The article itself was a bit disappointing because it focused on political issues. In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is both a "sjw cesspool" and a "haven for alt-right", as evidenced by the fact that a comment on a controversial topic can easily float near zero points while raking in both upvotes and downvotes. And even those who refer to it as "the orange site" still come back and comment. In other words, HN may be an echo chamber but it is a pretty big one with a lot of voices in it.
both and neither. Partisan discussions, or even any kind of bitching at all ... are outright discouraged. I often step out of line in this regard and don't always agree, but I'm also confident that folk on "the other side" face the same kind of treatment. Though frustrating at times, I respect that it keeps things clean and helps cut out a lot of nonsense, of which the Internet has no shortage should I feel the need to go find some.
EDIT - actually upon some reflection I think that I would have to respectfully disagree, and change my opening sentence here to just "neither". Extremes of opinion that are "off topic" are not tolerated, and this is a good thing.
> The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition—
> hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—
> often masks a deeper recklessness. Ill-advised citations proliferate;
> thought experiments abound; humane arguments are dismissed as
> emotional or irrational. Logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify
> broad moral positions. The most admired arguments are made with data,
> but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data tend to be
> ancillary concerns. The message-board intellectualism that might
> once have impressed V.C. observers like Graham has developed into an
> intellectual style all its own. Hacker News readers who visit the
> site to learn how engineers and entrepreneurs talk, and what they
> talk about, can find themselves immersed in conversations that
> resemble the output of duelling Markov bots trained on libertarian
> economics blogs, “The Tim Ferriss Show,” and the work of
> Yuval Noah Harari.It's passive aggressively accusing HN commenters of wrongthink and of abusing unreliable tools like "data" and "logic" to counter "humane arguments" (read: emotional arguments).
It basically dismisses the role of data in debate by suggesting that it is malleable or selective--we've all probably encountered this type of weaselly thinking, one that demands proof for an argument and, when provided, attacks the source as biased or the data as flawed. You can argue for pretty much any position when you embrace a brand of anti-intellectualism which believes that all data is fake/flawed and reality is subjective.
If you strip it down, the author is basically saying "I wish these annoying nerds would stop thinking so much and get onboard my bandwagon."
> The most admired arguments are made with data, > but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data > tend to be ancillary concerns.
That's a concern I often share: "the data" can so often be a "winner's history".
People can have a productive discussion on the veracity (origins/malleability are not good reasons to ignore data by themselves in my opinion) of the data, other data can be presented to support or contradict the original point, and in a perfect world perhaps both sides would come away a little more aware of an issue.
> The nice thing about having discussions based on fact...
Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN. And NO, sorry, pure facts may not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter.
I'll bite.
Data can do a lot to improve discussions about history, politics and business.
I'd also argue that data can improve discussions about seemingly subjective things such as design.
> And NO, sorry, pure facts many not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter.
In fact I'd say that I'm close to saying those are the only discussions worth having about certain topics.
If I like a design and you don't that brings us nowhere. If either of us can bring some data and say 72% of the testers prefered it strongly, - but colorblind people struggled with it - that is something that might give both of us some value and might lead to better results.