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Sometimes I really wonder what the crowd I interact with here on HN is really like. Are they true tech intellectuals, or are they people who wouldn't hesitate t
by deadbabe 11mo ago
Sometimes I really wonder what the crowd I interact with here on HN is really like. Are they true tech intellectuals, or are they people who wouldn't hesitate to hurl racial slurs if there wasn't the threat of being banned or flagged.
- throwawayslur 11mo agoI promise you, you can be both.
- threatofrain 11mo agoWhy do you have to wonder? Are people on HN just abstract text to you? Just talk to people.
- tb_technical 11mo agoThey're normal people - some of them good and some of them bad - some bright and some dim. I'm not trying to be mean when I say this: don't kid yourself into thinking you're in a club with the cream of the crop, anywhere - you're just setting yourself up for disappointment in the best case and horror in the worst case.
- vasco 11mo agoPeople who think HN is specially smart are funny. They mistake active moderation by the community with intelligence when the registration form doesn't have an acceptance exam, so literally no reason to believe that.
- pjc50 11mo agoA couple of decades has taught me that there's no hard boundary between those two sets. The concept of "public intellectual" itself is a bit suspect, since it becomes just another form of celebrity and/or cult leader.
- whstl 11mo agoPlenty of people trying to hurl racial slurs here, but they're mostly all shadow banned and not really truly participating in the discussions.
- spacechild1 11mo agoI think very few people on this forum would qualify as intellectuals, most are just ordinary people. Now, some users certainly present themselves as Renaissance polymaths, but typically they just suffer from Engineer's Disease :) Needless to say, even "intellectuals" can be racist.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- philipallstar 11mo ago> Needless to say, even "intellectuals" can be racist. Not "even" intellectuals. Eugenics and racial superiority were progressive intellectual concepts less than 100 years ago, with people writing self-important letters to each other about it.