Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Ask HN: Why are HN comments so cynical?
48 points by aarondf 7 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 46 comments
I've been on HN a long time and the comments have always been my favorite part, but recently it seems like the comments have skewed far more cynical or negative.

Yesterday's post where the indie hacker was making 45k a month is a good example. So many comments deriding his businesses, his revenue, or suggesting he was lying (???).

Have things changed or do I remember the past with rosy glasses?




It's my experience that anything that whiffs of self promotion tends to get downvoted away, which seems reasonable.

Anything that expresses a non-mainstream opinion might hit the initial downvote limit, but recover over time if it turns out to have some merit. (My fascination with capability based security falls into this niche)

Something non-obvious, but informative, tends to get a bit of upvoting.

The rare really good point that builds discussions... those get rewarded richly.

So, the moderation system, as near as I can tell, works as intended. The feedback cycle takes a while to train us for better behavior, but it seems to work.

You do have to weigh all of the above, against the factors that overcome inertia, and lead to someone posting.

Most people reading are likely to see something expressed at least as good as they would, and thus just lurk.

It's only when you've got a nit to pick, or an interesting tangent, or need to self-promote, that people tend to post. These are the forces always pushing against moderation.


HN is my top 1 website when it comes to kindness. I used to regularly visit places out of habit where cynicism was 100x stronger about everything. I quit that long time ago and life became so much better. I think a small dose of cynicism is beneficial in certain situations, but too much of it and it spreads like a disease. Yes, you can encounter it here but for me it's manageable, maybe because other websites set the bar very low.


Tech used to be much more altruistic and optimistic. People hacking away on things for almost no pay, to genuinely make things for people better, with the belief that technology would unlock a lot of flourishing.

Now, it's the most lucrative industry in the world, attracting lots of grifters and Wall St. types whose only concern is making a lot of money, and the dystopian downsides of technology have become ever more apparent.

Some people are jaded from how bright the future looked to how it's looking now.


If you've worked in the startup space long enough, you become cynical. The failure to success ratio is very, very high. On top of that, many of the "successes" are not. You'll run into fake deals (no money changing hands), fake acquisitions (investors and founders got zero), fake bosses ("friend" of a founder with fancy title that doesn't do anything)... on and on.


>The failure to success ratio is very, very high.The failure to success ratio is very, very high.The failure to success ratio is very, very high.

You come to realize that this is just software in general. The default mode of a software project from its inception is failure. The amount of intense effort and dedication it takes to steer that outcome towards success is so monumental, that you stop caring at all about "ideas" until they have been materialized.


I have a very hard time believing the majority of current HN commenters have worked in the startup space.


Never forget https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

> 1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

That said, right now the industry is going through some turmoil. We're coming off the high of low interest rates, and it's turning into a mighty hangover. Plus, we're trying to automate ourselves away with AI, and (working in) tech just isn't fun with Scrum/Agile/Meetings/Sprints/Bluh.


That comment has been unfairly misinterpreted and did not deserve to turn into a meme of dismissal. BrandonM was sincerely trying to help Drew with his YC application (that's what "app" meant on HN in 2007), and if you read the rest you can see that they had quite a nice exchange.

It's a hobbyhorse but I'm on a mission about this:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...


That's helpful context, thanks. Unfortunately I cannot edit my original comment, but good to know.


I don't think the level of cynicism has changed - there has always been a strong critical take on pretty much everything here. But I do agree that the tone of it has changed. It used to be more constructive and now people are more snarky.

But the tone ebbs and flows over time, too. Eventually the community moderation gets the point across via downvoting pointless or rude snark and flagging people who are outright toxic, and we get back to the norm.

Give it time.


no one ever called HN "a bunch of know-it all bro-grammers who hate everything" before recently?

In the past part of that perception has been a difference in social standards, I think. Here we get people who can be enthusiastically adoring of an idea and doing their best to offer their ideas to improve it: and others (including the person they're trying to communicate with) may take it as unalloyed negative criticism.

Part of is may be the twitter September people too. Its always the n00bs, after all. Everything was so much better before they showed up.


It is happening everywhere. Men are taking the narrowing of life's options, hard.

It's much more profitable for your average joe to adopt a cynical 'lie flat' attitude and then not show up until someone pays you.

Broken promises does this to people. The traditional structures don't have this problem, militaries can turn the majority of joes into soldiers.

It's regular society that has fostered the environment where malaise is comfortable and profit is meaningless. The wind has been sucked out of the country into code, and you get energy deficits in the populace. Who made programmers the jailer of their own soul? Who made men subservient to machines?


I believe the above is referring to this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37622702


Anything actually hacker related generally gets the full support of everyone, and are usually the best threads with tons of interesting comments and supportive sentiment. It's all the nonsense that people are sick of and just want to knock down. Indie hacker stuff tends to fall into that category as the vast majority of it is just glorified marketing email lists and job boards being promoted through astroturfing.


