of Gell-Mann Amnesia. Perhaps it should be called idrios Amnesia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
    • astrange 5y ago
      The HN term for it (invented by pg) is "mid-brow dismissal" - when you reply to an article with something that applies to the general class of articles, but isn't a problem for the specific article because they knew that too, because of course they did.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• bobthechef 5y ago
• xbar 5y ago
  The only "toxic" thing I've seen on HN this week is an article with panders exclusively to HN by attacking HN for toxicity. Faux controversy, faux outrage, and bland terms of abuse broadly applied to entire communities are the hallmarks of contemporary low thinking designed to get attention without any creativity.
• ramesh31 5y ago
  Meh. I'll always be friendly and kind to people in real life. But I come to HN for acerbic debate about pedantic topics with really smart people that have highly tuned bullshit detectors. I hope to god this place never loses its' edge and becomes Reddit.
  • sockaddr 5y ago
    Exactly. I use HN as one of my BS detector calibration tools and thus crave its critical nature. I think the OP needs to learn to filter out the types of dismissive critical comments that sit that the top because they got there early and are "just right enough" to pass as authoritative judgement that buries all of the better answers that trickle in later. Once they learn to tune those out, their time on HN will be a lot better. Do we have a word for that type of post?
• paxo 5y ago
  It hit me deep. Loved it! Thanks for sharing!
• hyperman1 5y ago
  I've noticed that HN tends to mirror my mood. If I'm feeling creative, I'll read posts of people creating something. If I feel irritated I'll find a rantable topic. Etc... Sonehow my brain picks stories and comments that fit me at that time. If HN gets toxic, it means I have to dial back.
  • munificent 5y ago
    This is something that clicked for me recently. Today, we have access to such an overwhelming amount of data that you can fill a day's worth of media consumption just on the subset that fits your current mood or preconceived belief. Therefore, the world always appears exactly as we think/hope/fear/believe it to be. It's like when you go to a bar and the DJ is playing songs that just perfectly reinforce your mood. Except we are the DJ and our record collection is infinite. Now I try to remind myself that my mood will affect the media I see and vice verse. I try to deliberately focus on media that is actually nourishing and not just confirming whatever I'm feeling.
• sol_invictus 5y ago
  Serious question: do people want HN to turn into a safe space then? I always preferred the blunt tone of the forum, because in practical terms you can flesh things out faster that way, and anyway it's literally pixels on your computer - they can't physically hurt you. Hell I'm even guilty of fanning the flames further sometimes, but again I always thought it's part of the conversational culture here in order to gauge every possible angle to a subject as effective as possible. I certainly don't want the "forced nice" tone being policed here. It will likely kill the entire charm of HN.
  • throw10920 5y ago
    As a complement to your points - it's worth pointing out that "blunt" != "intentionally rude" / "personal/character attacks". I've seen lots of people on HN who are straightforward, but don't verbally abuse others when correcting them (although they might get a bit terse) - complaining about them is very different than complaining about those who actually start attacking you personally when you disagree with them. (I, personally, try to be a polite form of the former, but as most people who have extensively commented on the internet can tell you, it's a slippery slope)
    • sol_invictus 5y ago
      Agreed - out of the blunt comments, maybe 5% are truly abrasive. I don't think it is nearly as big of a problem as the author is making it to be.
• edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Arguing with an Engineer is a lot like wrestling with a pig in the mud , after a while you realize the pig likes it.
  • exclusiv 5y ago
    Haha I think that's true. I wouldn't say HN is toxic but the pedantic nature of so many comments is exhausting. And there are a lot of strongly opinionated engineers that can't imagine that tech they dislike or they aren't familiar with may actually be better at solving many other problems. Everyone gets caught up in trying to be right, but some people have not yet realized how damaging that can be to their relationships. It may seem like it's not a big deal online, but that will carry over to your personal life. Neil deGrasse Tyson said his father stressed to him that it wasn't enough to be right, one must be effective. That stuck with me as a powerful reminder to try and focus on the effective part. It will preserve and build relationships and often surprise you in making you realize that when you try to explain something instead of insisting on it, you are either wrong or could be wrong.
• samwillis 5y ago
  I think these criticisms aren't just relevant to HN, they apply to all social media and online conversation. Even (group) email can become quite toxic if people don't convey their emotion well. I have been on HN for 15 years, I have spent far too much time on this site. Eventually you learn which topics will be "toxic" and avoid them (if you want to). To some extent it just maturity (or lack there of) but I actually think HN is far less toxic outside of some specific topics than other sites. The topics that are liable to become flame wars change over time, currently it seems to be anything "Crypto" or "Online Advertising" as people have very strong feelings on both sides. I'm certainly still guilty of getting drawn in at times, especially when I feel I have a horse in the race. There is always insightful comments in these threads too. Fortunately HN is designed to detect topics that are getting out of hand (far more comments than up votes) and they drop of the homepage quickly massively reducing the exposure. Exactly where this thread is already going. I think the best decision HN made was not breaking the site into categories or "Sub-HNs" where specific toxic topics can grow and mutate, everything is forced though the front page ensuring a level of self moderation. After 15 years on the site I have no intention of leaving it.
  • brightball 5y ago
    This is the tamest and most well moderated forum I've experienced on the internet. For goodness sakes, I made a snarky comment about an NFT marketplace and was firmly warned about it by dang.
