
Tell HN: SV Doublethink - dosy
Yesterday I posted an Ask HN, `Why does SV hate Trump?`, and a post, `Tech censorship: Instagram censors pro-Trump cartoonist Ben Garrison.` They were both flagged and removed.<p>Here&#x27;s the first comment I got on my Ask HN:<p>&gt; You would do a better job writing a less charged version of this question; I would happily articulate a reasonable response.
For example, remove &quot;delicate sensibilities&quot; and &quot;triggers the bejesus&quot;, then maybe we can have a reasonable discussion. Otherwise you&#x27;re being insulting.<p>Taking as a starting point a response to that comment, I take the chance to expand upon some ideas about this.<p>So you want to make the discussion start form a more balanced viewpoint by removing insulting terms?<p>Sounds fair.<p>But at what point does avoiding charged terms, become avoiding the issues? At what point does that become political censorship and then shift over into imposing one ideological perspective on everybody?<p>If you&#x27;re an individual, it probably doesn&#x27;t matter. If you&#x27;re a corporation, it probably does. If founders are imposing their politics on their business operations isn&#x27;t that piercing the corporate veil, as it blurs the line between their characters? But more importantly, when a few SV companies control a lot of global social media, how is them imposing a political perspective ok?<p>If I were in their place, I would do the same thing. Don&#x27;t get me wrong. I have a politics, and I would censor and suppress those who I disliked or disagreed with. But the difference is, I would own it. I wouldn&#x27;t do it in secret and pretend I was this &quot;tolerance loving&quot; &quot;progressive&quot;. I&#x27;d explain my reasons for it, and how shaping the narrative was a good thing.<p>[continued]
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tomhoward
HN's clearly stated and often-reiterated purpose is for content/discussion
that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" [1][2].

There are some politics topics that could be gratifying of intellectual
curiosity in theory, but are not in practice because people with the strongest
reactions/staunchest positions on either side of the topic will dominate the
discussion.

In other cases, such topics are introduced when people have an axe to grind,
so they bring a heavily partisan or charged-up tone to the topic, and thus an
intellectually gratifying discussion of the topic never has a chance to get
started.

There are plenty of other places on the internet for people who want to have
impassioned debates about the political outrage du jour.

HN is still a place where interesting discussions can be had about some
controversial topics, particularly when they're about new emerging phenomena.

But it's never going to solve the biggest problems of the world, or settle the
most vexed arguments in the daily news cycle or the U.S. presidential cycle.

HN is just designed for different things, and it works well by keeping it that
way.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[2]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gratifies%20intellectual%20cur...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gratifies%20intellectual%20curiosity&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

~~~
dosy
I guess the problem is I see hacker news as the tech community and this tech
community now has a lot of social power that maybe they're not used to, not
aware of and don't really understand. so I don't think it's good enough
anymore to be such a culture shaping community through technology but to, in
one of the biggest forums, say what we just can't discuss this stuff we can't
handle the discussions.

I think you need to know how to handle the discussions. I think you have a
responsibility to because your actions like it or not are shaping the culture
and that has significant effects beyond yourselves so you're going to have to
adapt your communities and you communication abilities to enlarged with that.

otherwise it's like trying to apply the BBS ethos of the 80s to the present,
after software already ate the world. I don't think the tech community gets to
take the benefits of that power without also shouldering the responsibility so
you're going to have to start having these border discussions that are often
by definition highly charged. they're going to have to start learning how to
do that and to engage with differing viewpoints. instead of pushing away the
blame for avoiding that on to something other than themselves. maybe hacker
new can't evolve but something else needs to.

it's not enough for companies to have these discussions internally in private
they need to do it in the full light of day. also finally it's a bit
disingenuous for you to say that while we can't solve the world's biggest
problems well silicon valley's often reiterated motto is well that's exactly
what we're trying to do.

~~~
tomhoward
> we can't solve the world's biggest problems

I'm sure there are people who frequent HN who are capable of contributing to
efforts to solve the world's biggest problems.

But they are unlikely to be the same people who want to obsess over the the
biggest drama of the last 24 hours in the mainstream news cycle, or to bicker
over the latest circus act relating to the U.S. presidency.

It might pay to think about the most significant
inventors/leaders/humanitarians in history, and try and imagine how they would
spend their days in the current era.

If they were spending any of it on HN, would it have been posting flame-bait
over U.S. political drama, or would it rather have been spent trying to have
more thoughtful discussions, seeking to understand the world at a deeper
level?

This is really what it comes down to for me.

I personally do want to help solve some of the world's biggest problems, to
whatever extent that a modestly capable person as myself can do so.