There are many folks who confuse cynicism with thoughtfulness and intelligence.


Yes, but there are also the inverse who confuse thoughtfulness for cynicism! And this is just one facet of a more general cognitive behavior, where abstraction fails. I like to think of it as metaphor collapsing into simile.

Call me cynical, but I think the original topic is almost inevitable in a long-running and/or large venue. The feeling that a venue lacks this part of the human experience is itself fleeting and illusory. I think it's something vaguely like the birthday paradox in a population.


I think it is one of those darker sides of human nature. It takes concerted effort to think a problem through enough to realize if a proposed solution is really good or not. Our first instinct does not seem to be to praise someone for a thoughtful act or word; but to find a flaw in it.

Sometimes it is laziness. Sometimes it is just ego. But too often we will spend more effort on attacking a bad idea than in promoting a good one. This is not to say that much of the criticism isn't deserved. There are plenty of horrendous ideas floating around out there. But if we ignore them and spend our efforts on the good ones, then the cream will rise to the top faster.

A lesson I learned from raising kids - try to say two positive things for every corrective action you take. It will not only improve the world around you, but it will be good for your own well being.


Less secure people seek to promote their greatness.

Starting a comment with 'No.' is a sure-fire sign of this. As is seeking to never be wrong driving a long comment train where OP seeks to assure others they're both never wrong while also modest. This is especially bad when trying to limit self-perceived reputation damage when using their real name as a handle - isn't HN privacy-centric now? Should we not all the throwaway or anonymous cowards? Let the content matter, not the ego.

As HN's popularity has increased, especially with that have never compiled Slackware while walking up a hill backwards, in a blizzard, carrying a tree, so have the numbers of people starting spewing combative comments. Usenet never had flamewars, and frankly if I were to launch my GUI for rsync anywhere, it'd be there.


Theory: maybe because the HN community values avoiding comments that don't have much substance or are redundant with things that have already been said - and there are only so many ways of saying "wow this is so cool", whereas there are plenty of ways to be cynical about something.


Remember the dropbox announcement in 2007? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224


https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37648807


I like the tech punditry on here. Most of it is top notch. The odd bad faith comment appears now and then, but they're typically down-voted and greyed out (yet I still end up reading them because they're sometimes funny).

In terms of sentiment analysis of a 10 year window, I have yet to see someone try and attempt that. It would be a good exercise and would be concrete proof that comments have devolved to a sort of Reddit-esque commenting style.


I think in this case it is long form hucksterism that is less about tech and more about hype and promo. There is nothing to learn or discuss - just a sales pitch.


I see threads like this one from time to time and wonder where OPs do find it. There may be some outbreaks, but nothing systemic to worry about, afaic. Are you sure you’re not overreacting on that specific thread? E.g. there’s a chance that most negative commenters just happened to be there in their active hours.


It's a matter of perspective. Perhaps life is mostly "negative" by some perspectives. So from the "positive" people it seems like it's negative when it's really just matter of fact.


I don’t believe you! I jest, but I find technical spaces have lots of cynicism floating around. I’ve not been a reader that long so not really sure - but a certainly get the sense it is somewhat normalised here.


I understand what can be gained by skepticism, but the cynicism is confusing to me!


Yeah, the amount of snark, nitpicking, and cynism has gone through the roof. They should rename the site to Nitpicker News. Case in point. Someone posted their tool to help people with ADHD focus. Most comments were "Aw, don't make me watch a video." The video was 65 seconds long. Or someone posts a chart maker tool and the first complaint is that the poster used the phrase "visually stunning" to describe the tool's output. Or the very common "I clicked on the link and the page asked me to sign up to their newsletter. What is wrong with the world?" complaint that is posted on every article regardless of topic.


Here's your nitpick, then. This is a site self-selected for people who like to read, who do a lot of reading professionally as well.

If you're communicating to be understood, principle #1 is "consider your audience, their backgrounds, interests and preferences".


I am convinced that cynicism is a good thing. Often, the people who are not cynical or angry are avoiding the real problems. Or they don't care, are just hanging around collecting a paycheck, etc.

You imply that being cynical has become "the norm," but there's always more friction involved in being cynical. Happy bullshitters never get in trouble.


>Often, the people who are not cynical or angry are avoiding the real problems. Or they don't care, are just hanging around collecting a paycheck, etc.

I vehemently disagree with every thought presented in this comment.

These sentiments seem to come from a very jaded space. To think that the only people who are not cynical / angry are those that are avoiding the "real problems" (in what/ whose definition?).