    • Seirdy 5y ago
      Ehhh... I'd say tildes.net, most project-specific forums (Discourse instances for FLOSS projects come to mind: Fedora, Let's Encrypt, F-Droid, Signal, and others), several mailing lists, and perhaps even lobste.rs are far more constructive. I've noticed that HN is just like Reddit, Lemmy, and other up/down-vote based forums for threaded discussions in that it incentivizes one extremely predictable pattern: Commenters have a first impression of what an article will say before they finish reading it, or before they read it at all. They take this anticipation of what the article will say, form an opinion about it, and search for comments that validate that opinion. These comments get upvoted. Because of this, commenters have an incentive to not just validate common opinions about an article, but opinions about what an article may be about so they don't have to risk considering its content/views. This phenomenon applies to the comments too, to a lesser degree. There's a recursive effect going on that promotes bikeshedding. While it shares this characteristic, at leas the discussion quality is better than mainstream social media (FB, Reddit, etc); however, that's not even worth mentioning IMO because comparing a forum's quality to them would be an insult to said forum. Several far less active forums like littr, subreply, gurlic, and tilde.news are far less toxic so some of this is probably most apparent with some popularity. I will say that the moderation seems excellent, though.
• bachmeier 5y ago
  Apologies for being skeptical, but why would someone talk to their wife in the same tone that they write HN comments? When I'm commenting anywhere on the internet, I say what I have to say and don't worry about whether someone will read the comment, and if they do, whether they'll like what I said. My only goal is to write out things I think are true. Talking to my wife involves a rather different set of objectives.
  • saagarjha 5y ago
    Just because you don't know people on the internet personally doesn't mean you shouldn't care about how they would feel when reading your comments. That doesn't mean you have to treat everyone on Hacker News like your wife, but having empathy and courtesy is something that should be part of all conversations, regardless of target audience.
• giantg2 5y ago
  This is a weird thing for me to get out of this, but... "You’re going to come across comments by billionaire CEOs who just so happen to be replying to a deepy-burried reply." Makes me wonder if one of these CEOs is someone I've pissed off on here in that past. A little more on point... I think it depends on how telling someone they're wrong is expressed. If I'm here to learn something, then hopefully people do pick apart why I'm wrong (which implies an explanation and usually links to pertinent facts). I think much of the negative parts are misunderstanding, miscommunication, or perpetrated by a small number of trolls.
• hamburglar 5y ago
  I do think HN is less toxic than I'd otherwise expect it to be, and I attribute it to the very good moderation. The rules of conduct are pretty simple and designed to promote non-toxic discussion, and I'm impressed with them. I recently got gently chided for "one of those grandiose sweeping claims that internet commenters love to make but can never back up" and was forced to see that dang was right, and that he was operating on a solid principle. And I really do love HN for its ability to cut through bullshit. I frequently see topics and look at the top comment or two before even reading the article, because I know HN can be counted on to cut to the substance a high percentage of the time. Clickbaity titles are reduced to TLDRs. Headlines ending in question marks are reduced to "yes" or "no" inside of one comment. Security exploits are often boiled down to how it works very quickly. The scrutiny this community adds to random tech jibber-jabber is frequently a really big time-saver. On the other hand, while HN avoids some of the shit-show type of discourse that tends to happen on these types of forums, it does definitely have its own set of very predictable patterns that I'm starting to get really tired of: * "Why would you want to do this?" when the point of the post is a fun exercise * Rust bashing, go bashing, rust zealotry, go zealotry * Downvoting things because you simply disagree * Smart people assuming that because they have always been able to reason their way through most technical subjects, that they can reason through social, political, and legal subjects without any real direct experience, because they're smart. Results in declaring simple answers to complex problems such as housing, healthcare, drug policy, education, the law, etc etc. Simple answers abound. This one is endemic on most discussion sites, and here at least both sides get to talk, but the scarcity of people admitting they don't know all the answers is ... exhausting. * edit: not having proper bullet lists :)
• stronglikedan 5y ago
  This 20-something-year-old seems woefully under-prepared to deal with real life when they get to it. I hope they learn some valuable lessons from this post, so their skin can thicken up a bit before they grow up.
  • deltaonefour 5y ago
    See this here^^ this is a toxic post. Telling someone to grow up because they have a contrary opinion. This is the perfect illustration about how some people are blind to the toxicity on HN, because I'm almost completely sure that the person who posted the above the comment was completely oblivious to the fact that he himself was going to contribute to the toxicity. Oh the irony.
    • titzer 5y ago
      It's infectious, toxicity. It keeps spreading, and faster, the more serious people take something. When you stop taking the whole thing so seriously and laugh--at yourself, first--then the tension breaks.
      • deltaonefour 5y ago
        I guess my reply was pretty toxic too right? I called someones post toxic. Good at you for saying something that completely defused the toxicity.
        • titzer 5y ago
          And on you for not taking it too seriously! Cheers.
• ziggus 5y ago
  The anonymity of online forums is like alcohol: your personality traits are going to be amplified under the influence of them. If you're an asshole, both alcohol and anonymity are just going to make you a bigger asshole. Doesn't mean it's the fault of either Lagavulin or HN.
  • larrik 5y ago
    I mean, alcohol makes me a lot nicer, but I see your point.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• BeetleB 5y ago
  > After nearly a year of using HN every day for several hours a day, No one should do this.
