
What 4chan thinks of HN - spiznnx
http://rbt.asia/g/thread/S38087806
======
neya
Sadly, most of the things on there are true. We can try to deny it all we
want, but most of the stuff that's there is true. The power of anonymity is
that you get to voice honest opinions without tying it up with your identity
and/or feeling responsible for it. Of course, this can be argued otherwise
too, by citing some (bad) comments as example from that thread, but for the
most part, what you see there are honest comments.

Some of my favorites:

>Why [popular technology] is [unexpected opinion]

>Why I have decided to stop using [ Tried and true web dev environment] and
start using Meteor

>Why [obscure framework] is the next [industry standard framework].

>Ask HN: Why is nobody using [obscure niche technology from the 80s]?

>[Actually interesting topic] - 0 comments

>Can the NSA blow up your PC remotely?

>Why you shouldn't store your files locally, but in the cloud

>Why it's impossible to use PHP even though millions of people are doing great
things with it

>Some blog post about scalability... blog crashes after posting link to HN and
/r/programming

>Show /hn/: I ripped off an existing product and added Bootstrap to it

>Pay me $50 to teach you decades old vim features in screencast form

>Reasons Why A Basic Income Guarantee Might Just Be A Bad Idea

And this is the best:

>38090087

so the password is password?

~~~
sixothree
As someone who lives outside of sv, it seems like they're not describing a
site but a place. So while visits to HN can do worlds of good to my
intellectual curiosity, this post is a nice reminder that I don't actually
have to endure this disgusting mindset on a daily basis. Thankfully.

tldr; you people are awesomely sickening.

Oh yeah, and they forgot to add "How I quit my job and traveled the third
world on just a 'few dollars a day'"

~~~
d3gamer
cheeky bastards got some variants of it, though:

"How I quit my job and went into consulting" "How I quit consulting and went
into freelancing" "How I quit consulting and went into your mom's vagina" "How
I quit my consulting job for a month and learned to program and am now making
80k a year writing Ruby apps" "How I quit my contractor Ruby dev gig and
joined the Node.js behemoth (and why you should too)"

brilliant

------
nzmsv
How could they have left out the patronizing irrelevant [0] links [1] to
Wikipedia [2] in all the wannabe-academic [3] comments with references[4]?

(and yes, references must be 0-based [5])

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_resource_locator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_resource_locator)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia)

[4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation)

[5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-
based_numbering](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-based_numbering)

~~~
sillysaurus2
Parodies are usually funny because they're true. The citations in HN comments
are some of the most valuable contributions to the site.

This whole post is depressing. Far from lighthearted fun, these comments all
have an undercurrent of hostility ("wannabe-academic"). The mosaic formed by
these comments imply pg has harmed the world by creating HN. But that couldn't
be further from the truth.

Imagine where you'd be forced to go if HN didn't exist, for example.

~~~
praptak
Coming unprepared to 4chan and reading its take on _anything_ (including 4chan
itself) leads to the conclusion that it harms the world and its creators
should be ashamed of the fact they haven't committed suicide yet.

~~~
jlgreco
What a vile thing to say. Then again, this _is_ 4chan, so I shouldn't be
supri... _oh nope_. I switched back to the HN tab. This is praptak, pretending
to be high and mighty on HN, proving himself wrong in the same breath.

------
vezzy-fnord

      [231 points] Show /hn/: I ripped off an existing product  
      and added Bootstrap to it.
     
      "[some program/service] in Javascript" - 6075 comments
    
      Why [obscure framework] is the next [industry
      standard framework].
    
      Hacker, entrepreneur, genius, lifestyle blogger, CEO of
      Whoof! Pastebin for dog owners and pixel.io image-resizing
      service made entirely in Go.
    

Startup culture in a nutshell.

~~~
kyzyl
Haha, at risk of completely fitting the stereotype 4chan is setting out for
us:

*Silicon Valley startup culture.

