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Not only that, but it appears on the internet, which is known to be full of lies and manipulative propaganda! Weren't we arguing just like two days ago about t

Not only that, but it appears on the internet, which is known to be full of lies and manipulative propaganda! Weren't we arguing just like two days ago about the need to argue stuff on the merits, rather than this kind of guilt by ideological association? If you think this specific article makes claims that are not true, just say so.

tptacek 4y ago
The threads on these stories are horrible and unproductive, and if we're going to have yet another anti-woke thread, it's better that we not do so on a story running on a Quillette publication, is I guess the case I'd make. I make no claims to having taken the piece itself apart!
- idlewords 4y ago
  Then you should have said that upthread instead of trying to discredit this guy (who appears to be exactly who he claims) because he wrote up his experience in a publication you don't like.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I thought that was what I was saying --- sane people have written (presumably by mistake) for Quillette, too. But, fair enough. I stand by what I'm saying, though: I don't have to engage with this piece, which I did read, to make an argument that stories from this publication create garbage threads, and that the bar for stories about this particular topic is higher, in the same sense as the "significant new information" threshold raises the bar for stories on AI. I don't have a dog in this particular ideological fight, for whatever that's worth. I'm sort of broadly dismissive of college in the first place, and, like everyone else on HN, have read a story a week on the excesses of DEI culture.
  - Tomte 4y ago
    The idea behind it is to pre-emptively destroy the discussions so that one can point towards it and say "see, the submission should never have existed". I'm posting both "woke" and "anti-woke" stories (among many many others), but the "anti-woke" stories always get treated like this, by a handful of posters. The "woke" stories discussions are usually not much better, because of other effects, but sometimes stories from both sides get nuanced discussions. I haven't found out, yet, what makes the difference. Working hypothesis: the concrete commenters. So basically chance.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I am definitely one of the handful of posters that goes out of their way to zap these repetitive, unproductive, tedious, unpleasant, site-destroying threads off the site. The guidelines on the site (and the moderation log of Dan's comments) ask you not to post ideological stories like this here, precisely to avoid this kind of drama. Please run this social experiment on Reddit instead. You can post ideological stuff! But it shouldn't be so much a theme of what you're posting that you're literally doing a statistical analysis of the results, friendo.
      - idlewords 4y ago
        Come on, man. In this case you're creating thread drama, and then citing it as a reason to purge the site of similar stories. The owners can moderate however they please. But the idea that HN threads on non-political topics are somehow the Algonquin Round Table is kind of risible.
        tptacek 4y ago
        We're all part of the moderation on this site! I'm comfortable just disagreeing with you that random threads on this site are just as bad as ideological threads are. They share a bunch of annoying pathologies, but not all of them; the political threads are distinctively stupid, and they spread like kudzu. This thread --- my original comment, I mean --- is flagged, for what it's worth (I'm fine with that), so I think we're safe with respect to thread drama here. I mean, I sort of get where you're coming from? But this is a garbage publication. I think it's worth pointing out that garbage publications exist! (If we weren't 10 comments into a flagged thread I'd come up with better words than "garbage publication").
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      I'm posting both "woke" and "anti-woke" stories (among many many others) Indeed, you've certainly demonstrated the ability of quantity to steamroller quality by consistently submitting an average of 20 times a day. It's an impressive example of r- over K-selection, with a minimal degree of hard-to-digest technical content.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Weren't we arguing just like two days ago about the need to argue stuff on the merits We should certainly avoid genetic fallacies, but we should also avoid the idealistic fallacy of assuming that all discourse is rooted in the unselfish pursuit of truth for its own sake. Perverse motivations exist, both as described in the article and as observable in the partiality of the journal's editorship.

tptacek 4y ago

The threads on these stories are horrible and unproductive, and if we're going to have yet another anti-woke thread, it's better that we not do so on a story running on a Quillette publication, is I guess the case I'd make. I make no claims to having taken the piece itself apart!

idlewords 4y ago
Then you should have said that upthread instead of trying to discredit this guy (who appears to be exactly who he claims) because he wrote up his experience in a publication you don't like.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I thought that was what I was saying --- sane people have written (presumably by mistake) for Quillette, too. But, fair enough. I stand by what I'm saying, though: I don't have to engage with this piece, which I did read, to make an argument that stories from this publication create garbage threads, and that the bar for stories about this particular topic is higher, in the same sense as the "significant new information" threshold raises the bar for stories on AI. I don't have a dog in this particular ideological fight, for whatever that's worth. I'm sort of broadly dismissive of college in the first place, and, like everyone else on HN, have read a story a week on the excesses of DEI culture.
- Tomte 4y ago
  The idea behind it is to pre-emptively destroy the discussions so that one can point towards it and say "see, the submission should never have existed". I'm posting both "woke" and "anti-woke" stories (among many many others), but the "anti-woke" stories always get treated like this, by a handful of posters. The "woke" stories discussions are usually not much better, because of other effects, but sometimes stories from both sides get nuanced discussions. I haven't found out, yet, what makes the difference. Working hypothesis: the concrete commenters. So basically chance.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I am definitely one of the handful of posters that goes out of their way to zap these repetitive, unproductive, tedious, unpleasant, site-destroying threads off the site. The guidelines on the site (and the moderation log of Dan's comments) ask you not to post ideological stories like this here, precisely to avoid this kind of drama. Please run this social experiment on Reddit instead. You can post ideological stuff! But it shouldn't be so much a theme of what you're posting that you're literally doing a statistical analysis of the results, friendo.
    - idlewords 4y ago
      Come on, man. In this case you're creating thread drama, and then citing it as a reason to purge the site of similar stories. The owners can moderate however they please. But the idea that HN threads on non-political topics are somehow the Algonquin Round Table is kind of risible.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        We're all part of the moderation on this site! I'm comfortable just disagreeing with you that random threads on this site are just as bad as ideological threads are. They share a bunch of annoying pathologies, but not all of them; the political threads are distinctively stupid, and they spread like kudzu. This thread --- my original comment, I mean --- is flagged, for what it's worth (I'm fine with that), so I think we're safe with respect to thread drama here. I mean, I sort of get where you're coming from? But this is a garbage publication. I think it's worth pointing out that garbage publications exist! (If we weren't 10 comments into a flagged thread I'd come up with better words than "garbage publication").
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    I'm posting both "woke" and "anti-woke" stories (among many many others) Indeed, you've certainly demonstrated the ability of quantity to steamroller quality by consistently submitting an average of 20 times a day. It's an impressive example of r- over K-selection, with a minimal degree of hard-to-digest technical content.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Weren't we arguing just like two days ago about the need to argue stuff on the merits We should certainly avoid genetic fallacies, but we should also avoid the idealistic fallacy of assuming that all discourse is rooted in the unselfish pursuit of truth for its own sake. Perverse motivations exist, both as described in the article and as observable in the partiality of the journal's editorship.