• crate_barre 5y ago
  Eh, this person hasn’t really HNed imho. If the tone and tenor of the comments get you, then whatever, it’s toxic for your appetite, move on. There’s really a deeper darker underbelly of HN where certain opinions get down voted without explanation. It’s the quiet silencing or shunning. In fact, the person that wrote this article is kind of the person that would quietly down vote, not partake in the discussion, and then one day write a blanket ‘you are all toxic post’, like a serial killer that confesses.
  • dang 5y ago
    Personal attacks are not ok here, regardless of how you feel about how someone feels about HN. 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.
• LoveGracePeace 5y ago
  Reading that dark themed page I got a headache from my eyes going squirly, need to go get some acetomenphin or something, completely lost focus of what the content was saying. As far as the title, some people can be toxic, sometimes we all can, it's human nature. We just have to strive to do better.
• kyleblarson 5y ago
  Skepticism is hardly toxic though. Dissenting discourse is a healthy thing that is badly lacking in most media / social media these days.
  • saagarjha 5y ago
    Skepticism is not inherently toxic, but it's very easy to be toxic about it, just as you can be for any sort of discourse.
    • raxxorrax 5y ago
      If skepticism is perceived as a toxic, a common reason for that is that you agree to parts of it. Otherwise it should not really phase you that much.
• deanCommie 5y ago
  Interesting how the majority of the comments are about how HackerNews is less toxic than many other social media outlets, or how OP is simply using it too much. The truth is HackerNews is much MORE toxic than most commenters would care to admit, and it's not because everyone is too analytical or dismissive of technology ideas (though that's part of it). The root cause is exactly what OP is talking about - substituting intelligence for empathy. Whenever there is a discussion of social policy in the United States vs other countries, HN - as a community of entrepreneurs and entrepreneur-adjacents - optimizes for the "freedom" of the US at the expense of all other detriments to society. That is one blindspot. Whenever there is a discussion of racial injustices or inequalities, or of gender issues, the more radical right-wing/libertarian points of view get dramatically more upvotes over time than the equivalent progressive points of view. It's hard to tell what is the "center" line in society, in American society, in the tech industry, and specifically in the largest companies in the tech industry. But I can confidently say that HackerNews - by what it upvotes - is more right-of-center of the kinds of policies that say the FAAMNG companies promote internally (for hiring, racial justice). Let's just say HackerNews is more sympathetic to the Coinbase/37Signals perspective than the Google/Microsoft perspectives. Does this inherently make it toxic? Obviously my perspective on it reveals my own biases. But I would say yes, because it comes from a very fundamental dislike of the human/societal implications of technology and a privileged "it doesn't affect me, so it can't be a problem" stance. And I think for young nerds being exposed to this worldview in an unbalanced ratio skews and pulls you in a direction away from empathy.
• alkonaut 5y ago
  I mean… sure, the comments can be negative or dismissive at times. But toxic, compared to what? Dinner conversation with close friends? Perhaps. any other pseudonymous forum on the entire internet?. No!
  • deltaonefour 5y ago
    The stakes are higher at dinner because your face to face. So dinner conversations are actually LESS toxic. People on HN are hidden behind anonymity. The only defense is moderation. I would say unless you have an opinion about something that is very different from the status quo you will rarely encounter toxicity. If you do have opinions that are very different from the norm, the toxicity is rampant.
    • alkonaut 5y ago
      I think perhaps what counts as toxic varies. If you lay out an argument of say why NFTs are great you might not just be met with negativity. Perhaps by dozens of replies. But is that toxic? With actual toxic behavior I mean what goes on in a Call of Duty game chat, or most YouTube comment threads . The actually toxic behavior is completely destroying conversations, not just filling them with negative responses. To see exchanges of (say) three messages without one being homophobic/racist /spammy/.. is really common on HN. That immediately puts even the worst HN discussions in the top percentiles of online discussion. > If you do have opinions that are very different from the norm, the toxicity is rampant. In that there is disagreement or that the disagreement is presented in an especially toxic way? Because obviously arguing something that is way outside the norm will see most people disagree strongly (by definition) so one would expect negative and dismissive responses. That though doesn’t make for “toxic” discussions so long as everyone argues in good faith and is civil?
      • deltaonefour 5y ago
        >In that there is disagreement or that the disagreement is presented in an especially toxic way? Yes. Some people will disagree amicably but the majority of the time this is not the case. Many users use subtle degrading tactics (negs) to propagate the toxicity. You think I'm just interpreting disagreement as negativity. No. I assure you I am not.
• StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  >The article explains that people who are "intelligent," or just over analytical in nature, end up being less happy. They see through the BS of everyday life and are able to spot the negatives faster than any positives. Positives and negatives are completely subjective. Personally I welcome people pointing out the flaws in my reasoning or understanding, and see it as an opportunity for growth. "Seeing through the BS of everyday life" enables one to see just as many positives as negatives - especially to those whose "everyday life" isn't so positive to begin with. Some people go through life seeking affirmation and avoiding anything that conflicts with their predispositions, which is fine if that's what works for them (and they aren't in positions of power or making consequential decisions). Plenty of us find the "animating contest of freedom" (in the words of Samuel Adams[the man not the beer]) to be positive and liberating, but it certainly isn't for everyone.
• beachy 5y ago
  "I’m smarter than you, so I’m going to pick your ideas apart and tell you exactly why you’re wrong." Early on, someone told me never to sell to IT, because IT types love to try and point out where you're wrong, and to catch you out (I'm one, I get it). Sell to business people instead - they're just looking for workable solutions to their problems, it's not (usually) a pissing contest.
