3 ms·

I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with m

by tptacek 10mo ago

I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for. If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters. (For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions. All the more reason not to nurture threads about it here.) PS: I'm a longstanding "too-much-politics-on-HN" person, and even I'm a little annoyed that Jonathan Rauch's piece won't work here, if only so I can annoyingly noodle on the varying definitions of fascism. But flags are the right call here.

fzeroracer 10mo ago
> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for. I think this is a poor litmus test, because there are plenty of stories on HN where the majority perspective is going to be either agreement or disagreement. For example, zero day exploits, leaks, anything related to Tesla circa 7-8 years ago etc. The notion that every conversation needs to have multiple perspectives is a common fallacy; I think we can agree that things like companies ignoring security holes is bad for example and someone saying 'actually, it's good' isn't actually adding anything productive. > If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters. That ship sailed long ago with stuff like the Google Manifesto or companies like Palantir. People rightfully point out ycombinators (and by extension, HNs) connection to the current political environment which means people here, especially long standing users, will find themselves more and more agitated. For me at least, these kind of stories are increasingly unavoidable because they aren't just things I read on the internet, they're directly my life. Schools have gone into lockdown here in Seattle when ICE activity flares up, stores I've gone to have needed to prepare and think long and hard about what to do when ICE knocks at the door. Naturally this means people are going to gravitate towards stories here that are directly related to their life, and when those stories get squashed people start to notice the disconnect. People might go on HN to avoid these stories, but I literally cannot avoid my life.
mindslight 10mo ago
[flagged]
- zahlman 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mindslight 10mo ago
    [flagged]
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    I thought we hated tone policing here? I don't see anything wrong with it. Yes, the executive branch wants chaos. If we can't agree on that (something both sides of the lane agree on, even of the reaction differs) how can we really dig into solutions?
    - zahlman 10mo ago
      > I thought we hated tone policing here? The guidelines read clearly to me like tone policing is expected: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." > Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative. > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
      - mindslight 10mo ago
        > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Yes, this is exactly what my framing was doing - it is more substantive, positing a starting point for people who earnestly want to solve this problem. How the heck do we save, or at least triage, our country when we've got a hostile federal executive trying to start a civil war (among many other types of overt damage) ? This conversation is open to people of all political persuasions except Trumpists/fascists (or whatever you want to call yourself). I myself am coming from more of a libertarian / Austrian economics background. I can have some wildly different takes on constructive solutions than someone who is a lifelong Democrat, or a conservative who has been pushed out of the Republican party. The thing you seem to keep missing is that you were not invited to this conversation - or more accurately you've self-selected out. You could choose to join the conversation at any time, but to do this you need to stop throwing out these disruptive upside-down framings that are basically just promulgating the rogue regime's unapologetic litany of bullshit that's trotted out every time they kill another American.
sifar 10mo ago
>> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for. This would disqualify more than half of AI/LLM/<insert_tech_person> stories. This seems like a cope out. It is our inability as tech people to embrace the discomfort that is not rational and engage with it.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  Huge problem on those stories, too! A lot of those threads are dreadful. My point exactly.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    And Dang will take action any day now...
    - tptacek 10mo ago
      What makes you think he isn't? That's a rhetorical question; he and Tom obviously do intervene with those stories.
      - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
        I've read his responses here and in other topics over 2025. He still seems to maintain that politics is something to avoid, regardless of quality. Not explicitly, but the way he talks about it gives that impression. Having a tepidness when it comes to the dozens of slop articles on some trivial Ai blogs contradicts this mission to encourage curiosity and encourage a quality discussion. It feels outright contradictory and feeds into this sentiment that "anything tech is fine, nothing political is". Having flaggers do the work and promoting it as "community vote" is a convinent smokescreen, even though we all know flagging is based on a super minority of the community. I know it feels knee-jerk, but I had this sentiment for a few years now as AI rose, and it of course hit a fever pitch in 2025. I think seeing a Tesla earnings call flagged because it wasn't stellar earnings really made me go from quiet apathy to being more vocal on the phenomenon. The actions (which I disagree on) simply do not match the words behind it (which I overall agree with).
zahlman 10mo ago
> do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? When I see a submission like the current one, I get the impression just from the title that the OP doesn't believe it.
johnnyanmac 10mo ago
>For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions. Funny because I'm probably very radical about ICE and I can still find subtleties on how to reform this. I've never been "Defund the police", quite the opposite. I believe LEOs should have standing, qualities, and training that makes them stand by their emergency peers. Truly the best of the best. Getting that badge should be a similar thrill to being accepted into a top college. They should have years of schooling before truly starting to gain their title. Getting into a firefighting isn't easy, so why should an LEO see of as a career as a backup for failing to graduate high school? That's where all this falls apart. And now the standards barely get these ICE goons a month of "training". That needs to change. But with current times, that's not a topic I can discuss on X nor Bluesky. That makes it all the more frustrating that HN plugs its ears on such subtlety instead.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  I probably agree with like 90% of this but feel like if we actually tried to hash it out we'd get drowned out pretty quickly by vitriol.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    If that's the case, then I suppose this community is no different. And I don't like saying that because 1) I don't personally believe that and 2) it's against guidelines. But reality can be disappointing at times.
  - jacquesm 10mo ago
    Then maybe you should put that assumption to the test. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762767 Is a pretty good comment, but it got flagged, there is a degree of unfairness here.
    - tptacek 10mo ago
      I didn't flag it, but it's not an example of the kind of productive comment I was talking about either.
jacquesm 10mo ago
The easy fix is to let go of the unsiloed concept and to add a couple (<10) main subjects and an 'all' page. That way whoever wants to can discuss what they want and flags can go back to their original meaning.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  You should go build that site! It's exactly what HN isn't.

