
Show HN: Ancap News, a Chrome/FF extension to bring out HN's true colors - cemerick
https://github.com/cemerick/ancap-news
======
mindcrime
_The general zeitgeist of Y Combinator 's Hacker News forum site (at least to
many of its detractors) is one of nonspecific libertarian laissez-faire
capitalism,_

Meh. That doesn't jibe with my experience at all. I'd say the general
zeitgeist here is the exact opposite of libertarian laissez-faire capitalism.
It strikes me as closer to "European style social democracy mixed with
American progressivism and general scorn towards any notion of individual
merit".

Maybe 10 years ago there was a libertarian zeitgeist here, but I sure haven't
seen it for quite a long time. Or maybe I'm just clicking through on the wrong
stories.

------
friedman23
This is so stupid, are you just blind to the threads that get upvoted where
the top comment is always someone calling for some industry to be nationalized
or some form of trust busting to take place?

Nevermind the massive amounts of communism and socialism apologism, the
massive amounts of people that believe the government should institute massive
welfare programs for the "impending" robopocalypse, and the tons of threads
about how amazing the Seattle $15 minimum wage is. All of this definitely
sounds like anarcho capitalism to me.

edit: also I'm not an ancap and Milton Friedman is not an ancap before you
comment on my username.

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dabber
Not sure if it's because I've recently accumulated enough karma but I have a
"topcolor" field in my settings page where I can pop in a hex code and change
the banner color. Mine has been #C0ffee ever since that "hex codes that make
words" articles was on the front page here.

So an extension seems like overkill. But I get it's about the statement so,
whatever floats your boat I guess.

~~~
cemerick
It all started with people on twitter referring to HN as "the orange website",
usually along with a screenshot of a particularly abhorrent yet not uncommon
comment. Thus the "true colors" pun.

But you're right that it's fundamentally about having an artifact. Many people
are mad about "startup culture" and how it's affected the places we work and
the things we love to do, and HN is a big part of how that culture is
reproduced. That very real-world effect IMO makes "exit" insufficient; just
black-holing the domain or whatever solves nothing.

------
carsongross
The average politically-flavored HN comment (not to say user, who can say?) is
not ancap. It is not even libertarian.

It is liberal/globalist consensus: extremely liberal on social issues,
globalist on economics.

~~~
KirinDave
Okay but to be fair there was an article yesterday about taking the blood of
the young to revitalize the old that looked pretty amazing in a yellow/black
color scheme.

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petraeus
In your blind attempt to stereo-type the HN community, you've missed the
obvious answer, there are many many sub-groups ranging from anarchists to full
on communists.

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rf15
You should make the Y logo black and yellow too.

~~~
cemerick
The logo's an image; messing with it exceeded the threshold of work I wanted
to put into it. :-)

I'm actually not sure how the logo could be made yellow and black without
distracting from the signature stark yellow/black diagonal to the right...

~~~
bauerd

      filter: hue-rotate(30deg) brightness(2);

~~~
cemerick
Well, yes, though then the logo basically disappears.

~~~
KirinDave
Into the beauty that is the ancap color scheme. It's poetic isn't it?

------
LyndsySimon
As an ancap... yeah, no. HN is far from it.

------
adrianN
Why do you need an extension for this? Couldn't you achieve the same with a
user style sheet?

~~~
KirinDave
Extensions are easier to package and distribute for most users.

------
Danihan
>The general zeitgeist of Y Combinator's Hacker News forum site (at least to
many of its detractors) is one of nonspecific libertarian laissez-faire
capitalism

Hardly, not anytime recently anyway. Dang will straight up ban you for being
ancap on here.

~~~
KirinDave
Nonsense. Dan will do a lot of things, but he almost never straight up bans
people who participate in good faith.

~~~
Danihan
Keep telling yourself that.

I didn't even have to go back 24 hours to find an example..

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755236)

He simply calls anything politically right-of-center an "ideological flamewar"
and removes / bans as he sees fit.

Another easy example. He's so hypersensitive to any perceived "nationalism" he
sees it everywhere.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14535633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14535633)

~~~
kazinator
The user in question created a throwaway account to make the posting. That can
only be because that person anticipated a flame war, and therefore armed
against it with a "heat shield" that would absorb the downvotes.

Possibly, their main account has enough points to downvote others, so they can
use the throaway account to bait replies and then downvote the replies using
their regular account (something you can't do to your own replies).

Sock-puppet accounts should be identified and banned; and threatening repeat
offenders with a main ban is part of the game.

~~~
Danihan
Perhaps the user simply didn't want right-leaning statements posted on his
primary account, as so many people are obviously and openly bigoted against
conservatives in Silicon Valley.

Trust me, if you debate against socialism / large government on here, a mod
WILL show up and accuse you (but not whomever you are arguing with, the user
who endlessly supports larger government is immune) of flame-baiting / being
inflammatory / trolling / being nationalistic / etc.

~~~
KirinDave
This depends very much on your definition of "right-wing."

My experience is that folks who told me I deserve to have my kids taken away
from me for being genderqueer didn't get banned, so YMMV.

But also: throwaway accounts with the word throwaway? No one should feel bad
when they're banned. No one should feel bad for banning them. That is the
actual social contract of throwaway accounts, and they're tolerated insomuch
as people just use userscripts to mute them out most of the time.

~~~
Danihan
Again, you seem to constantly be projecting your opinions as being the
opinions of everyone.

>That is the actual social contract of throwaway accounts, and they're
tolerated insomuch as people just use userscripts to mute them out most of the
time.

I love reading comments from throwaway accounts because I feel like you're
getting a genuine opinion that someone is too afraid to share on their main
account. And those opinions are the most interesting to me.

>No one should feel bad when they're banned.

I bet this sort of casual dismissiveness wouldn't fly with you if the authors
were anonymous genderqueers.

~~~
kazinator
> _I love reading comments from throwaway accounts because I feel like you 're
> getting a genuine opinion that someone is too afraid to share on their main
> account. And those opinions are the most interesting to me._

Yet, you are here rather than on Usenet or 4Chan or whatever.