• earthboundkid 5y ago
  I went cold turkey on Twitter last week because it’s just so unrelentingly negative. HN is more just silly, IMO. Yes, there are dumb “just build Google search in a weekend” comments, but it’s easier to ignore bad HN comments than the unending stream of Twitter negativity. In part that’s because you can pick which articles to read comments on and which to skip the comments on.
• kgin 5y ago
  Most of the internet is actually a MMORPG where you use comment boxes to tell people why they're wrong. HN is a very advanced level in this game, with high standards for gameplay, but it's very much a part of the game nonetheless.
  • someguydave 5y ago
    This answer does not quite capture my own experience on HN though
  • krapp 5y ago
    I've been grinding karma in this game for nearly a decade, my stats are the same, and I'm still stuck with this default skin and no good loot. Rate up is a lie!
  • blurker 5y ago
    haha, I found this funny and accurate. It captures what I feel is common among the toxic responses that make it past moderation/downvotes. HN has an acceptable way to say "#$!@ your ideas" and "I'm smarter" using intellectual or polite sounding words, but it's still the same thing. I might even prefer the more crass approach that gets filtered out. At least those are honest and not passive aggressive.
• hashtones 5y ago
  Great article! Especially the parts about jumping to self-righteous conclusion, instead of making a space of peace available to the person whose come to you with trouble (that you can often very likely solve with a little bit of attention and care). What would be really cool if the "hacker community" actually tried to live up to at least the standard set out by the 'Hacker Manifesto' so many years ago...
• iqanq 5y ago
  If you think HN is toxic you haven't been anywhere else.
• vsviridov 5y ago
  I simply wrote an adblock filter that removes the links to comments from the main page. ``` ! 2021-07-30 https://news.ycombinator.com news.ycombinator.com##.subtext ```
  • folmar 5y ago
    This is a new thing to me. I usually first/only read the comments, only if they are enthusiastic enough proceed to the link. I've always thought a lot of people do so.
• smrtinsert 5y ago
  If you're good at technology you're smarter than other people. Good to know! The opinions at HN are like any other social medium, from useful to toxic. I would argue there is no difference in the quality here vs anywhere else, and if there is a quality difference, it's minimal. People love typing more here, that's for sure.
• literallyWTF 5y ago
  I think the bigger problem is using this website everyday for _several_ hours each day. Maybe like, stop doing that
• hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  > Or another example: My dad told me that he wants to dabble in programming, but MySQL isn’t compatible with his laptop. My response? "Yeah there’s no way that’s true. MySQL will work on anything." Instead of taking a look at this laptop and working on the problem with him, I just told him that he's wrong and he doesn't know what he's doing (basically). > These are typical, HN-esque responses that may get upvotes online, but they hurt personal relationships. I don't think these comments will get a lot of upvotes though. Most people here are helpful I'd say.
• didip 5y ago
  I have been hanging out here since 2009, HN is probably the tamest message board I am a part of. If anything, HN can sometimes be overly moderated. The most toxic posts are when people talk about politics. I wish there's a way for HN to sectioned those off.
  • that_guy_iain 5y ago
    Especially for tech communities. I literally stopped following tech people on Twitter because it was a different drama every week. I learnt more about drama than I did about tech which was why I was following them. I stopped using some reddit subreddits because it was so toxic that it wasn't worth being part of.
• cosmiccatnap 5y ago
• Aldipower 5y ago
  "I cared more about being right than being kind." You nailed it!
• blurker 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I am relatively new to HN, although I've lurked on-and-off for years. My impression so far largely aligns what the author is saying. I see a lot of comments along the lines of "so this is the internet, it's no worse than other communities" and such. The weird thing is that response seems to come with a sort of rejection of what the author's point is. It's no worse, but it's not a lot better either. I've noticed that there is definitely a gap between the stated goals of HN (which I read carefully when I finally decided to create an account) and the reality of how people interact. There are plenty of rude comments and responses that do not follow the guidelines. In case it's of interest, my education is software engineering. I feel that I had a similar experience to the author's. For a little while, I had too much of a know-it-all attitude and that sometimes lead me to being rude and dismissive of others. In my experience, that's really common with engineers. I imagine in other highly educated profession5s too. I'm not intending to complain, just sharing my viewpoint as another person out there looking here. I think this community can do better and very often does not live up to its goals. But, despite that, I still find a lot of value here and I try to bring my own positivity and ignore the toxicity.
• nscalf 5y ago
  Take a look at any article that is even tangentially related to anything in crypto. You'll find a battleground of people who are die hard skeptics refusing to engage with any idea in the space. HN has always had some skepticism, but this specific topic made the more toxic side of HN extremely apparent to me. Whatever you believe about any idea, you should be willing to engage with the idea if you're going to comment here. I hope what we all take away from this article is that we should take a step back, sit with the idea of a post, and before trying to belittle someone else's argument maybe we validate the things we agree with and question the things that are a bit unclear. It's fair to disagree and have a retort to something, but I've seen a lot of people jumping straight to a pretty aggressive, dismissive stand on here.
  • zozbot234 5y ago
    The die-hard crypto believers are even more bothersome than the crypto skeptics. I might well believe that zero-knowledge proofs might turn out to be the foundation of some new cutting-edge technology, or whatever. But if you just tell me the equivalent of "dude, these Bored Gorillas will change the world!!1!" that's just not very interesting on a social or intellectual level.
