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Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

Is HackerNews a safe-space for programmers? If you say anything negative about PG or silicon valley, you are downvoted. If you don't follow its rules, you are banned. If you don't have the same opinion as everyone else, don't follow the strict posting guidelines you are kicked out. It's philosophy is all fund raising capitialism, if you try something crazy you don't get funded.

Isn't HackerNews just an extreme safe-space for SV programmers?

Ok ok ok. I'm not trying to say they're the exact same. But what I am saying in response to your post is... so? That all sounds fine and totally reasonable. I don't see a problem.

I am amused how in the past two weeks the word "safe space" has been weaponized by the liberal left. First they demanded safe spaces. Then they were laughed at on a national scale. Now they throw back "oh yeah... well YOU'RE a safe space so fuck you!". I've seen it in multiple contexts and expect to see it more.

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I've upvoted you because I feel you've received some unfair downvotes here.

Anybody who's been on HN for more than a month knows there is a set of topics that will trigger massive discussion threads, for which there is a generally accepted community opinion. If you go against those opinions, you will be downvoted. Go ahead: try saying that you're against the very idea of a basic income for all citizens in a BI thread.

The downvotes on the parent post are IMO a symptom of that. I'd defy anyone to tell me exactly which one of the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html this his/her post is breaking, besides, perhaps "posting perennial flamewar topics." And, if you have to call this a flame war topic, I would suggest that actually proves my point.

> I'd defy anyone to tell me exactly which one of the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html this his/her post is breaking

I'm not going to hang out on algolia for an hour to dig up the post, but I'm 99% sure PG ended up endorsing downvotes-as-disagreement (or at least condoning it).

Ha ha. I remember writing a comment raising the problem of competence of software developers, given that anyone can call himself a developer and that we still have so many developers writing new sql injections vulnerabilities and making other security 101 bad design decisions. The reaction was to say the least hostile. It's all about budgets, bad bosses, etc.

Being safe from criticism.

> I've seen it in multiple contexts and expect to see it more.

Because it's a reasonable argument to make. Saying "you can't take this from me and claim it is a bad thing when I do it but a good thing when you do it" is a perfectly fine way to respond.

You're only getting upvotes for what you're saying because HackerNews is a safe-space but only so long as you stay within it's rules and monoculture so fuck you.

(note: I don't actually mean fuck you. I'd like to think y'all can see what I did there.)

When you throw terms like 'the liberal left' into the discussion, it really derails any point you're trying to make. I'll be the first to admit I don't really watch much political discourse, but I've seen plenty of this behavior from pretty much everyone. IMO maybe, but stay objective.

The safe space and microaggression movement is primarily a left/liberal/progressive movement. That is objective.

I don't think you understand what a liberal is.

I don't think the American left understands what a liberal is anymore.

Sure, and the KKK is objectively primarily a right/conservative movement. It still derails a conversation if you lump all conservatives together with the KKK.

No, HN is not a safe space. There's bias and there's hell-banning, but they usually tolerate dissenters. And that's a good thing, because I'm often one myself.

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