4 ms·

Not really truthful, @luckylion. It's factually really relevant to hacker news. It's about a technology innovator, Musk, who has behaved in a way which active

by ncr100 4y ago

Not really truthful, @luckylion. It's factually really relevant to hacker news. It's about a technology innovator, Musk, who has behaved in a way which actively stifles innovation from other unique thinkers - like people who have muscular dystrophy and are pursuing remaining in the public sphere, themselves helping to refine human technology for everyone's benefit. It's fine being on Reddit as well.

luckylion 4y ago
There are millions of people who are working in tech and innovate and do things that stifle innovation. Do you want to report on all of them? No, of course not. I get it. Musk is polarizing, he has fanboys and haters. I don't care much for what either has to say about him, because their reaction to whatever he does is mostly emotional and emotional responses aren't that interesting. Everyone who's ever had emotions knows how they feel, and I'm not learning anything from knowing that you hate Musk. It can feel good to get together with like-minded individuals and talk to each other about how much you hate someone, how terrible they are and how you are right and all that (or the opposite, which I'd flag too). I'm not trying to deny you that, I just don't think that it has to happen here, as there are places which are already serving that role specifically. At the same time, there aren't many other places that avoid it and aggregate interesting content that is curated by people from lots of different backgrounds and where you have a chance to find something that you would've otherwise never been in contact with. I believe that's more important than group-validation of shared dislike.
dang 4y ago
Musk flamewars have been around for years (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26528522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26528522) and have gotten more common and nastier of late. HN is for thoughtful, curious conversation. Curiosity withers under repetition and fries under indignation (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20withers%20indignation&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), so it's easy to understand why users flagged this post. Online rage, celebrity gossip, cults and anti-cults, ideological battle, internet tropes, and personality drama are all destructive to the intent of HN. This topic is rich in all of those and then some. There's no curiosity here, no interesting new things, no respectful or playful exchange—just people hammering on what they already feel, going after their objects of hatred and each other. That's not what HN is for, and destroys what it is for. If anyone assumed otherwise, now would be a good moment to review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and recalibrate one's image of what HN is supposed to be! Edit: I just inserted "or celebrities" into the guidelines. It was already implied, but it won't hurt to make it explicit.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Perhaps the site should be renamed "Hacker Discussion" rather "Hacker News"? Though I'm not sure "Hacker" is accurate either... Don't you think that certain links can be newsworthy despite generating predictably ugly discussion threads? It does seem that you're saying the site is not about news per se.
  - dang 4y ago
    Sure, it's not about news in that sense. Is that not clear from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html?
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Not really. The fact that "Off-Topic" is even necessary shows that "On-Topic" is not particularly clear. Different people find different things interesting and have their intellectual curiousity gratified in different ways. And a lot of stuff appears unflagged on HN that falls between the two categories. You seem to have this personal weird exception to the guidelines, which is "Please submit the original source... unless it's a corporate press release." ;-) But you still allow meta-links about corporate press releases, which may put the PR in larger perspective but don't otherwise clearly gratify intellectual curiosity.
      - dang 4y ago
        Of course people find different things intellectually interesting, but a site dedicated to intellectual interest is still a completely different thing than general news. I'll diss the corporate press release any day! Beyond that I'm not sure I follow your specific point. What do you think we should do differently?
        lapcat 4y ago
        > Beyond that I'm not sure I follow your specific point. The question is why HN allows a meta-link about a corporate PR (for example, a Verge story about the PR, since you don't like the direct link) but not something like this? Why is "Corporation X announces Y" intellectually interesting, but this isn't? Anyway, if this submission remains flagged, then this newer one should be flagged too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35063232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35063232

by ncr100 4y ago

luckylion 4y ago

There are millions of people who are working in tech and innovate and do things that stifle innovation. Do you want to report on all of them? No, of course not. I get it. Musk is polarizing, he has fanboys and haters. I don't care much for what either has to say about him, because their reaction to whatever he does is mostly emotional and emotional responses aren't that interesting. Everyone who's ever had emotions knows how they feel, and I'm not learning anything from knowing that you hate Musk. It can feel good to get together with like-minded individuals and talk to each other about how much you hate someone, how terrible they are and how you are right and all that (or the opposite, which I'd flag too). I'm not trying to deny you that, I just don't think that it has to happen here, as there are places which are already serving that role specifically. At the same time, there aren't many other places that avoid it and aggregate interesting content that is curated by people from lots of different backgrounds and where you have a chance to find something that you would've otherwise never been in contact with. I believe that's more important than group-validation of shared dislike.

dang 4y ago

Musk flamewars have been around for years (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26528522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26528522) and have gotten more common and nastier of late. HN is for thoughtful, curious conversation. Curiosity withers under repetition and fries under indignation (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20withers%20indignation&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), so it's easy to understand why users flagged this post. Online rage, celebrity gossip, cults and anti-cults, ideological battle, internet tropes, and personality drama are all destructive to the intent of HN. This topic is rich in all of those and then some. There's no curiosity here, no interesting new things, no respectful or playful exchange—just people hammering on what they already feel, going after their objects of hatred and each other. That's not what HN is for, and destroys what it is for. If anyone assumed otherwise, now would be a good moment to review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and recalibrate one's image of what HN is supposed to be! Edit: I just inserted "or celebrities" into the guidelines. It was already implied, but it won't hurt to make it explicit.

lapcat 4y ago
Perhaps the site should be renamed "Hacker Discussion" rather "Hacker News"? Though I'm not sure "Hacker" is accurate either... Don't you think that certain links can be newsworthy despite generating predictably ugly discussion threads? It does seem that you're saying the site is not about news per se.
- dang 4y ago
  Sure, it's not about news in that sense. Is that not clear from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html?
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Not really. The fact that "Off-Topic" is even necessary shows that "On-Topic" is not particularly clear. Different people find different things interesting and have their intellectual curiousity gratified in different ways. And a lot of stuff appears unflagged on HN that falls between the two categories. You seem to have this personal weird exception to the guidelines, which is "Please submit the original source... unless it's a corporate press release." ;-) But you still allow meta-links about corporate press releases, which may put the PR in larger perspective but don't otherwise clearly gratify intellectual curiosity.
    - dang 4y ago
      Of course people find different things intellectually interesting, but a site dedicated to intellectual interest is still a completely different thing than general news. I'll diss the corporate press release any day! Beyond that I'm not sure I follow your specific point. What do you think we should do differently?
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > Beyond that I'm not sure I follow your specific point. The question is why HN allows a meta-link about a corporate PR (for example, a Verge story about the PR, since you don't like the direct link) but not something like this? Why is "Corporation X announces Y" intellectually interesting, but this isn't? Anyway, if this submission remains flagged, then this newer one should be flagged too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35063232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35063232