• clarnaskirq 5y ago
  I think this is putting the cart before the horse: rather than this mindset being caused by HN, it's more likely that people with this mindset are attracted to HN. I certainly sympathise - I find myself thinking the same way; but I ascribe it more to the profession I'm in (software engineering), and - probably more accurately - to a certain captious way of thinking that maybe led me to this profession.
• can16358p 5y ago
  HN has a toxic side and I think there are pretty trolls here who think they are smart (yet not really) too, yet still less compared to many of the other online communities. As any community grows there will be toxic people everywhere, HN is still one of the best (also _some_ subreddits on this list too) communities that has a great intellectuality vs. toxicity ratio relatively, in my opinion.
• hintymad 5y ago
  > I’m smarter than you, so I’m going to pick your ideas apart and tell you exactly why you’re wrong.” Isn't this attack one's motive, which is arguably the most deteriorating thought process? Chinese even has a saying, 杀人诛心，roughly means attacking one's motive is worse than killing the person. To me personally, one's motive is not even important unless I'm strategizing some move. All I care about is what this person says makes sense or not.
• mattlondon 5y ago
  It is not so much HN that is toxic, but in my opinion there tends to be a lot of inadvertently (...or not) toxic people in our industry. There are a lot of people I have worked with who have very strong opinions on what is the right way to do something. They will have zero qualms about telling you that anything-other-than-their-way is flat out wrong. I have been sat in meetings where it was basically a full-on argument between people for 30 minutes about if we should use X or Y to implement some feature until after perhaps 3 or 4 meetings and endless threads someone either capitulates or managers step in and force the matter. It becomes a point-scoring/pride thing where the same old foes face off against each other again and again and the cycle is repeated. It is stifling quite frankly, and I have often simply given up having an opinion at work sometimes because it is simply not worth (from an emotional energy perspective) joining the fray. Just let whoever shouts loudest/longest get their way and go home at 5pm. It is not surprising we get that here in HN if we are seeing it day in and day out in our offline lives too.
• TigeriusKirk 5y ago
  Being critical or skeptical is easy. It's a low-effort approach to encountering new ideas. It's fine most of the time because most new ideas aren't going anywhere, at least not anytime soon. So there's little-to-no cost in rejecting them. But it's a boring way to go about things. I can't speak for anyone else, but it certainly doesn't engage my intellectual curiosity, which is the purported purpose of this site. A few years ago I made up an exercise for myself. I resolved to look at every startup in each YC batch for that year. I went to Tech Crunch and read their Demo Day reports and the short blurbs they had on each company. For most of them, my reflexive response was that they were dumb or pointless or unworkable. Fine. Noted. But then I made myself come up with best case scenarios for each of them. What if this does work, what's the best possible outcome? What's the bigger picture that this could be the entry point for? If I was given this startup idea, what would I do to make it work? This was of course much more difficult than simply dismissing the ideas. And it was ridiculously time consuming since there's now 50 bajillion YC teams every season. But it also turned out to be very enjoyable. I got hooked on it. Letting my imagination and analytical skills run in optimistic, problem-solving directions. And now I have a much fuller and more capable toolset to use when I approach new concepts. It's paid off for me in concrete ways in my professional and personal life. Considering the best case take and how you'd make it real is a habit I very much recommend.
• scoofy 5y ago
  I'm starting to think the concept of something being "toxic" is borderline nonsensical. It's sort of a word that has been repurposed to identify the inherent tragedy of the commons. It's like a non-religious version of "fallen" nature of man. I'm not religious, but I grew up with that term thrown around with a sigh. To illustrate what I'm thinking of... things that are "toxic": people experiencing road rage and people who cut in lines of traffic and the people who honk at them in anger, people who talk during movies and the people who shush them overtly, hecklers at shows, etc... Any situation where there are quasi-anonymous status, and challenges to any social transgressions are powerless at best, and unhelpful at worst, will lead to "toxic" culture. Yea, it's not all good vibes, and people can be assholes. The reason I'm still on hacker news and reddit and NOT on twitter is exactly because the voting mechanism and reasonable moderation is the best defense against the amount of insane sociopathy on the internet. It is interesting though, for people here like the author, for whom there is no expectation of the tragedy of the commons that I do worry a bit about. If you find the city intolerable because other people can be assholes, move to the suburbs. If you find hacker news intolerable because of the assholes, sure get off the internet, but the problem isn't the internet, the problem is the human condition.
• tanseydavid 5y ago
  Hacker News has helped my improve my online communication style considerably. This has mostly amounted to developing a habit of excising or refining passages which seem: unkind, unnecessary or off-topic.
• paulpauper 5y ago
  Comments can be good but easy to get downvoted, unlike reddit. It's easy for things to be taken out of context or misunderstood. My advice is to make sure you state your positions as clearly as possible. This is not twitter: use as many words as needed to avoid ambiguity. Make sure you have read the post or submission you are replying to as carefully as possible. If wrong, do not clarify. Instead either edit the original post or move on. That may get more downvotes.
• president 5y ago
  Social networks are negative because people are negative. People are negative because their life is not going so great.