It is very different in other places, really!

~~~
wfunction
*HN culture

~~~
sfrechtling
As an Australian, my viewpoint into Silicon Valley culture is through
HackerNews. What are the main differences then?

~~~
wfunction
Well, not everyone here is ripping off existing products and adding Bootstrap
to them. :) A few startups working on other things are...

[https://angel.co/boosted-boards](https://angel.co/boosted-boards)

[https://angel.co/counsyl](https://angel.co/counsyl)

[https://angel.co/crowdmed](https://angel.co/crowdmed)

------
pvnick

      203 votes - How I learned my 6 year old daughter how to 
      do high algorithm trading in Haskell
      
      1 hour later, 421 votes, Your children should be outside
      playing, not coding
    

That brought me to tears

------
loser777
I was on 4chan /g/ basically every moment where I had more than an hour's
worth of computer time from around 2010 to mid 2013. In those days as a PC
hardware enthusiast and someone who was just beginning to use GNU/Linux, I
felt I fit in with the culture fairly well. Of course, there was always
"shitposting," but I found the amount of garbage to be tolerable.

As I finished high school and started diving more deeply into GNU/Linux,
reading /g/ slowly became less and less enjoyable. At one point, I became so
jaded that I felt I understood rms's famous quote regarding /g/: "I tried to
look at that page but saw online inane comments." I guess I wasn't as much of
a fan of the battlestations, rms memes, desktops, and riced-out GNU/Linux
desktops as I previously was.

However, /g/'s influence on me will never be lost. Even after reading more and
more hacker news, I still prefer the anonymous style of posting. I say
GNU/Linux instead of Linux. (It may be a bit ironic that I learned about rms
through a forum where he is a meme that is usually portrayed negatively.) And,
to be be honest, I still kind of like battlestation threads (though I may read
more usesthis.com instead of /g/). I will also probably never buy any apple
products.

Thank you to whomever posted this on /g/, as it really opened my eyes as to
how large the intersection of these two communities really is. Perhaps I'll
drop by again sometime.

~~~
L4mppu
RMS isn't really portrayed negatively on /g/. Sure he is made fun of but there
is still large minority who agree with his philosophy.

------
icpmacdo
This one is my favourite

-"Things I've learned from coding for a month"

-"Ten ways to become a better programmer" \- by the guy who's been coding for a month

~~~
emilis_info
This. These kinds of posts always make me roll my eyes. Frequently they get
hundreds of upvotes.

Makes me wonder about the quality of submissions from the fields I understand
much less (sciences, humanities, politics, etc.).

~~~
marvin
Don't be silly - computer programmers are experts in every field due to Google
and Wikipedia, so certainly the science and humanities posts must be of top
quality.

------
mion
The jokes are so accurate I'd conjecture there's a huge intersection between
the two communities.

Huumm... Except the fact that, arguably, I don't normally conjecture outside
HN [1].

[1] I actually want to see what pg has got to essay about this. Just wait
until the Arcstar is ready...

 _Please hold your downvotes_ I kid, I kid. Most of this (rather funny)
criticism is geared towards SV culture in general, I guess, as HN is just a
reflection of that plus common nerd/hacker/engineer/smart-kid-outcast
behavior. Apart from the idiosyncrasies of large communities that HN is not
invulnerable to, I actually have found great content here. And yes, I'm a
white college kid in his early twenties with big ambitions, pg is my hero and
I don't feel like getting a job at IBM -- that doesn't mean I'm going to chase
a $1B exit with Instagram for Squirrels+social+toilets alongside my other rich
friends, replacing cancer research with tweets and fucking up the economy
while at it. I'm broke and from another country like many people here, and
despite the stupid media frenzy, snarky HN comments, bubble or not and so on,
I still want to be part of all this. Why? Because I'm young, stupid and want
to see what it's like.

I guess this is what the world's greatest engine of innovation looks like: a
bunch of young and stupid nerds from another country.

------
GhotiFish
4chan's commenting system is simultaneously more annoying, and more enjoyable
to use. The backtrack style lets you follow conversations, but it doesn't
become a nested nightmare. Backtracks also highlight comments of importance or
significance.

the Reddit/HN system is hunting the most valuable comments through democracy,
but it throws that work out because of its visible tree structure. People can
ride the top post.

