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It highly depends on location. Not everybody lives in the US, I find it odd that Americans rarely post their country, and just assume the location of others.
by hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
It highly depends on location. Not everybody lives in the US, I find it odd that Americans rarely post their country, and just assume the location of others.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- javajosh 4y agoThis site is hosted in America, and largely populated by Americans, so it's odd you find it odd. If you run a site in India for Indians, for example, would you find it odd if users assumed everyone lived in India unless otherwise stated?
- Matthias247 4y ago> and largely populated by Americans that's an assumption. There's likely no stats on it, but I wouldn't be suprised if there's a large userbase outside the US (I'm not there, I know lots of users also not being in the US). > If you run a site in India for Indians, for example, would you find it odd if users assumed everyone lived in India unless otherwise stated? That's not really comparable. We are talking about one of the most well-known tech exchanges worldwide - so it is also of interest to many people outside the US. If silicon valley would be in India it wouldn't be odd if the site would be hosted there, and if international users would visit it.
- javajosh 4y agoI'm going to assume that you're making this argument in good faith. But it's a bad argument in its structure. In particular you're misrepresenting what I'm saying, and implying I'm saying that no one other than Americans uses the site. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that most of the users are American. As such it makes practical sense to assume users are American unless they state otherwise. That's it. That's my point. I'm not saying that non-americans don't use the site. I'm not saying they're not welcome. Both of those statements are obviously false. Speculative outrage that defies common sense is a big component of the troubles liberal culture is experiencing today. It is always possible to take everything personally, so demonstrating that you can take things personally is profoundly uninteresting. And worse it distracts from the best thing about discussion: all the cool ideas we can share with each other.
- ThePhysicist 4y agoThere was a poll about this once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378 Looks like Californians take the top spot, followed by Germans and Canadians.
- ojame 4y agoI don’t think where a site is hosted gives any weight to its audience these days. That said, can you share where you got “largely populated by Americans” from? I can’t find any stats, or is it just anecdotal? With threads like these I assume the same too, but it might just be the loudest voices.
- javajosh 4y agoStrictly speaking you're right, the geography in which a site is hosted doesn't mean much. But take that as a proxy regarding who started and operates the site, who are all Americans.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago> it's odd you find it odd No, ‘it’s’ not odd, you find it odd. Your opinion/feeling is not fact, despite you labelling it as such.
- javajosh 4y agoI want to invite you to consider an important question: are you making this an argument in good faith?
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y agoI am, but I come a cross as aggressive because I am. I think there’s some fairly valid points in the thread also. Interestingly the vote count went up during American off peak and dropped substantially during the American day. I don’t care about vote count, but I think it’s relevant here.
- YPPH 4y ago>largely populated by Americans Where should you draw the line? Surely not at "more Americans than non-Americans". In your postulated example, I suspect the number of people in India would well exceed 50%. I think the simple proposition is this: this site has a sufficiently high non-US audience that it can reasonably be expected you specify your post only concerns the US.
- iqkznnft 4y agoCould it be because this website is owned and run by an American company, and the largest just nationality is American?
- karaterobot 4y agoOP likely made a very natural assumption that talking about the Federal Reserve and linking to an article discussing the Mortgage Bankers Association in the post would be enough hints to imply they were coming from the U.S. Indeed, it seems you did come to that conclusion, but still commented about it being unclear?
- YPPH 4y agoThe parent comment is really directed at the title being unclear and making assumptions. Both paragraphs of your reply are concerned using the content of the post to clarify that uncertainly. That seems to be beside the point, it would simply be better if the title specified the location.
- LanceH 4y agoHe didn't simply ask for a country in the title, though, did he? He has to put in his 2 cents about a whole class of people behaving oddly. Indeed, the whole post seems to be a setup to complain about Americans being America centric.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
- YPPH 4y ago
- YPPH 4y agoI had exactly the same thought. It would have been within the title limit to say: > "Ask HN: Is it the “worst” time to buy a house in the US? I can't help but think it is simply implicit American exceptionalism. It's an assumption, commonly made by Americans, that on the web we assume everything refers to the US unless otherwise specified. I'm not suggesting any bad faith on OP's part, it's an unconscious bias.
- LouisSayers 4y agoI especially hate when people refer to events happening in season X... as if the earth consists solely of the northern hemisphere!
- akvadrako 4y agoI see similar trends in many places. For whatever reason inflation and rising interest rates seems to be happening in sync. And housing is at a peak of unaffordablity in lots of the worlds major cities.