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I think the voting mechanism is there to filter unnecessary items away. To me, societies and politics are as 'hackable' or at least approachable with an enginee

by fsloth 12y ago

I think the voting mechanism is there to filter unnecessary items away. To me, societies and politics are as 'hackable' or at least approachable with an engineering mindset as a e.g. a startup. They are a dynamic process in a physical world that are mostly guided by not-yet-mathematically-modeled rules and forces. As it is a turbulent system it's quite difficult to separate the wheat from chaff. I would claim there is a spectrum from 'populist troll of the month' to a historical event identified and remembered years onwards. I would claim, while perhaps not world shattering, the dynamics of this event will affect politics and will be remembered for at least for a while in a fairly significant region of thr world (unlike e.g. a council election in some local school would be).

davidw 12y ago
You can have politics, or you can have a good site for startup discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 You can't have both, as you'll start to get people like this, who will drive out the tech/science/startup stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601779
- fsloth 12y ago
  I see your point... so no discussion on political events before they can be safely approached from the point of view of cool headed historical academic analysis?
  - dang 12y ago
    The community is a single complex system; bad effects aren't localized. Fractiousness trains us all to drop civility and reflection, even on other topics. I think the Broken Windows Theory applies here. Flamewars blast all the windows. It's tempting to think that we could brawl on controversies and then switch back to politely discussing unikernels, sort of like how rugby teams go out together after bashing each other on the pitch. But after years of experience we know that that is beyond the capacity of this forum—probably because the social bonds here are weak. Failing to take that into account, because we want to have it all, would damage what we do have on HN.
  - davidw 12y ago
    My favorite things to see that are not startups/tech are in-depth articles about little-known aspects of something. Articles where I learn a lot about some subject I previously knew little about, where the author is really sharing information instead of trying to convince us of something or another, or sharing their outrage over whatever (the world is full of horrible, outrageous events). A random one that comes to mind as a fascinating story is this one, although the English article does not really do it justice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini

by fsloth 12y ago

davidw 12y ago

You can have politics, or you can have a good site for startup discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 You can't have both, as you'll start to get people like this, who will drive out the tech/science/startup stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601779

fsloth 12y ago
I see your point... so no discussion on political events before they can be safely approached from the point of view of cool headed historical academic analysis?
- dang 12y ago
  The community is a single complex system; bad effects aren't localized. Fractiousness trains us all to drop civility and reflection, even on other topics. I think the Broken Windows Theory applies here. Flamewars blast all the windows. It's tempting to think that we could brawl on controversies and then switch back to politely discussing unikernels, sort of like how rugby teams go out together after bashing each other on the pitch. But after years of experience we know that that is beyond the capacity of this forum—probably because the social bonds here are weak. Failing to take that into account, because we want to have it all, would damage what we do have on HN.
- davidw 12y ago
  My favorite things to see that are not startups/tech are in-depth articles about little-known aspects of something. Articles where I learn a lot about some subject I previously knew little about, where the author is really sharing information instead of trying to convince us of something or another, or sharing their outrage over whatever (the world is full of horrible, outrageous events). A random one that comes to mind as a fascinating story is this one, although the English article does not really do it justice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Querini