This doesn't mirror my experience, which is that most posts and comments criticizing the current administration and conservatives in general get significant positive engagement. There are few posts taking the opposite side, and those that try often get downvoted to oblivion.
As a recent example, anti-progressive themes (being supportive of Israel, for example) are nowhere to be found. Pro-Palestinian views abound with little counter-engagement.
In addition, just look at all the anti-US posts/comments. Other countries do not get the same treatment in the same volume. The US is a punching bag here. It's tiresome. HN used to be a respite from political insanity on both sides. Now some days it's no better than reddit.
From my (politically neutral, believe it or not) perspective, this site is extremely hostile to conservatives. It's interesting that progressives feel the same way. Maybe we should put a pause on political discussions altogether.
I think the US, right now, is just exceptionally bad (not just the president, the whole culture, divisiveness, weaponized fake news, ...).
If a president is just being not competent, it would be normal that the majority of the posts are negative.
I wonder how it was for a "normal" president during a "normal" period. For example, Obama? From what I recall, the international comments were pretty balanced at the time.
Take what you dislike about the US and then compare it against:
- migrants in the UK and EU;
- slave labor in the Far East;
- documented genocide in Africa;
- military conscription in Russia;
- press freedom in Central Asia;
- crime and drugs in Latin America
This is not to say that the US shouldn't be criticized. Let's have that discussion. But why on HN? And why do these other topics never result in substantive engagement? My earlier statement that the US is a punching bag meant that relative to all other injustices in the world, the US appears to be facing the most criticism on HN.
On one hand, maybe it's because the expectations for the US are so much higher than other countries. On another, maybe it's because it's fashionable to criticize the hegemon. I don't know. But my experience here is that almost all "government does something bad" posts are about the US. This is, to me, evidence of a bias.
> And why do these other topics never result in substantive engagement?
US politics has become so polarized, so trench-warfare-without-ever-giving-a-single-INCH-of-ground, that few people will actually listen to a point by the other side, no matter how valid. They will instead argue to the ends of the earth that the other side does not actually have a point, they have never had a point, on any subject, ever.
This leads to lousy conversations - both sides shouting at each other, and nobody listening.
Around the start of Trump's second term, HN reduced the degree to which politics was considered off topic. I think that's made HN more political, more shouty, less having actual conversations. And I think it has hurt the character of the site, and the community around it.
> Around the start of Trump's second term, HN reduced the degree to which politics was considered off topic.
That is inaccurate. The standard has remained the same ever since pg changed the name of this site from "Startup News" to "Hacker News", and its focus to intellectual curiosity, coming up on 20 years ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. You can see there the original language: most stories about politics are off topic (note that the word is "most", not "all"), which is still in the HN guidelines: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Arguments about HN having gotten-too-political go back many years, long before the time you're talking about: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that there are swings and fluctuations, some of which last for quite a while and give the misimpression that the site has permanently changed. Such swings are inevitable—they are caused by macro trends, which HN is not immune to: <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20immune%20macro%20trend&sort=byDate&type=comment" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
The other is that when people see a series of threads they don't like, or even a single thread they don't like—for example because it offends them politically—they rush to overgeneralize. This applies to all of us and has to do with how our emotions affect our perceptions and thinking.
The one exception to all this was when we tried a "no-politics week" as an experiment back in 2016: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404. That experiment failed quickly—its actual effect was to make HN more politicized, so we canceled it after a couple days (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251), and reverted to the original tried-and-true (albeit unsatisfactory, in the sense that no one is really satisfied by it—there's something for everyone to dislike) standard.
At first I thought this experiment was what you were referencing, since to this day there are people who occasionally get confused by the fact that we briefly tried it. But when I read more closely I see that you were talking about 8 years later!
I seem to recall, at the time of the start of Trump's second term, some posts that were purely politics, and people flagging them as off topic, and you, dang, as I recall, saying that HN was loosening the rules to allow more politics.
Now that you mention it, I remember the "no politics" week, and it's possible that I'm conflating the end of that experiment and "allowing more politics" and getting the time messed up. But... are you sure you didn't loosen up on politics at the start of Trump's second term?
> But... are you sure you didn't loosen up on politics at the start of Trump's second term?
Yes in the sense that we didn't change HN's standard or moderate differently. But of course there was a surge of that sort of content - this is what I mean by "macro trends" above.
