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> Perspective, please. I believe you seriously overstate the impact of having a popular post on an internet discussion board. Really? Well, first, tens of thou

by cryptoz 14y ago

> Perspective, please. I believe you seriously overstate the impact of having a popular post on an internet discussion board. Really? Well, first, tens of thousands of people clicked on Obama's link and filled out the voting information on Election day. Sure, that's an extreme and rare example, but a popular link can influence democracy. More realistically, though: my life has been dramatically altered and formed by comments I've read on reddit. I learned python and lisp because of reddit, studied algorithms more intently, learned enormous amounts about politics and world news. There have been countless comments that have fundamentally altered the way I think about math and science, about morals and life. I can't imagine how much I would have missed in life without a place like the reddit comments. Sure I would have picked up some of that stuff elsewhere, but it happened for me on reddit. I think you are underestimating the impact of reddit comments. > Step 1....Step 2.... I enjoy reddit by doing quite the opposite of your suggestions, so that's really a personal preference. I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal, while I'm off participating in a thread about pythonisms.

Karunamon 14y ago
That's just it, you're conflating the discussion software or the domain name with the communities using it. >I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal There are hundreds or thousands of communities out there where people are crapping on science, yet here you are on Hacker News. About the only thing two unrelated subreddits share is the first part of their domain name. They have different moderators, different users, a different focus. They are effectively completely different communities - the fact that you treat them as related in any way but tangentially is an illusion, nothing more.
w1ntermute 14y ago
> I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal, while I'm off participating in a thread about pythonisms. You could say the exact same thing about the internet. All the stupid things people are saying out on the internet doesn't seem to stop you from using it.

by cryptoz 14y ago

Karunamon 14y ago

That's just it, you're conflating the discussion software or the domain name with the communities using it. >I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal There are hundreds or thousands of communities out there where people are crapping on science, yet here you are on Hacker News. About the only thing two unrelated subreddits share is the first part of their domain name. They have different moderators, different users, a different focus. They are effectively completely different communities - the fact that you treat them as related in any way but tangentially is an illusion, nothing more.

w1ntermute 14y ago

> I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal, while I'm off participating in a thread about pythonisms. You could say the exact same thing about the internet. All the stupid things people are saying out on the internet doesn't seem to stop you from using it.