I've been on HN for a long time, and have paid attention to public/global
affairs for a long time, and I've come to learn quite a bit about the kinds of
discussion topics that move me closer to being able to have an impact on the
important problems in the world.

~~~
dosy
You make good points, and I don't immediately see there's a conflict between
our positions. But I do think you fail to realize, or just ignore, the
validity of the points I make. And I think that deliberate evasion of tricky
to acknowledge points is the problem. I acknowledge both our approaches are
required, but I'm seeing you only acknowledge your way. Troubling for you
perhaps but not for me.

Your cyclops perspective is emblematic of SV doublethink: it wants to save the
world, but not introspect its own methods. It's become a cult, immune to
learning from the outside.

Everything you do comes from the idea you have. If you've only debated those
ideas in private, with your self, or only dared dive into public forums on
easy topics, then you don't know enough about your own triggers and biases,
and frankly, your arguments, to have good ideas.

This is what troubles me about SV's closed atmosphere of discussion.

The tactic deployed, by you and others, is dismissal, redirection, judo-like
re-channeling of the topic into more abstract, less threatening terms. It's
face saving and I appreciate that. It feels good. But I'm not going for feels
good here. I'm going for "where's the weakness in what I'm saying", or
"where's the weakness in the zeitgeist".

So while you're busy dismissing these issues, I'm just trying to understand
myself and the issues better, because I believe that, when I actually do make
choices that matter for others, I will have thought things through in a robust
way, rather than just closing off my thinking because the topic is too
triggering, and then hoping for the best.

So the things you want to minimize as "outrage du jour" or the latest spike in
a ad-driven news cycle, are not in fact that. That they may be triggering
outrages does not bound their importance. It is important to ask why. Tech's
encroaching censorship and political bias is well-established, if unpopular,
particularly in vain SV. (For the record, I am biased, I much prefer LA as a
city).

If you forbid even the discussion of these facts, you curtail discussion that
leads to adjudication of the second order consequences. Not thinking ahead, or
actively forbidding it, is dangerous, particularly in a "democracy" where
informed populations are supposed to exist and be responsible.

You also frame this an issue too big to take on, but that's disingenuous too,
I fear. How a handful of paper billionaires are pretending to be liberals
while actually creating a cryptofascist surveillance and censorship apparatus
that mirrors, not the will, nor free the freedom, nor the benefit of the
people, but their own fragilities and biases, is hardly the biggest dish on
the table, and it's hopefully one we can start nibbling away at.

Anyway, I agree that I may be having more impact were I running an impactful
technology business that was saving the world. Right now, I'm just feeling and
thinking my way through that world, before I start trying to save it.

I guess that's one difference between us, I can afford to spend time on this,
but you're too busy saving the world. I can stop and think and debate and take
the risk to make a fool of myself, but you're too busy emulating the great
ones to roll the dice on something so unglamorous as working out how you feel
about something, except when replying to me, of course, which greatly flatters
me, thanks for descending into the mess of the everyday to grant me the great
honor of your rarefied attention.

I suppose I'm in the enviable position of having the great freedom to be
unburdened by emulating the great ones from before, I can just focus on being
me.

~~~
tomhoward
I do intend to reply to this but there's a lot to reply to and it's late at
night on a holiday weekend where I live (in Australia). So please check back
again in the next 1-2 days.

FWIW, you've made quite a few assumptions about me and what I
believe/defend/represent. Though maybe by "you", you don't mean me personally
but what you think I represent - though like I said, I think you're way off
the mark on that.

There are also quite a few sneers/snarks mixed in there, again, based on wrong
assumptions about who I am and what I represent. Perhaps re-read your answer
and make an effort to withdraw those if you're committed to good-faith
discussion.

You also seem to vastly overestimate how much of the audience here is
U.S.-based (and thus, how much U.S. politics should dominate the discussion),
and how many of HN’s active participants are part of Silicon Valley’s elite.
If you toned down those assumptions to a more realistic level, your comments
above might turn out quite different.

For what it's worth I think you're well intentioned and I think we probably
agree on a lot more than you realise, but I think you're going about things
the wrong way - that is, in a way that's damaging to your own cause.

------
Phithagoras
Avoiding charged terms doesn't have to mean avoiding the discussion. If you're
trying to teach a 3 year old about their body you'll probably be using the
anatomically correct words rather than the filthiest slang that exists in your
area.

Addition: Imposing a political agenda online is fine (ish) as long as people
don't have any illusions otherwise. HN exists "to gratify one's intellectual
curiosity" and unfortunately most discussions about this sort of thing aren't
very popular or have a tendency to flamewar.

------
dosy
[continued]

What I don't like is seeing these so-called liberals (actually fake leftists)
in SV, pretending they're so morally grande, and then acting like fascists,
with forbidden speech, forbidden thoughts and even their own little band of
foot-soldier thugs (antifa). You don't get to cash in twice. They don't get
the "moral righteousness" protection of pretending you're good and associated
with classical liberalism when you act like this. You don't get to hide it.

And to make it more concrete, it's not just big companies doing it at an
abstract level, it's a hubris that leaked in everywhere. I'm not against the
censorship and narrative shaping, I'm against the deceptiveness, the "this is
about tolerance and inclusiveness" when it's clearly not. At that point,
they've become hilarious caricatures of themselves projected in an firmware-
updated Orwell's 1984 futurescape.

Case in point, the other day I posted some very tech and hacker related news,
how instagram censored pro-Trump cartoonist Ben Garrison. And the organic
interest from HN was strong, it was upvoted and got to the front page. And
then, the tolerant liberal overlords, acting to protect their delicate
sensibilities or narratives, flagged it and it was gone. That's not a fair and
balanced discussion. Pretending it is, is doublethink. SV doublethink.

That the biggest tech forum, in the biggest tech city in the "freest country"
in the world, can not even talk about their country's President and
acknowledge and own how their own tech giants are censoring narratives that
support him, reveals the problem.

Maybe in the privileged and rarefied world of SV tech elites and their legions
of privileged slaves this is an abstract problem. But these companies and the
fascist-fake-leftist attitudes of their people are powerful.

I think people need to see the situation clearly, and ask, what does this mean
for the world? What are the second order effects of this doublethink about
SV's goodness progressiveness and tolerance?

~~~
drdeca
> That the biggest tech forum, in the biggest tech city in the "freest
> country" in the world, can not even talk about their country's President and
> [...]

Not everything has to be about politics.

Also, this point doesn’t seem especially coherent to me. A country is
generally considered tyrannical if one cannot criticize its leaders, not the
other way around.

Also, you don’t have to use the word “doublethink” when you just mean
hypocrisy. It doesn’t help your point any.

Also, tl;dr.

(For context, I generally considered myself to be somewhat right wing.

Though I’ve never actually voted yet. Haven’t had many opportunities, and
didn’t feel great about any of the candidates.)

