
Ask HN: How can we take the politics back out of HN? - phyller
Lately more and more discussions have devolved into ideological flamewars based on political opinions and rumors. This thread is a perfect example: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17488716<p>Someone casually mentions something inflammatory which &quot;everyone knows is true&quot;, of course someone else needs to correct them, and then those of the original opinion need to correct them.<p>I&#x27;ve been guilty of this too, and lately have been deleting comments before I post them upon reflection. What am I gaining by trying to &quot;fix&quot; this person&#x27;s worlds view?<p>Can&#x27;t we all just be nerds talking about cool tech again?
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existencebox
I've said it before and I'll said it again, I don't think one can decouple a
professional community and politics. (or more appropriately, I don't think one
SHOULD.)

Politics is the framework under which we go about our work. I'd say "cool
tech" is rather reductionist for what YC encompasses, even the earliest
discussions on this site were about fundraising, startup ecosystem growth,
economic climate, of course cool tech is a part but just one facet. We were
never "just nerds talking about tech", I'd argue we are something far more
fascinating than that, in a similar way to how an emergent community of e.g.
entrepreneurial accountants or farmers might be fascinating if it started to
become a natural center of discussion and focus for a wider audience.

To try and ignore politics insofar as we have a hand in it (and especially
given the current zeitgeist we absolutely do) is to abscond from our
responsibility to try and guide policy in a better direction, to discuss
topics as a community so that we _don't_ devolve into ideology driven filter
bubbles or surrender these decisions to be made by a perhaps less benevolent
group. I aspire to that we can hold this higher example and try to be a good
force in spreading positive debate.

I'm always nervous to say "not talking about politics is how we got here"
(although with such low voter participation rates that MAY be a somewhat fair
statement) but not talking about politics at _this_ point seems like pushing
the giant elephant in the room under the rug.

~~~
mindcrime
Not talking about politics _here_ isn't the same thing as saying that this
community should not talk politics. I don't think anybody on HN wants to sweep
anything under the rug, or ignore any elephants in the room. But I also don't
think anybody wants to spend all day dealing with doom and gloom and arguing
about inane partisan bullshit. It would be nice to have some place as a refuge
from that crap, where we can talk about "cool tech" and _not_ have to deal
with all the other stuff in that moment.

~~~
existencebox
A few responses to that.

1\. I'd echo from my first point, HN _never_ behaved as a "Refuge" the way you
describe. If you're saying you'd like to see it changed to function as such, I
can simply disagree on a precedent of "that's not how it got to be the HN we
know and love", but this will likely end up being a subjective disagreement.
Politics may have become _more_ central, but unfortunately I think we're going
through a period where that's true in many aspects of life.

2\. In that same vein, HN has become something of a town-square for things
tech. The "you can discuss it, just not here" is like when people say "well
you can find things on the internet, google will just block them." Sure,
that's factually true, but if it in effect cuts 95% of people out of ever
seeing that subject matter, are you still really allowing discussion?

3\. I fear that by not talking about it the "insane partisan bullshit" will
become more normalized, because the adult voices in the room have stepped out.
It's for us to make sure that the discussions don't become "Crap."

4\. re: doom and gloom, unfortunately, "we have to sleep in the bed we made."
If the broader world seems to be doom and gloom, I'm of the opinion that
should be faced down without flinching. I'm not one to try and sugarcoat,
fundamentally, that's just my personality, and again, one can philosophically
go about life differently, but the way I look at things, an "only positive
aspects of cool tech" discussion board would be disingenuous to the true scope
of our impact, and lacking in much of the subtlety and interesting depth of
discussion that made HN so compelling to me over the last 5-10 years.

~~~
mindcrime
_I 'd echo from my first point, HN _never_ behaved as a "Refuge" the way you
describe._

Speaking as someone who has been here from every nearly the beginning, my
perception is that it was much closer to that in the past (compared to today).

 _I 'm not one to try and sugarcoat,_

I'm not talking about sugar-coating anything. I'm saying that (pretty much) no
one wants to be immersed in that stuff _all the time_. And in years past, HN
seemed to be a site where one could mostly focus on tech/business stuff,
without so much of the political baggage. I'd like to see that again. I find
that I can get enough political discussion on Facebook / Twitter / meatspace.
But, "different strokes for different folks" I guess. The site will ultimately
be what the community makes it.

~~~
existencebox
_my perception is that it was much closer to that in the past_

(EDIT: On a second read of our discussion, we may even be just talking about
slightly unrelated things, in that you're unhappy there's more politics
period, and I'm trying to justify that by saying "it's the same subject
matter, politics is just necessarily more a component". One could justifiably
not care about that distinction; it just strikes me as meaningful)

I don't think you're wrong persay, and while I've only been here over the last
6-7 years I've read the first hundred posts thousands of times due to HN being
my defacto "social scraping test", and with a sampling of the first 10
stories, I'd stand by my assertion that unfortunately politics has been taking
a heavier hand in things that previously may have seemed uncorrupted.

to give some concrete examples (from the first 10 posts):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4)
(Real estate costs in NY, still a common topic, but nimbyism/zoning is a
central focus, largely political)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5)
(Big-co aquisitions, now when discussed come alongside concerns re:
consolidation, antitrust, etc)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6)
(Forecasting software; while not specifically based off of private data, the
discussion nowadays would likely pivot to that due to topical relevence)

tl;dr, I don't necessarily agree with how much you may be implying the content
has shifted, I just think politics plays a much stronger role in said content,
or in our awareness of it, but again, this is perceptual and I'm not going to
tell you "you're wrong" in having been there yourself.