Also the auto updates are nice to stay current on an active conversation.

Gotta give it to 4chan, nice system. Shame about the captcha.

~~~
moot
I loathe nested comments and vastly prefer inline quote previews and
backlinks.

Then again, I'm biased.

~~~
hn_has_piqued
>Then again, I'm biased.

That's an understatement.

But seriously, I agree with everything you stand for in regards to how
internet discussion should work. Flat discussion is vastly superior, even when
weighing the negatives

~~~
krapp
The only time i've ever seen threading really work well is when it only
includes the headers, like with email or newsreader clients, and there's a
separate frame altogether for the text (which makes it in essence follow a
flat style.)

But threading the text as well just makes long discussions difficult to follow
and unreadable as the margin starts to get cramped.

Which on HN is apparently part of the reason they do it the way they do.

------
daliwali
I love how anonymity engenders such honest commentary. When people aren't tied
down to their reputation/ego, they are free to say what they really think.

~~~
AlexMax
Is it really honest? Anonymous discussion tends to bring out the bigots -
there's even some of it in the linked thread - but is it their genuine
opinion, or could it be that it's just bored teenagers trying to rile someone
up for a laugh?

~~~
babby
You bring up an interesting point to discuss.

I see this kind of "shock" throughout the techy mainstreamy politcally correct
communities. It seems to me that the people that take issue with bigotry are
themselves somehow weak through some kind of insecurity manifesting itself as
a desire to fix this perceived "injustice". Because, you know, muh feels.

4chan just doesn't care about your feels. It's funny to say this (see how I am
distancing myself from 4chan to add validity to my argument?); but I do think
more communities could learn something from 4chan in this aspect.

On a related note; I saw that outrage thread linking in the 4chan post about
this black chick getting some dude fired and what not about a non-PC joke at a
conference. Then, in the HN thread [1], to my pleasure, at least the top
comments were mostly absent of the typical reddity/facebook etc. white
knighting "This is why women arent in tech!" nonsense.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667)

~~~
AlexMax
> It seems to me that the people that take issue with bigotry are themselves
> somehow weak through some kind of insecurity manifesting itself as a desire
> to fix this perceived "injustice". Because, you know, muh feels.

Being empathetic is a weakness?

~~~
GhotiFish
Being susceptible and unwilling to accept it makes you manipulatable. If one
person cracking watermelon jokes gets under your skin, think what a psychopath
with an end game pounding the drum of affirmative action can do.

Outrage is definitely a weakness.

~~~
AlexMax
> Being susceptible and unwilling to accept it makes you manipulatable. If one
> person cracking watermelon jokes gets under your skin, think what a
> psychopath with an end game pounding the drum of affirmative action can do.

I'm afraid I'm not following your logic. Care to explain further?

~~~
GhotiFish
if you react to a negative social appeal emotionally, you will react to a
positive social appeal in the same manner.

Basically, if I can get you to react with misogyny, I have a level of control
over you.

~~~
jlgreco
I think you strike the nail on the head here, and in the process touch on
something that I have noticed:

"Trolling" is about power. People do it because being able to push somebodies
emotions one direction or another lets them play with that person like a
marionette. Making people upset is a power trip for trolls.

It would not suprise me if many (not most by any means, but many) trolls are
in fact psychopaths who are 'practicing' in a way. Running low-risk
experiments on how to control people.

