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Hacker News is heavily curated. Do you think there's an echo chamber effect? I frequently encountered opinions that differ from mine, sometime completely on the

by kiba 2y ago

Hacker News is heavily curated. Do you think there's an echo chamber effect? I frequently encountered opinions that differ from mine, sometime completely on the opposite end.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
As much as I like and enjoy HN most of the time, it's very much an echo chamber. Even if we ignore politics and politics-adjacent threads and focus on tech stuff, there are some popular perceptions/opinions that have not earned their popularity, and god help you should you suggest you're not on that bandwagon. The blanket ban on outright politics here may blunt the echo chamber effect a bit, but it exists because echo chamber susceptibility is part of the human condition. We cannot get away from it.
- bruce511 2y ago
  While there's a ban on overt politics, a lot of social discourse is ultimately political. It's impossible to discuss health care approaches for example. Americans believe in for profit Healthcare, while (most everyone else) tend to favor universal health care (despite its many imperfections. ) And that's before we discuss other tricky topics like the military etc. There are plenty of folk ready to downvote based on opinion rather than discussion. So yes, there's plenty of echo chamber here - but equally plenty of alternate thinkers, not to mention nutters. This is ultimately how human societies work.
  - thrwwawayyay 2y ago
    Yes try making a comment in favor of bulk data collection by the intelligence agencies, or stating that Snowden's actions caused significant harm and really only helped adversaries - to give two examples. Even if you write a well argued and decently sourced comment, it's very likely to get flagged by people with ideological disagreements to this. And there are a lot of them on HN, so your comment will likely disappear pretty quickly.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > try making a comment in favor of bulk data collection by the intelligence agencies, or stating that Snowden's actions caused significant harm and really only helped adversaries - to give two examples. Those are both the same example, and sometimes comments get downvoted because they're just making a bad or vacuous argument for an indefensible position. It's obvious why intelligence agencies want to do bulk data collection, and the reason is related to why it's a problem -- the public needs to be protected against bulk data collection by foreign intelligence agencies, and by domestic ones with insufficient oversight. "Oversight" in a democracy means the public knows about it, otherwise how can there even be a debate about whether it's worth it? But intelligence agencies aren't in favor of oversight of intelligence agencies, so they'll always be in favor of surveillance even if it isn't worth it, which is why they can't be allowed to do it in secret and anyone bringing it into the light is acting in the public interest. Moreover, bulk surveillance isn't worth it, because if you don't build technology that can resist bulk surveillance then foreign governments will do it to your population and the cost of that exceeds any benefit from you being able to do it to others, even before you account for the domestic cost of having a surveillance apparatus already in place in the event that an oppressive administration comes to power.
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
        About 18 months ago, there was an article (here on HN) suggesting that The Cheesecake Factory (an American casual dining restaurant, big chain) made their food from scratch. This is trivially debunked. Go to their website, which has the menu for all locations in North America, and you can see for yourself that there is practically nothing that would or could be made from scratch. Everything, literally every menu item at the time, was something that could be brought frozen and reheated there (on a grill more likely than in microwaves, but I don't know which). Furthermore, I pointed out how I drive past one every day to go to work, and twice a week in the morning I will see the Sysco truck unloading in the back of the restaurant. Even the fucking salad, such as they are, are in plastic bags and dumped into a bowl. Pointing this out though, was worthy of more than one downvote. Why? Does HN have some deep bench of experts on American casual dining chains? Is it a technology topic? No, the echo chamber had already decided, and going against this insults the echo chamber even if there is no emotional investment. When I said there was an echo chamber, I pointed out that I was excluding politics because you kind of just expect that. But it's literally about everything no matter how trivial it should be. I have had many examples over the years, and if there were a point to it I could give you an exhaustive list. This is the human condition. Forever arguing over stupid shit for the rest of eternity, or at least until doomsday, which I suspect is less than a century off.
Ferret7446 2y ago
HN is heavily echo chamber. Just because some people agree/disagree on technical topics doesn't mean you're getting a true diversity of opinions. Like, say, from the 99.99...% of the population that don't know what an int is.
- kiba 2y ago
  Believe it or not, I find most of my disagreement on social issues rather than technical topics on HN and I am a fairly conventional social democrat.
likeabatterycar 2y ago
HN is rife with downvote (and in some cases, flagging) abuse. So the echo chamber is more self-imposed by the brahmins rather than curated. Slashdot had a superior moderation system whereby the ability to downvote (mod points) was given out selectively and in limited quantity. In all honestly it was years ahead of its time.
- sien 2y ago
  If Slashdot's system was so much better why has it declined so much? Was it the hot grits ? I say this as someone who still has an account over there with a lowish UID.
  - likeabatterycar 2y ago
    Just like an adored local restaurant, it went to shit "under new management" when the original owners cashed out and the users moved on. So everything started to suck around the moderation. I vaguely remember such was their commitment to free speech, if you browsed at -1 they allowed posts to remain up that broke the HTML and page rendering, and refused to take them down on principle, until they could update their filters. Those early days of the web were a wild west.