 _The site will ultimately be what the community makes it._

Yup, and I try to limit my corrosion of this to trying to sway opinion softly.
This all comes down to, for me, being more scared about LACK of
attention/action, than if some threads go sideways.

~~~
mindcrime
_tl;dr, I don 't necessarily agree with how much you may be implying the
content has shifted, I just think politics plays a much stronger role in said
content, or in our awareness of it, but again, this is perceptual and I'm not
going to tell you "you're wrong" in having been there yourself._

Sure, and likewise I can't say that you're "wrong". It is somewhat subjective.
In that sense, it's possible for us to both be "right" at the same time.

Anyway, it's not - to me - a huge deal. There's a sort of change that I would
like to see (I think), but I'm not so unhappy with the current state that I'm
going to quit posting or anything. I mean, I'm here now, and in the end I'm
pragmatic even when being so is a thorn in my own side. :-)

~~~
existencebox
Aptly, and to me more indicative of _actual_ change (and somewhat sadder) than
the politics about "now HN" is the fact that both of us have been greyed for
what was, I think, a very reasonable discussion. (the fact that it's both
gives me a chuckle while being slightly fascinating) The flagging/downvoting
communities seem to have taken on a very reddit feel as opposed to what I
rose-tintedly remember.

------
ddorian43
I kinda like politics here. Current amount/level, not zero and not more. I
don't know.

------
mindcrime
_Can 't we all just be nerds talking about cool tech again?_

That would be amazing, and I hope it happens. Even though I'm guilty of
getting into ideological debates as well. I always feel dirty afterwards, even
when I believe I'm right. I really would prefer to keep HN focused on tech /
business, and keep the politics out as much as possible.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
Tech and especially business _are_ politics. Or at least so tightly coupled
it's infantile to pretend like they exist in a vacuum.

~~~
mindcrime
_Tech and especially business are politics._

In a pedantic sense, sure. You can always play reductionist games like that.
"Everything is just atoms", right?

If you actually can't see that there's a difference between "geeks talking
about cool tech" and the kind of ideologically driven political bickering that
goes on here, I really don't know what to say. And anything I could say would
be uncharitable, so I'll just stop here.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
Like everyone else in this thread, I'm of the belief you don't come to the
conclusion that tech is 'cool' without some ideological underpinning. And, in
an open forum those underpinnings will be debated.

I suspect, that by "political bickering" you really mean "ideologies I don't
agree with" (much like most people clamoring for a past civility that never
existed). If you want an echo chamber, plenty of sites are around from that;
they'll welcome you.

~~~
mindcrime
_Like everyone else in this thread, I 'm of the belief you don't come to the
conclusion that tech is 'cool' without some ideological underpinning._

I'm pretty sure not everybody here believes that.

 _I suspect, that by "political bickering" you really mean "ideologies I don't
agree with"_

Your suspicion is incorrect.

 _If you want an echo chamber,_

Who said anything about wanting an echo chamber?

~~~
repolfx
Well, "cool" tech is very subjective and often based in some sort of tech
ideology. Is Golang "cool"? I don't think so, but a lot of people do.

HN is flooded with posts like "Show HN: I made a web server in
Go/Rust/Erlang". Clap clap, good for you. I find these articles quite
worthless but leave them alone because hey, it's not like disk space on HN
servers is a particularly limited resource. If some people want to talk about
someone else's web server or yet-another-js-framework, that's no problem by
me.

However, much of this sort of cheerleading is motivated by what can only be
called ideology. For example, "Java is uncool and Oracle is bad" \+ "Rust is
elite and Mozilla is cool" is a very common sort of opinion on Hacker News but
this is really nothing to do with the technologies themselves. It's more based
on a feeling that overtly wanting to make lots of money by owning IP is dirty
and immoral, whereas giving it away for free and claiming you're motivated by
an inherent love of openess and webbyness is pure and moral. This is really
just politics in disguise.

------
ddingus
Everything is political.

The current level is very good. Yes, there are some ideological clashes.
Easily ignored.

What I see here is a fairly significant number of us see ideologies as
reasoning tools, not means to better ends.

Secondly, the call for means and to those better ends are well represented.

More please. And I mean let it continue, not so much escalate.

At present, cool tech is no where near under threat. It is nice to get a look
at politics here. That look is fairly unique. High value, so long as it does
not break things.

I consistently read with great interest. Rarely comment. When I do, it is due
to some take on the politics I find notable or resonant.

Also, I should mention ethics. That has come up here many times. Almost always
good to read.

~~~
monetus

         And I mean let it continue, not so much escalate.
    

With the moderation encouraging such thoughtfulness, I agree.

There may eventually be a point where the frustrations of seeing political
inanities triggers a chilling effect on new insightful submissions/comments,
but I'd be surprised if we are there yet.

~~~
ddingus
Let us hope. There's a lot of people here with very interesting takes on
politics.