• jrockway 5y ago
  When Hearthstone first came out, the community asked why some cards were so bad. The creator replied along the lines of "they're to teach the community to identify bad cards and learn how to build decks with good ones". HN is very similar. It's a good idea at its core and there are many good discussions and articles to be found. But, there are also complete time wasters and stress increasers that exist only to teach you how to carefully manage your time. Just like you can't pick 30 random cards and stick them in your deck to make a top-tier deck, you can't click a random comments section on HN and guarantee yourself a top-tier reading experience. That doesn't mean HN is toxic, it just means that there isn't always a meaningful discussion to be had even though the subject matter is controversial.
• 8bitsrule 5y ago
  Text is a very difficult medium in which to express oneself. I first noticed this with early e-mails. Especially dangerous if the message is terse. Centuries ago when the phrase "A little learning is a dangerous thing" became popular, writing required a pen and ink, and the (now esteemed) writers had a lot more time on their hands. When time pressure's on, perhaps, it's easy to leave out adjectives, qualifiers, and personal tales. Perhaps typing code into a text editor all day leads to a kind of economy that isn't appropriate for humans. (Not to even get into that geek cultural thing from college; I remember getting laughed at when I admitted to not knowing how to calculate pi to any number of places.) At least on a phone the timbre of our voices is a side-channel which communicates our intentions. Text lacks that, and hurried text? Danger, Will Robinson.
• vo2maxer 5y ago
  I have a 92 years old aunt whom I call frequently. She lives independently and has no financial concerns. All, yes all, our conversations have followed the same pattern for years: She lists all the obstacles she’s faced since our last talk; assures me that no one else has ever had such bad luck; briefly asks what’s up with me. I listen to her quietly, and reply with everything is fine. We then say the love you and goodbyes until the next time in a couple of days. I’ve discovered that you don’t have to be 92 or my aunt to pour the negative on every occurrence.
• gwbas1c 5y ago
  I generally find HN to be the most pleasant forum I've read. Perhaps it's due to Dang? I think HN demonstrates that, in order to be civil, you need strong moderators.
• flembat 5y ago
  Please hang out for a while on comp.lang.forth or one of the lisp channels, then come back and enjoy how tame and reasonable this site is.
• mythrwy 5y ago
  Skepticism is good and valuable. Iron sharpens Iron. HN isn't toxic, and a bunch of smart nerds sniping each other results in smarter nerds. Smarter nerds is a net benefit to humanity. Arguably. There's probably other places for continual positive affirmation but I can't think I can't think of any on the Internet off hand.
• 1970-01-01 5y ago
  Let us be blunt! This community is non-toxic!
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• danbmil99 5y ago
  I would turn this around and flip the script. Hacker News is valuable to me because people don't pull punches out of the sense of social obligation to be polite. While people can be harsh here, generally there's almost zero tolerance for ad hominem attacks and the kinds of sophistry you see elsewhere on the net. Think of it like this. If I want a pat on the head and some affirmation, I'll talk to my mother. But if I want straight dope on what I'm doing right or wrong, this is a great resource.
  • beeboop 5y ago
    Pulling punches while still getting your point across is valuable. Being abrasive detracts from the message and leads to flaming due to tone rather than content.
• throwaway6532 5y ago
  If every single platform or watering hole is deemed 'toxic' and all they have in common is that people frequent them then I guess what that really means is that people in large quantities when they exchange ideas and information are 'toxic'. It's not the platforms.
• gtsop 5y ago
  It's funny how a post highlighting how hn crowd dismisses opinions... is being dismissed :D I empathize with the OP but I can't possibly agree HN is "toxic". It is a place were clearly a lot of legitimae conversations sparkle and unique ideas are being surfaced. I myself feel frustrated when people misinterpret my comments and downvote, but that's just a fluke. I have seen the bottomless pit of toxicity in some online gaming circles... hn is miles away.
• JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  It's too easy to give a glib answer, and feel justified because you're right. I work hard to post helpful, constructive, conversation-advancing remarks instead. I fail regularly. But sometimes I get it right. Some simple moves I make to help me be more positive: Remove the word 'you' from my comment. It's rarely helpful to put words in someone's mouth, or deconstruct another comment. I try to limit my comments to my own ideas. It's so very easy for others to read 'you did blah' and feel indignant. I don't want to generate that. Looking for the word 'you' in my post is a red flag that the post isn't advancing the topic. Accept criticisms, and respond in a meta way if at all. Getting bogged down in a dictionary definition or arguing who's statistic is more pertinent is low-leverage discussion. Ask questions as often as making declarative statements. Offer new information and ask if it helps illuminate the topic. That adds something, opens the way for further dialog, and admits a topic may be more nuanced. Anyway, thanks to those that helped me understand that winning karma points is not the real point.
• danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  Is it possible you are just not parsing what they are saying properly? Ie, in the "dad example", he literally said ~ "mysql isn't compatible with my machine". What he was actually trying to communicate was probably "mysql isn't working on my machine". ie, give yourself a break, maybe you aren't trying to be clever, maybe you just aren't parsing meaning very well? It's sort of two phases - parse the literal words, then parse what they likely meant.
• beeboop 5y ago
  HN is really, really negative. Like overwhelmingly negative. I am sure there is "curiosity" in some amount but it's the minority. I keep coming back to it for reasons I don't know.
• senectus1 5y ago
  the only time I see toxicity here is in discussions around crytpo currency, vaccines and politics.