by tptacek 10mo ago

fzeroracer 10mo ago

> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for. I think this is a poor litmus test, because there are plenty of stories on HN where the majority perspective is going to be either agreement or disagreement. For example, zero day exploits, leaks, anything related to Tesla circa 7-8 years ago etc. The notion that every conversation needs to have multiple perspectives is a common fallacy; I think we can agree that things like companies ignoring security holes is bad for example and someone saying 'actually, it's good' isn't actually adding anything productive. > If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters. That ship sailed long ago with stuff like the Google Manifesto or companies like Palantir. People rightfully point out ycombinators (and by extension, HNs) connection to the current political environment which means people here, especially long standing users, will find themselves more and more agitated. For me at least, these kind of stories are increasingly unavoidable because they aren't just things I read on the internet, they're directly my life. Schools have gone into lockdown here in Seattle when ICE activity flares up, stores I've gone to have needed to prepare and think long and hard about what to do when ICE knocks at the door. Naturally this means people are going to gravitate towards stories here that are directly related to their life, and when those stories get squashed people start to notice the disconnect. People might go on HN to avoid these stories, but I literally cannot avoid my life.

mindslight 10mo ago

[flagged]

zahlman 10mo ago
[flagged]
- mindslight 10mo ago
  [flagged]
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  I thought we hated tone policing here? I don't see anything wrong with it. Yes, the executive branch wants chaos. If we can't agree on that (something both sides of the lane agree on, even of the reaction differs) how can we really dig into solutions?
  - zahlman 10mo ago
    > I thought we hated tone policing here? The guidelines read clearly to me like tone policing is expected: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." > Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative. > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
    - mindslight 10mo ago
      > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Yes, this is exactly what my framing was doing - it is more substantive, positing a starting point for people who earnestly want to solve this problem. How the heck do we save, or at least triage, our country when we've got a hostile federal executive trying to start a civil war (among many other types of overt damage) ? This conversation is open to people of all political persuasions except Trumpists/fascists (or whatever you want to call yourself). I myself am coming from more of a libertarian / Austrian economics background. I can have some wildly different takes on constructive solutions than someone who is a lifelong Democrat, or a conservative who has been pushed out of the Republican party. The thing you seem to keep missing is that you were not invited to this conversation - or more accurately you've self-selected out. You could choose to join the conversation at any time, but to do this you need to stop throwing out these disruptive upside-down framings that are basically just promulgating the rogue regime's unapologetic litany of bullshit that's trotted out every time they kill another American.

sifar 10mo ago

>> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for. This would disqualify more than half of AI/LLM/<insert_tech_person> stories. This seems like a cope out. It is our inability as tech people to embrace the discomfort that is not rational and engage with it.

tptacek 10mo ago
Huge problem on those stories, too! A lot of those threads are dreadful. My point exactly.
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  And Dang will take action any day now...
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    What makes you think he isn't? That's a rhetorical question; he and Tom obviously do intervene with those stories.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      I've read his responses here and in other topics over 2025. He still seems to maintain that politics is something to avoid, regardless of quality. Not explicitly, but the way he talks about it gives that impression. Having a tepidness when it comes to the dozens of slop articles on some trivial Ai blogs contradicts this mission to encourage curiosity and encourage a quality discussion. It feels outright contradictory and feeds into this sentiment that "anything tech is fine, nothing political is". Having flaggers do the work and promoting it as "community vote" is a convinent smokescreen, even though we all know flagging is based on a super minority of the community. I know it feels knee-jerk, but I had this sentiment for a few years now as AI rose, and it of course hit a fever pitch in 2025. I think seeing a Tesla earnings call flagged because it wasn't stellar earnings really made me go from quiet apathy to being more vocal on the phenomenon. The actions (which I disagree on) simply do not match the words behind it (which I overall agree with).

zahlman 10mo ago

> do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? When I see a submission like the current one, I get the impression just from the title that the OP doesn't believe it.

johnnyanmac 10mo ago

>For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions. Funny because I'm probably very radical about ICE and I can still find subtleties on how to reform this. I've never been "Defund the police", quite the opposite. I believe LEOs should have standing, qualities, and training that makes them stand by their emergency peers. Truly the best of the best. Getting that badge should be a similar thrill to being accepted into a top college. They should have years of schooling before truly starting to gain their title. Getting into a firefighting isn't easy, so why should an LEO see of as a career as a backup for failing to graduate high school? That's where all this falls apart. And now the standards barely get these ICE goons a month of "training". That needs to change. But with current times, that's not a topic I can discuss on X nor Bluesky. That makes it all the more frustrating that HN plugs its ears on such subtlety instead.

tptacek 10mo ago
I probably agree with like 90% of this but feel like if we actually tried to hash it out we'd get drowned out pretty quickly by vitriol.
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  If that's the case, then I suppose this community is no different. And I don't like saying that because 1) I don't personally believe that and 2) it's against guidelines. But reality can be disappointing at times.
- jacquesm 10mo ago
  Then maybe you should put that assumption to the test. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762767 Is a pretty good comment, but it got flagged, there is a degree of unfairness here.
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    I didn't flag it, but it's not an example of the kind of productive comment I was talking about either.

jacquesm 10mo ago

The easy fix is to let go of the unsiloed concept and to add a couple (<10) main subjects and an 'all' page. That way whoever wants to can discuss what they want and flags can go back to their original meaning.

tptacek 10mo ago
You should go build that site! It's exactly what HN isn't.