> you, dang, as I recall, saying that HN was loosening the rules to allow more politics
I don't think so! but if you can track down any post that sounded like that, it would be interesting to take a look.
freeli · · focus · HN ↗
As a recent example, anti-progressive themes (being supportive of Israel, for example) are nowhere to be found. Pro-Palestinian views abound with little counter-engagement.
In addition, just look at all the anti-US posts/comments. Other countries do not get the same treatment in the same volume. The US is a punching bag here. It's tiresome. HN used to be a respite from political insanity on both sides. Now some days it's no better than reddit.
From my (politically neutral, believe it or not) perspective, this site is extremely hostile to conservatives. It's interesting that progressives feel the same way. Maybe we should put a pause on political discussions altogether.
Juliate · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe the volume is proportional to the impact each country has globally? (especially these years)
freeli · · focus · HN ↗
cauch · · focus · HN ↗
If a president is just being not competent, it would be normal that the majority of the posts are negative.
I wonder how it was for a "normal" president during a "normal" period. For example, Obama? From what I recall, the international comments were pretty balanced at the time.
freeli · · focus · HN ↗
- migrants in the UK and EU;
- slave labor in the Far East;
- documented genocide in Africa;
- military conscription in Russia;
- press freedom in Central Asia;
- crime and drugs in Latin America
This is not to say that the US shouldn't be criticized. Let's have that discussion. But why on HN? And why do these other topics never result in substantive engagement? My earlier statement that the US is a punching bag meant that relative to all other injustices in the world, the US appears to be facing the most criticism on HN.
On one hand, maybe it's because the expectations for the US are so much higher than other countries. On another, maybe it's because it's fashionable to criticize the hegemon. I don't know. But my experience here is that almost all "government does something bad" posts are about the US. This is, to me, evidence of a bias.
AnimalMuppet · · focus · HN ↗
US politics has become so polarized, so trench-warfare-without-ever-giving-a-single-INCH-of-ground, that few people will actually listen to a point by the other side, no matter how valid. They will instead argue to the ends of the earth that the other side does not actually have a point, they have never had a point, on any subject, ever.
This leads to lousy conversations - both sides shouting at each other, and nobody listening.
Around the start of Trump's second term, HN reduced the degree to which politics was considered off topic. I think that's made HN more political, more shouty, less having actual conversations. And I think it has hurt the character of the site, and the community around it.
freeli · · focus · HN ↗
dang · · focus · HN ↗
That is inaccurate. The standard has remained the same ever since pg changed the name of this site from "Startup News" to "Hacker News", and its focus to intellectual curiosity, coming up on 20 years ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. You can see there the original language: most stories about politics are off topic (note that the word is "most", not "all"), which is still in the HN guidelines: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Arguments about HN having gotten-too-political go back many years, long before the time you're talking about: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that there are swings and fluctuations, some of which last for quite a while and give the misimpression that the site has permanently changed. Such swings are inevitable—they are caused by macro trends, which HN is not immune to: <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20immune%20macro%20trend&sort=byDate&type=comment" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
The other is that when people see a series of threads they don't like, or even a single thread they don't like—for example because it offends them politically—they rush to overgeneralize. This applies to all of us and has to do with how our emotions affect our perceptions and thinking.
The one exception to all this was when we tried a "no-politics week" as an experiment back in 2016: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404. That experiment failed quickly—its actual effect was to make HN more politicized, so we canceled it after a couple days (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251), and reverted to the original tried-and-true (albeit unsatisfactory, in the sense that no one is really satisfied by it—there's something for everyone to dislike) standard.
At first I thought this experiment was what you were referencing, since to this day there are people who occasionally get confused by the fact that we briefly tried it. But when I read more closely I see that you were talking about 8 years later!
AnimalMuppet · · focus · HN ↗
Now that you mention it, I remember the "no politics" week, and it's possible that I'm conflating the end of that experiment and "allowing more politics" and getting the time messed up. But... are you sure you didn't loosen up on politics at the start of Trump's second term?
dang · · focus · HN ↗
Yes in the sense that we didn't change HN's standard or moderate differently. But of course there was a surge of that sort of content - this is what I mean by "macro trends" above.
> you, dang, as I recall, saying that HN was loosening the rules to allow more politics
I don't think so! but if you can track down any post that sounded like that, it would be interesting to take a look.