• ComradePhil 5y ago
  Here's something to note: When we're reading a short written comment (or tweet or what have you), we are reading it in a certain tone in our heads. This tone is entirely made up by the reader and ascribed by the reader to the commenter. It is not necessarily representative of the actual tone it was said in. This tone is affected by our preconceptions of people, by those who conditioned us to feel that way. It may have little to do with reality. The highly editorialized short-form content that was the only thing possible with limited airtime and print space has been abused by the traditional media for their own benefits and benefits of those who have seeked to control them. Unedited long-form conversations are the future, the kind popularized by the podcasts... or long speeches... or even long articles... and online forums. It is possible to get a well-rounded view of people, even those you disagree with. HN seems to be a good way to engage with people of different views. It doesn't have to be "toxic" to disagree and argue.
• wrp 5y ago
  HN posts can show a marked lack of empathy, but overall quality is much better than online in general. I think the moderators deserve the credit for this, so I want to say that I daily appreciate their efforts. One thing I would criticize is the use of [Flagged]. I've been paying attention to its use for a few months now and I've noticed absolutely no correlation between the presence of [Flagged] and how informative or volatile a thread will be. It is really just noise.
• urthor 5y ago
  Because communication is two track. Like how film has picture and sound synced, communication has the message & the mood. Text is mono. It has a lot of advantages. Text is an asynchronous, information dense, machine parsable, parallel communication medium. But it really is one track communication. With live chat, forums or IRC, you gotta accept emotional communication is rocky at best. Shit happens. There are ways to fix this, but they involve writing longer, slower emails, and replying days later. Which ain't what y'all here for.
• tasuki 5y ago
  Isn't it ironic how the author is critical of HN in a post about being too critical?
• oxplot 5y ago
  HN is no different than anywhere else. Majority of replies are hot headed, critical, cynical, and negative. You can have the most inspiring news, a huge innovation, big leaps in tech, great new products, and 95%+ of the comments are just sad to read, which leads me to believe that it's just human nature. And no, critical thinking doesn't mean shitting all over everything you come in contact with, which is what most of us have apparently learnt from poorly taught college classes. The minority of us "mutants" who get excited about things, should learn and continue to spread the positivity and hopefully move the dial towards the middle a bit. And ye, this post is negative — I'm not a cartoon character in ecstasy state all the time.
• nonbirithm 5y ago
  One thing that I didn't see discussed is the long-term effects of even passively exposing oneself to a community over a significant stretch of time. The term that first came into my mind when thinking of this was "radicalization", but I don't mean it in the usual sense of being taught misanthropic ways of looking at the world. I was a different person before I first came across Hacker News. To my younger self, I might even call them somewhat naive, if I was going for a reflexive first impression without much thought. For example, my attitude towards adblockers shifted from when I first installed AdBlock Plus as a teenager. I used to be content with letting adblockers be my way to save me time and frustration on the Internet. They were nothing more than a cool, useful tool. Nowadays, I tend to see them as a weapon against a raging consumptive enterprise without enough meaningful limits on its ability to grow. My opinion of adblockers has become welded to a larger, more sinister feeling of discontent than I started with. The thing is, the latter impression makes more sense to me. I feel like I've learned something new about the world in between. But when I remember it, I simply feel sad. And yet, without a source of information like HN, I might have remained gullible for much longer, unwittingly using an extension to block advertisements that was built by an advertising company. Then there is a certain post format which tends to get a lot of traction on HN specifically. It feels like it's been on an uptick recently. It's where a news article or an HN poster without a corresponding link describes an injustice or user-hostile action that causes discontent. They tend to get upvoted heavily. People on HN want these stories to be heard. I've found that what goes on in the comments section of such posts no longer surprises me at this point - they almost always cause dozens of people to chime in and turn the discussion from the single injustice described in the post into a general "company X/product Y frustrates me" thread. "You can't forget the time product Z fell on its head. This is just more of the same." It's not that these comments are unjustified or even toxic at points. They don't break any rules. But they simply start to wear on me after month upon month of seeing the same general sentiment unfold again and again. And perhaps the most problematic thing about them is that I agree with the most well-reasoned, critically sound ones. The more threads I read through, the more I'm reminded that this really is the current landscape of technology/society/humanity at large. But I sometimes think that with regards to those injustices, little has changed. I sometimes expect something to spark my curiosity in these threads. At times I have to look elsewhere. It makes me feel that HN is not immune to the drama of the social media sites that usually attract reproval. It's just that HN's definition of "drama" is much different than that of social media sites like Twitter. I tend to think that I can go back to HN to avoid the "drama" of the other sites. What I was actually doing was avoiding poorly-researched, uncritical drama in favor of dense, cited, and at times intellectually stimulating drama. Somewhat ironically, from time to time a Twitter post about a user describing their gripes with company X/service Y surfaces on the front page. I think it says to me that if you wall off the term "outrage" from its usage on non-HN social media sites, and bolster it with enough critical thinking, thoughtful analysis of the bigger implications and moderation, then you can still propagate outrage. You can end up partaking in some definition of outrage while holding the belief that "those other sites" do even worse, and that HN is somehow different from all the rest. You can feel better about outrage or drama or discontent if you think you've done the work to understand why you feel that way. But the feeling still lingers. I think that my time on HN has made a permanent mark on the way that I view the world, for good and bad. And it sometimes dawns on me that little of that critical thinking or elaborate analysis ultimately had any tangible effect on the thing that causes the discontent and murky