zlacker

>>capabl+(OP)
> 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.

wow nailed it

>>zzzeek+1a1
Oh yeah! If they last visited the site six years ago.

In reality the contrarianism also leads to pushback against “libertarian economics blogs, “The Tim Ferriss Show,” and the work of Yuval Noah Harari”, as well as the “hyperrational” style of argumentation, as well as the dullard technologists who don’t want to deal with “politics”.

You will for sure regularly roll your eyes if you dislike the stereotypical HN comments. But you will also see all of them get a healthy amount of pushback.

Topics are seldom an echo-chamber or a display of dueling Markov bots. Not any more.

>>avgcor+MS1
damn straight! I come here to help deliver such pushback. because otherwise all the budding Sam Altmans here are going to plow through completely unaware that they might not be fully correct at all times or someone might disagree with them. Just like it was eye opening to see Star Trek episodes that revealed some people actually weren't cool with starfleet. "What? someone doesn't like crypto? someone doesn't like AI? mongodb isn't web scale?" all the same riff

>>zzzeek+W62
I appreciate it. HN used to be—how you say?—way to mono-opinion.