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Hacker News has become the source of the noise for me and I'm increasingly not coming here. I often block it in my hosts file, in fact, along with reddit and F

by nirvana 14y ago

Hacker News has become the source of the noise for me and I'm increasingly not coming here. I often block it in my hosts file, in fact, along with reddit and Facebook. There is still, occasionally, a relevant technical article (that's not primarily opinion) or link to a new open source project that is relevant to my interests. But that seems to be around %2-4 of the content. HN is crowded out with submissions that are designed primarily to be excuses to be outraged at anyone who believes in intellectual property, or that isn't a leftist, with the occasional outrage at violations of privacy thrown in. And you certainly can't have a good discussion on those articles-- haters going to hate, and leftists hate private property and fandroids hate apple. This is the fourth time I've seen this happen. The first was slashdot, which by 2002 or so, was so overrun with GPL fascists that you couldn't say anything short of the party line, less it be downvoted to oblivion. Then Digg which gave so much power to early users that it was pointless to even try. Then Reddit which has its general /r/politics subreddit-- which everyone is subscribe to by default- with a moderation policy that bans anyone who doesn't toe the leftist line well enough to goose step. And now Hacker News. Once I did an experiment. There was an article where I didn't like the outcome, along with most of HN, but the principle involved, a greater principle, one that most on HN claim to espouse, was being violated. I posted a comment noting that I didn't like the outcome, naming the principle, noting that most of us agree with that principle, and then showing how upholding that principle (eg: not being a hypocrite) required us to temper our outrage. I got downvoted to oblivion (which on HN helpfully means your post fades into the background making it impossible to read, which I find hilarious- we're not just going to put you at the bottom of the page, we're going to make it impossible for those who are broad minded enough to scroll down to even read it.) So, despite agreeing with the majority, clearly explaining my position, and why I hated having to reach that conclusion, what the principle was, and why we all generally agree with that principle... I was still downvoted, because I wasn't making a post agreeing with the party line. That's the point when I accepted that moderation is broken, and Hacker News is not a place where good discussion can happen reliably. I think human curation has failed. Ideological downvotes have killed the signal to noise ratio of all four of these sites.

incision 14y ago
1) Kick things off with sweeping generalizations of four sites spanning ten years as "haters", "fandroids", "leftists" and "fascists". 2) Spend the rest of the tangent hypocritically complaining about name-calling while demanding that someone refute your purely anecdotal evidence. 3) Triumphantly explain how I've somehow proven your point by posting this.
taybin 14y ago
How about some specifics? I get suspicious when I see "leftists" thrown around.
- SquareWheel 14y ago
  I find it's best to ignore a post when any rash generalization is made; be it against people I side with or not.
- nirvana 14y ago
  Here's some specifics: Anything having to do with the 2008 fiscal crisis. Anything having to do with monetary policy in general. Hell, just try pointing out that the IR absorption of CO2 is less than that of water vapor (eg: clouds) in a discussion of global warming. You'll get no end of "all scientists believe in global warming[1]" and downvotes, for this scientific fact. [1] This is, by far, the most anti-intellectual and offensive statement. Science doesn't work by majority. Worse, it is simply factually false. There is no survey of scientists to determine their votes, and there is a sizable contingent of scientists who refute it or dispute it. Further, the references to "science" that this side makes generally come from IPCC reports, which is to say, reports prepared by politicians which in the past have often been refuted by the very scientists whose research they claim to be summarizing. This issue is really a good one, because it is a purely scientific one, it is relatively straightforward and easy to disprove (Mars was warming at the same time, with the earth and the solar cycle, despite having no Hummers, the earth has been getting cooler for the past decade, despite CO2 going up, the "warming" period coincides with ice ages, and the "evidence", namely the Mann "hockey stick" was the result of outright fraud).... yet the people who believe it believe it for ideological reasons, and actually reject science, making scientific discussions impossible. (Global warming is the left's creationism!) all you can get is insistence that all scientists believe in it (all christians believe in creationism, right? Actually they don't all believe in it, possibly a majority don't.) Or you can get pointers to scientific sounding blog posts that at the root end up being nonsense. The closest I've ever gotten to an actual scientific debate on global warming was with a physicist who, in the end, was reduced to insisting that man made carbon dioxide had different effects on the atmosphere than "naturally occurring" carbon dioxide. At that point I gave up- I can't argue with a belief like that. How many people do you think on Hacker News believe in Global Warming? How many of them have ever looked up the IR absorption of CO2? Or would listen to that point? How many people on Hacker News reject intellectual property out of hand? How many of them can derive, from first principles, an explanation for any private property ownership? I believe the former is the majority and the latter is a tiny fraction. Yet they "believe in private property" -- but only situationally. (EG: Ok to steal movies, but not cars, or money, unless you're the government, then its ok to steal money if you call it taxes. Is that not a reasonable characterization of "leftist" positions? Ok, then how can a leftist believe in the principle of private property if its sometimes ok to steal? By redefining the word "steal"?)