feelings. It feels like the worst injustices or the biggest product flops are out of my control. And additionally, many of them tend to have no real relevance to my life. I am probably invested in less than 10% of the products or services or technology stacks that appear on HN. So what if Stadia is a spectacular flop, for example? It wasn't surprising to me. What did I learn from it? HN tends to make the inevitable grievances of technological life feel legitimate. But I've almost never stopped to think about just what commenting or reading through posts was meant to accomplish for me, and myself. When I think of the word "hacker", I think of the usual stereotype of some adolescent prodigies "bringing down the mainframe" of the malignant enterprises that ail them from the comfort of their urban residence. Now it feels like I'm just watching a bunch of billion-dollar monoliths throw their weight at each other from street level, while dozens of people plea between each other between the cracks and get all of their informational bases covered. I have to wonder what would happen in the cheesy hacker movies if instead all the whiz-kid adolescents with the lightning hairstyles had to adopt the 21 million lines of code that comprise Firefox and attempt to figure out if they were capable of convincing the common masses of humanity to switch their browsers over from Chrome, before the arms race of the attention economy is lost. It feels like that's the usual day-to-day when it comes to parts of the technology sphere in the present. The stories lack the same wondrous edge. It feels like the answer is already written on the walls, and it's an answer none of us would like to hear. I don't think the interesting question is about whether or not HN is a better community by virtue of being smaller or better moderated than its alternatives. Instead, I sometimes wonder if HN is the place that I'm supposed to be a part of in the current chapter in my life. For everything that's said about the addictive power of modern technology platforms, I don't think that browsing HN across weeks or months will send many signals that you have the option of leaving HN for a while to do things that are entirely irrelevant to HN or its users. That option is always there, but it is implicit, not explicit. It felt as if I was just entering a point where I was going to see another "Tell HN" post about a smart TV forcing an update on its users, or a 2,764 upvote post about how Reddit is becoming the most significant place for actual opinions on anything, and I was simply going along with the sea of tears because that was what I was used to. All of this strife is completely understandable. I entered the comments and scrolled through like I usually do, like a reflex. If I had gave myself the option, I would have agreed with more of it than I had allowed myself to read through. But recently I purchased a tub of LEGO bricks.
• thomassmith65 5y ago
  So many posts on HN are met with skepticism, pessimism, or just an overall negative tone. I cared more about being right than being kind. My ideal self would exhibit both kindness and skepticism. I don't always live up to my goals, but it's possible for a pessimist to be kind and considerate. If anyone needs an example, Mark Twain probably fit the bill.
• t0bia_s 5y ago
  It is toxic to say something is toxic. Oh, wait...
• Spoiled_toast 5y ago
  It seems the poster fell into the downward spiraling “pit of despair”. I don’t know how to touch upon the topic of “I’m smart and now I’m nihilistic” without also sounding prude. I’m a 20 something as well and when I don’t have something to do with my hands I start looking for problems with useless goals. I grew up homeschooled and was met with this unfortunate disposition of my life revolving around few topics with little variety. You can be sure I was extremely adept at these topics but my understanding of the world around me kept shrinking the keyhole more and more so to speak. Slowing down and seeing the bigger picture is something easier said than done but it’s a necessity for people who suffer the side effects of this community. I wish you the best.
• manuu80 5y ago
  Hours in HN? Wtf I go to /best to just get the important stuff, and it is while in the bathroom :)
• raxxorrax 5y ago
  I don't really expect soothing words, I expect honesty. To me that is actually a more sincere expression of kindness. Engineers are certainly fast with critique which is not restricted to online spaces. But I want to hear that in most cases. I think it is often far more insightful than naive positivism, especially since so many in tech now work for advertisers or there is much content on crypto-currency hype. At some point cynicism can become pathological, but so can being wide-eyed. There certainly is a point where everything is talked down, but I don't really see much of that to be honest. Negative moods can be as contagious as laughter, but you have an easier life if you remind yourself that angry people do care. Maybe more than they should, but that can itself be endearing if you try to understand their perspective. And isn't complaining about toxicity just falling into the same trap?
• env123 5y ago
  > I’m smarter than you, so I’m going to pick your ideas apart and tell you exactly why you’re wrong Eeh, if that affects you so much, that tells you much about your ego. People pick your ideas apart and tell you exactly why you’re wrong, not because they're smarter, but because they may offer you a different perspective. It's up to you to take that with a grain of salt, or be salty about it
• jhiggins777 5y ago
  Whenever this type of criticism is made about a digital property you need to ask if that behavior is incentivized by the design of the product or is it just human nature.
• Blackstrat 5y ago
  Fundamentally, the entire issue of toxic is baffling to me as is the call for greater moderation. If you see someone you deem as toxic, ignore their comments, simple as that. Moderation ALWAYS introduces the moderator's bias. If moderation is limited to language, i.e., keep it family friendly as one of my sports communities is then it works. If it extends further as with Facebook, Twitter, et. al. then it simply becomes a biased echo chamber that benefits no one. Most folks today are simply too sensitive and think they should be shielded from thoughts that run counter to their own views. And something that many people never learned in school or in life thus far -- differing or minority opinions aren't always wrong whether the topic is COVID, climate change, or any other current obsession.
• ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
  This was eye opening, and it probably explains one of the reasons I'm so sucked in by Hacker News. I have had a similar problem of being overly critical handicapping me in social situations. It's also hurt me professionally, I lost a big promotion specifically over unnecessarily criticism that I thought was just being logical. Interesting Experiment: Go through your own comment history and see how many upvotes your purely positive comments have, and measure them against your pedantic corrections of others to see what is rewarded on this site.