I currently live in Thailand. This country may be the most polite in the world. In some situations Thais will never give you honest feedback [1]. For instance,

I currently live in Thailand. This country may be the most polite in the world. In some situations Thais will never give you honest feedback [1]. For instance, they may give you compliments on how well you speak their language - regardless how well you actually speak it. Just to make you feel good. And (to some degree) they expect you to do the same. In this culture you never quite know what people really think. Hacker News is the opposite. You will get (mostly) constructive feedback from (mostly) smart people for free, that you could not get elsewhere if you were to pay money for it. Don't come here to stroke you ego. That said, if you get positive feedback you know it is for real and not just out of politeness. Sometimes however, people could package their criticism a little bit better or self-censor if it's not constructive. [1] I don't claim to understand Thai culture. In some cases I may be the extreme opposite. Where sometimes people say things to each other that would be considered outright insulting in the West to strangers.