by nirvana 14y ago

incision 14y ago

1) Kick things off with sweeping generalizations of four sites spanning ten years as "haters", "fandroids", "leftists" and "fascists". 2) Spend the rest of the tangent hypocritically complaining about name-calling while demanding that someone refute your purely anecdotal evidence. 3) Triumphantly explain how I've somehow proven your point by posting this.

taybin 14y ago

How about some specifics? I get suspicious when I see "leftists" thrown around.

SquareWheel 14y ago
I find it's best to ignore a post when any rash generalization is made; be it against people I side with or not.
nirvana 14y ago
Here's some specifics: Anything having to do with the 2008 fiscal crisis. Anything having to do with monetary policy in general. Hell, just try pointing out that the IR absorption of CO2 is less than that of water vapor (eg: clouds) in a discussion of global warming. You'll get no end of "all scientists believe in global warming[1]" and downvotes, for this scientific fact. [1] This is, by far, the most anti-intellectual and offensive statement. Science doesn't work by majority. Worse, it is simply factually false. There is no survey of scientists to determine their votes, and there is a sizable contingent of scientists who refute it or dispute it. Further, the references to "science" that this side makes generally come from IPCC reports, which is to say, reports prepared by politicians which in the past have often been refuted by the very scientists whose research they claim to be summarizing. This issue is really a good one, because it is a purely scientific one, it is relatively straightforward and easy to disprove (Mars was warming at the same time, with the earth and the solar cycle, despite having no Hummers, the earth has been getting cooler for the past decade, despite CO2 going up, the "warming" period coincides with ice ages, and the "evidence", namely the Mann "hockey stick" was the result of outright fraud).... yet the people who believe it believe it for ideological reasons, and actually reject science, making scientific discussions impossible. (Global warming is the left's creationism!) all you can get is insistence that all scientists believe in it (all christians believe in creationism, right? Actually they don't all believe in it, possibly a majority don't.) Or you can get pointers to scientific sounding blog posts that at the root end up being nonsense. The closest I've ever gotten to an actual scientific debate on global warming was with a physicist who, in the end, was reduced to insisting that man made carbon dioxide had different effects on the atmosphere than "naturally occurring" carbon dioxide. At that point I gave up- I can't argue with a belief like that. How many people do you think on Hacker News believe in Global Warming? How many of them have ever looked up the IR absorption of CO2? Or would listen to that point? How many people on Hacker News reject intellectual property out of hand? How many of them can derive, from first principles, an explanation for any private property ownership? I believe the former is the majority and the latter is a tiny fraction. Yet they "believe in private property" -- but only situationally. (EG: Ok to steal movies, but not cars, or money, unless you're the government, then its ok to steal money if you call it taxes. Is that not a reasonable characterization of "leftist" positions? Ok, then how can a leftist believe in the principle of private property if its sometimes ok to steal? By redefining the word "steal"?)