------
aspensmonster
>Needlessly negative opinion with the purpose of making me seem more
intelligent that I really am.

edit:

lololol toasting in an epic thread.

edit2:

The actual thread is
[https://boards.4chan.org/g/res/38087806](https://boards.4chan.org/g/res/38087806)

------
confluence
I love it. The biting sarcasm reminds me of the radio talk shows from GTA 5.
Rockstar devs take the shit out of everybody. Here's my contribution:

    
    
        [542 points] Why you should work for a startup: 
        Low pay, long hours, no equity, uninteresting dipshit problems and
        privileged tools for bosses [224 comments]
    
        [Posted by a VC, founder, or current employee/inmate]

------
1gor
Relevant XKCD:
[http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/](http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
That's not just an HN issue. It's a problem in any community where there is a
significant ratio of self-professed geeks or the like.

~~~
adamnemecek
I wonder if there is a relevant xkcd about this very issue.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
This one covers it pretty well:
[http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/](http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/)

~~~
phylofx
this one's better:
[http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/](http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/)

~~~
maaaats
Meh, I opened all three of those in new tabs.

------
djent
Similar parody twitter:
[https://twitter.com/HackerNewsOnion](https://twitter.com/HackerNewsOnion)

~~~
jared314
Also:

[https://twitter.com/StuffHNSays](https://twitter.com/StuffHNSays)

[https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says](https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says) (No
longer updating)

[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ShitHNSays](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ShitHNSays)

------
drewblaisdell
The Stallman interruptions to promote the term GNU/Linux are perfect.

~~~
mehmehshoe
Oh I was in tears by the third Stallman posting. It looks like he was posting
the same things in other threads as well. Stallman spamming

~~~
angersock
There are actually rampaging Stallman bots that will post those. It's pretty
great, actually.

New startup idea: Stallman-as-a-service.

~~~
readstoomuch
Well, here's Stallman as a shell 1-liner

    
    
        curl -s "http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman" |grep "<li>" | grep -v -E "(Chapter|href|Source:)" | perl -MList::Util -e 'print List::Util::shuffle <>' | head -n1 | sed -E -e "s#</?(li|i|b)>##g"

~~~
cormacrelf
First try:

"I'm the last survivor of a dead culture, and I don't really belong in the
world anymore. And in some ways I feel I ought to be dead."

~~~
59nadir
This one opens really well, then the inevitable kicks in:

The War on Drugs has continued for some 20 years, and we see little prospect
of peace, despite the fact that it has totally failed and given the US an
imprisonment rate almost equal to Russia. I fear that the War on Copying could
go on for decades as well. To end it, we will need to rethink the copyright
system, based on the Constitution's view that it is meant to benefit the
public, not the copyright owners. Today, one of the benefits the public wants
is the use of computers to share copies.

------
011011100
There are a lot people on this forum who seem to think they're absolutely
right about some convention or way of life and that they're entitled to
attention (ie they believe their take is actually insightful). This describes
the "I did or think X, and you should also think or do X" threads.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I think the business of being an entrepreneur selects for such traits.

The whole notion of "disruption" that is central to so many of the ideas
floating on HN, is rooted in the arrogance necessary to make them work.

~~~
marincounty
I have found that if a person calls themself an Entrepreneur; they usually
have delusions of grandeur--and hide behind that title. They go through life
wondering why no one wants them around. Kinda pathetic.

------
tszming
Missing this one:

    
    
        [foobar] in Pure CSS
    

Honestly, the one I hated most is

    
    
         Why you should never use [foobar]

------
duairc
I'm actually really surprised they seem to think that the HN community is
anti-sexist. Compared to 4chan, maybe, but from my experience it isn't at all.

~~~
minimaxir
There have been a few incidents where discussions about gender issues have
been _very quickly_ flagged off the front page.

Example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6495950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6495950)

~~~
Nav_Panel
I don't understand why the post you linked would have been flagged. I see
nothing at all wrong with it.

~~~
minimaxir
That's the problem. It was at #3, then _immediately_ dropped off. (see the
comments)

------
NameNickHN
Why does everybody think HN users and 4chan users are two separate groups of
people? In order to write those things, someone has to spend some time on HN.

------
thatthatis
I love how hackernews is responding to this with confidence and humor.

It's like an avuncular old gentleman responding to a lampooning by saying
"haha, jolly good joke chaps, some of that was right on the money"

I particularly appreciate the maturity and humor demonstrated by hacker news's
response in stark opposition to how a lot of Internet communities (4chan,
reddit) get angry when 4chan mocks them.

I like a community that is self aware of its own ridiculousness.

~~~
Zigurd
I was hoping to start another thread titled: Message board as evidence
intelligence is emergent

------
joeblau
This is one of the most accurate parodies of this site. I still love reading
HN, but I'm doing more work now, so I don't have as much time to comment, but
I'm sure that I've seen every one of those 4chan titles in some form or
another over my 2 year tenure.

Edit: I didn't see any framework battle posts...

    
    
      ▲ 200 points Why Angular is better than Ember
      ▲ 200 points Why Ember is better than Angular

------
mcescalante
These are hilarious, some pretty good (and accurate) ones in there. I'll bet
at least a few of the posters there are lurking here, as well.

Don't even want to know what the thread would have turned out like on /b/.

------
alayne
Thank you. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

~~~
marze
Yeah! Very awesome!

------
benologist
They missed my favorite,

A Startup Anecdote To Advertise My Unrelated Company

------
swills
[Actually interesting topic] - 0 comments -- this thread is proof!

------
fuddle
"Why Go Is Better Than You And Everything You Own And Why It Always Will Be"
\- Seems to sum up a lot of HN posts recently.

------
ekianjo
Haha, I love this one :

I went to the Apple Store and this guy was really nice to me

------
eranation
> Today I must accuse a further 3 commenters of "ad hominem" to fill my quota.

------
nickbarnwell
Very similar to the Linked List news parody [1] which was on HN a few months
ago.

[1]:
[http://www.linkedlistnyc.org/archive/issue_081.html](http://www.linkedlistnyc.org/archive/issue_081.html)

------
melling
No mention of the TSA, Snowden, or how the United States made them sad today?

~~~
daniel-cussen
"Can the NSA blow up your PC remotely?"

~~~
melling
The TSA... Careful, there might be another 4chan joke about confusing the NSA
with the TSA.

------
eruditely
I used to participate actively on /g/ in 2007 to 2011 roughly, I go back for a
few months at a time. Funny I used to be on so much I could tell who was
posting by seeing the frequency of their favorite images to post and what
fonts they were using. Their ircs are good too. It's nice to see some of the
communities I frequent meet each other.

------
CWIZO
Surely this isn't what 4chan things of HN. But rather what HN thinks of
itself. To come up with such a good parody you have to be really knowledgeable
about the thing you are making fun off.

------
dillonforrest
I find this HILARIOUS!! Some of those guys visit hacker news WAYYYY TOOOO
MUCHHH.

------
gcb1
what would be awesome is if the mods here changed the title to "ITT: we hacker
news now"

~~~
aspensmonster
Go big or go home. Make it the default <title> text for the whole domain.

~~~
gcb1
it was actually a meta joke... they complain about the mods updating the title
to the original one even if less informative... and that was the original
title by OP

------
Tzunamitom
The fact that this is front page on HN is a deliciously ironic recursive
joke...

~~~
zalzane
It keeps going. Somewhere in that thread, someone mentioned that they might
post the thread on HN. Later in the thread someone says that would be a bad
idea and links to the previous time someone linked a 4chan HN-satire thread on
HN.

------
swatkat
This is hilarious, liked it. Here's another one:

    
    
        [315 points] You should work from Starbucks.
        [262 points] Why working from home or Starbucks is a bad idea.

~~~
fernandotakai
I actually have a screenshot of something like this -
[http://i.imgur.com/dtFupzL.png](http://i.imgur.com/dtFupzL.png)

------
Springtime
This is absolute gold. Glad there's some humor on HN from time to time, as
well as showing 4chan isn't just /b/

------
edlebert
Wow, it's actually super funny, and accurate. Well done.

------
Fa773NM0nK
Whenever I have a question whose answer is more subjective than objective, I
ask it on HN.

I find the community here gives the most comprehensive and unbiased answer,
while still being passionate about their opinions.

------
sfx
My favorite part of the thread:

[https://boards.4chan.org/g/res/38087806#p38097739](https://boards.4chan.org/g/res/38087806#p38097739)

------
master-ruse-man
/g/ (or 4chan in general) also love to be ``racist''
[http://hackerjews.com](http://hackerjews.com)

------
axaxs
Why again are we concerned about what 4chan thinks?

