People are allowed to be wrong, though, and there's no rule against it. How could this be otherwise? We don't have a truth meter.
That is your reasoning, not mine.
It's not against the rules to be wrong, though. How could this be otherwise? Do you think we have a truth detector?
This smacks of the same kind of arrogant obliviousness that is insidious at Facebook and Twitter. Do you really think misinformation is not a problem there either?
You counter the problem with a reputation system that actually works. See Stack Exchange. Also with better moderation on your effort.
Maybe you should try searching HN for eugenics and see which gems you come across.
It's what you seemed to be saying with "And yet the mods only jump in when".
While I have you: you have a long history of breaking the HN guidelines by arguing in the flamewar style, directing acerbic swipes and personal insults at people, and so on. We've asked you many times to stop:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21105692
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20709082
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20559290
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17932924
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13605136
If you keep ignoring our requests instead of fixing this, we're going to ban you, just as we would any user who persisted in abusing HN this way. Other people posting bad things does not make it ok, and there's zero conflict between correcting misinformation—if that's what you're trying to do—and following the guidelines.
I would take impoliteness over toxic ideology backed by fake news any time. Listen to George Carlin much?
This whole line of thinking exemplifies why tech bros at places like Facebook and Twitter are so tone deaf to this whole problem.
You draw the line at "LMAO" but allow pro eugenics posts through?
Here's one in 2018:
Eugenics has a bad name, but it is scientifically valid. We now know that genetics play a huge role in life outcomes (e.g. adult IQ appears to be 70-80% heritable) and, for better or for worse, the eugenicists were right, even if their methods were morally wrong. We don't focus enough on positive eugenics: getting smart, non-violent and conscientious people to have large families. Right now we do the opposite: smart folks feel all sorts of pressures to have a small or no family due to careers, the expense of elite schooling, the environment, etc. The opening scene of Idiocracy nailed it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17237184
That post is one big fucking lie. Was it flagged? Nope.
I am beginning to really loathe the hypocrisy of techies of your ilk.
On a large, open internet forum like HN, any banned user can create a new account and walk back in through the front door in 30 seconds—and many do. There will always be plenty of bad stuff getting posted. We do as much as we can, but we rely on users to flag comments and/or email us in egregious cases. As far as I can tell, you've never done either of those things, so I'm not really feeling your good faith here.
If the game is to find one shitty unflagged comment and pass it around as proof of moderator malfeasance, that's not a very interesting game. What's more interesting is that you had to go back over a year to find it. If anything, that rather suggests that your example is evidence of how little of that there is on HN, relative to other large open forums.
Meanwhile there are numerous cases of you treating others aggressively and being, frankly, an asshole on this site. You euphemize that as "impoliteness", but it's worse than mere impoliteness. It is community-poisoning. "I would take impoliteness over toxic ideology" is a non-argument—there is no good reason to have either. Using one to justify the other is bogus, and using it to justify your own mistreatment of others is cheap.
If you sincerely want to participate in the community here and do what you can to make it better—by following the guidelines, treating fellow community members respectfully, flagging egregious comments, and so on—that's great. You are welcome. But if you really don't want to do that, please don't post here. In particular, please don't take wrong comments by others—or comments that you feel are wrong—as an excuse to vent aggression.
HN has a problem with fake news. So does Facebook. And Twitter, and so forth.
Instead of saying "we can do better", you've taken the route of complete and utter denial. And in a kind of off the cuff, blame shifting way.
Just like so many other tech bros in SV. Completely unprofessional and unhinged when faced with real issues. You're enjoying the club, I guess.