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I’ve also changed my mind because of HN and other technical forum discussions. I brought up the counter example at the workplace because it is a case the articl

I’ve also changed my mind because of HN and other technical forum discussions. I brought up the counter example at the workplace because it is a case the article mentions without argument. I think it’s ridiculous to pretend there isn’t massive overlap between political discussion and tech. Obviously there can be too much of a thing, obviously there are uncurious partisans, but I don’t think that is particularly different from the other kinds of flame wars HN guidelines already discourage.

Karrot_Kream 8mo ago
I'd argue that a large, international forum is the kind of place where this kind of conversation adds much more noise than signal. There are too many people of too many age ranges who live in too many different places for political conversation to meaningfully result in situations where, on balance, the space agitates for change moreso than collapses into a negative-sum bash fest. Political activism still seems to be most effective in democracies when folks go in person and try to talk about why they think their positions are good and useful ("canvasing") or when individuals talk to their representatives about issues. IMO many of the problems of democracy right now originate because too many people think that emoting online about politics is a substitute for building consensus in focused groups that have the power to change the issue at hand.