Ask HN: Moratorium on pandemic posts?

[slater]

I can't be the only one who's hiding all the stories about the pandemic, right?

I think at this point we all understand that it's a terrible situation, we should all wash our hands, and working from home has its pros and cons.

There's about five new "here's something i threw together in JS that grabs some covid data from some gov't data feed" links every day, and there are multiple threads daily on the topic of "how can we, as hackers, help?" (or a variation thereof).

And that's not to speak of the tedious click-baity junk of non-primary news sites just parroting whatever news just came out of $govagency$

Yay/Nay?

[JMTQp8lwXL]

Better to allow the posts, and those who wish to discuss them, then not allow them at all to save a few folks from clicking 'Hide'. Usually it is obvious from the post title if it's COVID related or not. Having to read the title isn't causing great injury to you.

[zw123456]

Are we sure that the economic damage of the shutdown of the world economy out weighs the heath risks of the virus. Are we in group think here? A major recession/depression means a lot of people go hungry, lose access to medical care etc. Does anyone know of studies or research that looks at the health impacts of a shutdown vs. the health risk of the virus ? Just asking questions.

Is the real question here being hidden ? I am asking a legitimate question that never gets an answer.. that tells me something.

[TYPE-ERROR → zw123456]

It's not being hidden, but it's not being discussed in the open because it seems to put people's lives second to wealth.

This is a novel situation. I'm not sure anybody can make a good prediction about the public health and the economic consequence of this pandemic. Society's answer to this crisis could well result in minor recession followed by a boom of economic progress, fruit of innovations made in response to it.

[ak39]

No.

For two reasons:

1. The frequency and number of posts is data in itself about the overall sentiments of this pandemic not only in the general public but also within our smaller subset of technologists. (I want to know whether it is hot or not anymore.)

2. The voting system on HN is sufficient to move the quality submissions relating to COVID-19 to the top. I have faith in its ability to sift the good ones from bad ones. (Yet! Looks at Dan!)

[DoreenMichele]

I occasionally leave my opinion that "this particular piece is crap" in essence and I'm actively looking for non-COVID stories to read and comment on. I think helping bad COVID stories sink faster and helping support some diversity of subject matter is a good thing.

But I think a moratorium is too much. Better to try to actively support some variety and actively try to help people sort the wheat from the chafe.

/2 cents

[ggm]

Is a "useful level of indirection" not perhaps possible?

news.ycombinator.com/covid19/normal-URL-behaviour

[3minus1]

I like 'em

[auslegung]

Nay. This is possibly the most economically damaging, socially isolating, fear-inducing, death-causing event in generations, and will be for generations to come. It will be the most discussed topic around the world for all of 2020, and will continue to shape our lives, policies, regulations, laws, and social norms for decades. Ignore it if you want, but asking everyone else to join in your self-induced blindness is unnecessary.

[dang → auslegung]

Please don't attack fellow users like that. During economically damaging, socially isolating, fear-inducing, death-causing events, we need to take more care for each other, not less. Note this site guideline:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[auslegung → dang]

What about my post was attacking? Also, may I quote you, at you?

> "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Why wouldn't you assume good faith that when I said "asking everyone else to join in your self-induced blindness is unnecessary" I meant exactly what I said, without any rancor, malice, ill-will, etc? You may read my original reply with an angry tone of voice, a pleasant one, a curious one, a vindictive one, etc. But I have to believe, based on your comment, that you did not assume good faith with me but rather read my comment with something less than a pleasant tone of voice. Am I wrong?

[dang → auslegung]

"Ignore it if you want, but asking everyone else to join in your self-induced blindness" contains at least three personal slights, of escalating intensity.

For sure it's ok to quote the plausibility guideline at me. We all need to work at it, and it's not easy. I do find it implausible to read your sentence (the one I just quoted) as free of any rancor etc. If you tell me you wrote it in that spirit, I believe you, but intent doesn't communicate itself on the internet. Most of the time, when people post such things, they are flaming somebody—so the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[slater → auslegung]

I'm not ignoring it, nor asking anyone to do so. I agree with your post.

I merely ask whether we need dozens of pretty much the exact same posts day-in, day-out. Nothing more. And I'm certainly NOT self-inducing blindness to this situation, sorry if it came across as such.

[auslegung → slater]

> I can't be the only one who's hiding all the stories about the pandemic, right?

You're hiding all the stories about the pandemic. How is that not self-induced blindness? Nothing about my response, nor this response, is judgmental or attacking in any way. If you're hiding all the stories about something, you're blinding yourself to it. That's all.