In my experience, the happiest people are those who have acknowledged these problems. If they have the opportunity (and power) to act on resolutions they do so and if not, they came to peace with that reality. It certainly is possible to process the same things as you and engage with these so called real problems without turning into a cynic.

Perhaps these "happy bullshitters" are more adept at acknowledging these problems and their ability to act on it.


> To think that the only people who are not cynical / angry are those that are avoiding the "real problems" (in what/ whose definition?).

That's not my point. I am saying that in a business environment, when there's one person in a group that is pissed, disagreeing, or somehow pissing on the happy-go-lucky parade, that person is usually right. Why? Beause pissing on the parade is always more risky and difficult than taking the path of least resistance (which is just shutting up and accepting the status quo.) So, they wouldn't be doing it unless they really had to.


You can disagree without being angry or cynical. That you think you need to be cynical, pissed, or "pissing on the happy-go-lucky-parade" to disagree and engage with real problems is the notion I hold issue with.

>So, they wouldn't be doing it unless they really had to.

I can think of a handful of reasons why they may do so.

Being a contrarian is not hard. It certainly does not mean that the person being a contrarian is right (or right to do so, especially if the methods is being an insufferable colleague).


Being cynical about everything is intellectual laziness.

It feels like you are being smart and critical but blindly rejecting and doubting everything is no different from blindly accepting or believing everything. Instead of observing each new idea and evaluating it on its merits, you've already determined what your response will be. It's a biased filter on everything you see.

We should aim to be openminded but also willing to reject things that don't make sense (looking at you, NFT bros)


This is a sincere question: is your life, specifically, better because you're cynical and angry? I'm not talking about "the industry" in an abstract sense, but on a personal level are you happy?


I think I'd be happy in life if I believed in god and thought I was going to some happy place after I die and that any of this meant anything at the end of the day. I can't will myself to believe in Christianity or Scientology or Islam or Judaism however. Does that make me cynical?


There's a clear difference between skepticism and cynicism. I don't think one needs to be a cynic to be skeptical about outlandish or otherwise scientifically unproven claims (i.e. religion). If we are to look at the greek roots/ schools of thought. Cynics were engaged in finding fault in everything whereas Skeptics were thought to doubt claims (even those generally held true) and requiring substantial proof.

I don't know enough about your world view or anything, but you don't sound like a cynic.

Read more here: https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/skepticism-cynicism.php


No, my life is definitely not better due to cynicism. I'd be happier if I never walked into an office ever again or debated anyone online, and just lived in happy ignorance.

Yet, I know I will continue to do these things.


Man. I'm sorry to hear that, truly


I disagree. First, we need to separate anger and cynicism. Anger is an emotional response which is sometimes useful for motivating action, but I think the vast majority of anger in the world is unjustified and causes unnecessary suffering. Almost all the time, it is better not to respond with anger and instead take a rational, impartial approach to solving problems.

Cynicism is more of a general attitude toward other people -- being distrustful of everyone's motives and assuming they are motivated solely by greed and self-interest. Granted, sometimes people's motives are truly bad. But again, I think the vast majority of cynicism is toxic and poisons our ability to see the good in people. Most people believe that they are doing the right thing. What we really need is to look at the systems and incentives that cause them to behave the way that they do.


There's truth in grief too. But it's more fun, IF both grief and cynicism are dead.

I'd going to put my foot forward and work in removing every concept in my life that causes grief or cynicism.

The truth is seeing grief and cynicism for what they are, and stepping away from them.

The 'other way' is a step backwards.


You’d have to sample 1000 from today and 1000 from five or ten years ago to really know.


because they're written by humans with anonymity


They have to convince themselves that OP is lucky/lying/their idea couldn't work, otherwise they're forced to confront the fact that they wasted their life working at megacorp when they could've done something else.


People that are wildly successful are lucky. They may have "made their own luck" by working hard, being smart, etc., but those factors are at most prerequisites, not predictors of success.

The people wasting their lives at megacorps, were they to quit and follow their dreams, would overwhelmingly be worse off objectively (one can debate whether they are richer in spirit).

I think that they've all confronted the fact that they are unwilling to risk a great deal at a small chance of success. I applaud those that risk like this and win, as well as those that fail. But let's not pretend that greatness is guaranteed by hard work or intelligence.


The problem with using “lucky” as a single term is it loses all nuance.

If I am a successful entrepreneur, it is likely I have been lucky. But the luck factor is less than a trust funder, born to rich parents. Or someone who won the lottery. And the lottery winner is less lucky than someone who didn’t buy a lotto ticket but won publishers clearinghouse (ie they had to at least buy the ticket)

The worlds rewards depend heavily on luck, but all too often I see things decried as “lucky” when that was only one piece of the equation. If we reduce luck to a binary, we may as well just do nothing and wait for good fortune.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: