
Why does playing devil's advocate loose you HN karma? - rotrux
Shouldn&#x27;t dissenting&#x2F;minority opinions be promoted in the HN feed?
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onion2k
Posting an honest opinion is enough. No one needs to "guide" the discussion.
If everyone agrees then that's fine, it'll just be a very short thread.

As for why you get downvoted, unless you're very good at communicating a post
playing Devil's advocate looks pretty much exactly like a post espousing a
contrary opinion for real. In other words, people can't tell you're playing
Devil's advocate and they take you seriously.

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NetTechM
Sadly people do not appreciate debate anymore, they simply want to read
statements that agree with whatever position they believe to be true, fair or
what have you.

I fear for a society that no longer collaborates and grows but rather shouts
into its own comfortable echo chamber.

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MrZongle2
_" Shouldn't dissenting/minority opinions be promoted in the HN feed?"_

Ideally, yes.

But HN readers/commenters are human, just like those on other sites. It's a
slightly more curated Reddit, with a less meme-y marquee, but the downvote
button is abused just the same.

It doesn't stop me from playing Devil's Advocate sometimes, though. I welcome
the intelligent responses when I get them (and there are plenty of intelligent
people here to provide them), and _usually_ when I get downvoted without
comment I take comfort in the fact that somebody has had their worldview
challenged and is silently having a temper-tantrum somewhere.

I certainly don't intend on it to be trolling, however. I think an
intelligent, civil debate is its own reward...even if one is outmatched. :D

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rotrux
Thank you! Terrific response.

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minimaxir
If you are referring to this comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11971989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11971989))
I wouldn't call that playing Devil's Advocate.

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rotrux
I wasn't, but kudos on the research! That was me giving my actual, relatively
uneducated, position. Don't worry, I was corrected quickly. I misunderstood
the nature of the exploit. I thought it was intrinsic to the way tor works,
turns out it's a browser bug.

Check out some of my other comments and posts. Also i just see a lot of
unpopular comments go away quickly.

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bifrost
TBH, I think it would have to be a pretty good stance to actually warrant
promotion. If everyone who took an oppositional stance to issues was promoted
I don't think regular discourse would continue to occurr.

