

In which the author's faith in humanity is restored by Hacker News - goodside
http://goodside.posterous.com/post-the-first-in-which-the-authors-faith-in

======
SlyShy
You could look at it another way and derive an opposite conclusion. A lot of
people have a feeling that what they do on Hacker News "matters" in that other
people are watching their behavior, and might choose to hire them or co-found
with them on the basis of their participation. So a self-interested individual
would check their behavior here, instead of indulging.

~~~
brandnewlow
Hacker News "works" because it's all a big job interview. The job in question
is being someone PG thinks is cool. That's the glue that holds this community
together and keeps people in line.

~~~
plinkplonk
"Hacker News "works" because it's all a big job interview. The job in question
is being someone PG thinks is cool. "

I have to confess I find this a very strange way of thinking. I respect PG
immensely, but I don't care if he thinks I am not "cool" and I am fairly sure
he doesn't anyway. And that's perfectly fine -- _I_ don't think I am cool why
should he?

Do you really believe that most people here are trying to get PG's stamp of
approval somehow? I suspect not.

~~~
dfranke
What brandnewlow describes was definitely and obviously true in the very-early
days of HN (then Startup News), like from its public opening in Feb '07 until
the next couple funding cycle deadlines. At that time the readership consisted
very heavily of YC-hopefuls, and the site was low-volume enough that any given
comment had a very good chance of being read by PG. But HN has grown a lot
since then, I get much less impression that this dynamic still holds.

------
marknutter
/circlejerk (it begins....)

~~~
goodside
Alternative headline: "Hacker News on Hacker News: Hacker News is great!"

Yes, it occurred to me that this might get voted up for the wrong reasons.
And, yes, that's probably what's happening now, and I dutifully feel like a
karma whore. I thought about it overnight, and that didn't feel like a good
reason to censor myself in general. If you disagree, perhaps downvote here as
a counterbalance.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Many anthropologists believe great cultures begin to fail when they forget
what made them great in the first place. It might be a little far-fetched to
call hacker news a culture in and of itself but there is no doubt the site has
its own specific personality. By the same rule I don't see the harm in you
pointing out what makes the site's personality appealing. In fact I think it
does a service and that it reminds us all what makes the site great in the
first place.

------
ErrantX
This doesn't happen as often as it used to. So good to see it now and again
:-)

------
jodrellblank
What I like about that mentioned Times article is nothing about religion,
atheism or another child abuse related news item, but as an example of the way
rich and famous people have the power to do things that ordinary people
cannot, but currently rarely do so outside certain 'approved' ways.

It's much more interesting to me to see two people consider doing something
unusual like that, than do something more ordinary like fund a school library
or join a museum board, or do something like buy a sportscar.

Whether they can or cannot do it, or if it's right or wrong to do so, that
they thought "we have a problem with this ex-head of state and world spanning
organisation and we don't need to wait for another head of state to act, we
might be able to do something about it ourselves" stands out to me.

Does that sort of thing happen a lot, or is it a fairly modern development? I
can't think of many other examples.

Edit: May not quite apply - update:
[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/you_cant_trust_a_...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/you_cant_trust_a_murdoch_paper.php)

------
TheAmazingIdiot
I see gleams of humanity every so often. Cases like this also show decency and
civility even in the face of semi-anonymity.

However, just go ahead and go to walmart for an hour to see what the average
person is. We're the outliers and exemplars of thought... And there is plenty
of ways to go down.

I just hope easy access to knowledge makes everyone smarter.

~~~
davidw
> We're the outliers and exemplars of thought

I don't really think so; one of the reasons I often speak out against articles
like that appearing here is that most of us are perfectly capable of getting
into nasty arguments on the internet. Perhaps more so than average people who
might just walk away rather than getting upset that "someone is wrong on the
internet!".

~~~
jeromec
>most of us are perfectly capable of getting into nasty arguments on the
internet. Perhaps more so than average people

I agree, and I think that's what TheAmazingIdiot means by outliers. The
intelligent thinkers that frequent HN have such a command and understanding of
some topics that they would feel compelled to provide, er, 'helpful input',
but not when the consequences of doing so might be more destructive than
constructive. I may be wrong, but I think such people are outliers.