by kiba 2y ago

Hacker News is heavily curated. Do you think there's an echo chamber effect? I frequently encountered opinions that differ from mine, sometime completely on the opposite end.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

As much as I like and enjoy HN most of the time, it's very much an echo chamber. Even if we ignore politics and politics-adjacent threads and focus on tech stuff, there are some popular perceptions/opinions that have not earned their popularity, and god help you should you suggest you're not on that bandwagon. The blanket ban on outright politics here may blunt the echo chamber effect a bit, but it exists because echo chamber susceptibility is part of the human condition. We cannot get away from it.

bruce511 2y ago
While there's a ban on overt politics, a lot of social discourse is ultimately political. It's impossible to discuss health care approaches for example. Americans believe in for profit Healthcare, while (most everyone else) tend to favor universal health care (despite its many imperfections. ) And that's before we discuss other tricky topics like the military etc. There are plenty of folk ready to downvote based on opinion rather than discussion. So yes, there's plenty of echo chamber here - but equally plenty of alternate thinkers, not to mention nutters. This is ultimately how human societies work.
- thrwwawayyay 2y ago
  Yes try making a comment in favor of bulk data collection by the intelligence agencies, or stating that Snowden's actions caused significant harm and really only helped adversaries - to give two examples. Even if you write a well argued and decently sourced comment, it's very likely to get flagged by people with ideological disagreements to this. And there are a lot of them on HN, so your comment will likely disappear pretty quickly.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > try making a comment in favor of bulk data collection by the intelligence agencies, or stating that Snowden's actions caused significant harm and really only helped adversaries - to give two examples. Those are both the same example, and sometimes comments get downvoted because they're just making a bad or vacuous argument for an indefensible position. It's obvious why intelligence agencies want to do bulk data collection, and the reason is related to why it's a problem -- the public needs to be protected against bulk data collection by foreign intelligence agencies, and by domestic ones with insufficient oversight. "Oversight" in a democracy means the public knows about it, otherwise how can there even be a debate about whether it's worth it? But intelligence agencies aren't in favor of oversight of intelligence agencies, so they'll always be in favor of surveillance even if it isn't worth it, which is why they can't be allowed to do it in secret and anyone bringing it into the light is acting in the public interest. Moreover, bulk surveillance isn't worth it, because if you don't build technology that can resist bulk surveillance then foreign governments will do it to your population and the cost of that exceeds any benefit from you being able to do it to others, even before you account for the domestic cost of having a surveillance apparatus already in place in the event that an oppressive administration comes to power.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      About 18 months ago, there was an article (here on HN) suggesting that The Cheesecake Factory (an American casual dining restaurant, big chain) made their food from scratch. This is trivially debunked. Go to their website, which has the menu for all locations in North America, and you can see for yourself that there is practically nothing that would or could be made from scratch. Everything, literally every menu item at the time, was something that could be brought frozen and reheated there (on a grill more likely than in microwaves, but I don't know which). Furthermore, I pointed out how I drive past one every day to go to work, and twice a week in the morning I will see the Sysco truck unloading in the back of the restaurant. Even the fucking salad, such as they are, are in plastic bags and dumped into a bowl. Pointing this out though, was worthy of more than one downvote. Why? Does HN have some deep bench of experts on American casual dining chains? Is it a technology topic? No, the echo chamber had already decided, and going against this insults the echo chamber even if there is no emotional investment. When I said there was an echo chamber, I pointed out that I was excluding politics because you kind of just expect that. But it's literally about everything no matter how trivial it should be. I have had many examples over the years, and if there were a point to it I could give you an exhaustive list. This is the human condition. Forever arguing over stupid shit for the rest of eternity, or at least until doomsday, which I suspect is less than a century off.

Ferret7446 2y ago

HN is heavily echo chamber. Just because some people agree/disagree on technical topics doesn't mean you're getting a true diversity of opinions. Like, say, from the 99.99...% of the population that don't know what an int is.

kiba 2y ago
Believe it or not, I find most of my disagreement on social issues rather than technical topics on HN and I am a fairly conventional social democrat.

likeabatterycar 2y ago

HN is rife with downvote (and in some cases, flagging) abuse. So the echo chamber is more self-imposed by the brahmins rather than curated. Slashdot had a superior moderation system whereby the ability to downvote (mod points) was given out selectively and in limited quantity. In all honestly it was years ahead of its time.

sien 2y ago
If Slashdot's system was so much better why has it declined so much? Was it the hot grits ? I say this as someone who still has an account over there with a lowish UID.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago
  Just like an adored local restaurant, it went to shit "under new management" when the original owners cashed out and the users moved on. So everything started to suck around the moderation. I vaguely remember such was their commitment to free speech, if you browsed at -1 they allowed posts to remain up that broke the HTML and page rendering, and refused to take them down on principle, until they could update their filters. Those early days of the web were a wild west.