~~~
VLM
See the other top 20 posts on HN about how lack of anonymity will ruin youtube
and G+ because of the not so hidden assumption that anonymous commentators
result in a higher level of commentary. Talking about 4chan is a political
statement.

I like 4chan because its the standup comedy of the internet. Most of what you
hear you wouldn't say to your mom, both are funnier if you're a bit drunk or
whatever, some level of edginess and offensiveness is not just tolerated but
expected... So I like 4chan and I like HN and unsurprisingly I like the
intersection quite a bit. And I'm hardly alone. I subjectively think the
overlap in the Venn diagram is huge, perhaps approaching majority.

Finally, in isolation from the obvious social and political issues, its a
hilarious parody.

~~~
axaxs
You are claiming that most HNers use 4chan? Interesting, but likely impossible
to prove. I hope for the sake of our field that's not true, or maybe I'm just
getting old and crotchety.

------
joshguthrie
Title was a bit linkbait-y, but the content was good. And true.

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

It's not just 4chan talking here, it's all of us. We can't reply because
everything is true. The only difference is the guys posting on 4chan are free
to post under anonymity. Here? Not so much, I don't want my 714 karma to stray
too far from my 720 days here.

I still like you HN <3

------
trippy_biscuits
Right on the mark!

------
cgtyoder
I needed a good laugh tonight.

------
Scienz
2nd best: reddit for pseudopseudo-intellectuals

I disagree of course, but it did make me lol.

------
gum_ina_package
I feel like this is similar to when the Native Americans and Columbus met.

------
fat0wl
AHAHAHahaha

>I am going to [country people think is still in the stone age even though it
as Western as can be, Vietnam for example] for a year and will only bring my
iPad Mini and a pair of trousers

------
PhasmaFelis
Relevant: [http://threepanelsoul.com/2013/09/30/on-local-
color/](http://threepanelsoul.com/2013/09/30/on-local-color/)

------
smoyer
Let 4chan know what we think of them!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6748619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6748619)

------
sameerds
Latest trend in HN comments: Why this topic reminds me of a particular entry
from "that" submission on 4chan!

------
josteink
I have to say a lot of this stereo-typing is entirely accurate, and definitely
made me have a chuckle or two.

Thanks for posting!

------
AbraKdabra
Oh man this one killed me, I'm crying haha

I went to the Apple Store and this guy was really nice to me -101 comments

------
anonymous
> implying 4chan is one person

------
jjoe
This is like approaching a tribe and tearing apart its social fabric.
Anthropologically speaking it's never the right approach. There are times when
you just have to accept certain behavior. Let the system adjust from within.

------
mbrownnyc
Fantastically correct.

------
littlemerman
This is hilarious.

------
PhasmaFelis
"Ten reasons to be really scared"

------
crorella
mostly accurate

------
snotrockets
It's funny because it's true.

------
tomphoolery
This is just hilarious. Thank you!

------
officialjunk
But this link isn't 4chan...

------
Nux
Spot on! And very funny, too. :)

------
kinnth
Why so serious?!

------
gerberduffy
Can pg please add HN Gold so I can give this guy some?

------
nocommits
Serious comment about internet bullying. -148 points

------
tn13
That is what you call :pawned:

------
rpupkin
this is awesome.

------
bdesimone
/thread

------
almosnow
Hahaha, I literally just wrote "beautiful" and got downvoted here, I'll write
it again "beautiful" !

~~~
d0m
Only reason you probably got downvoted is that it doesn't really add to the
discussion. An upvote is way better than "beautiful" imho. But, hey, I do
agree, that was hilarious.

------
benched
This is exactly the level of humor and intellect you'd expect from 4chan. See
how I didn't say anything there?

------
seivan
"Why I stop coding and focus more on my blog" 39123 comments

Gold :)

------
skylan_q
Bonzi buddy favicon

------
almosnow
beautiful

------
jokoon
I hate corporations, but I hate startups even more

