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Comment by drtillberg | Hacker News Reader

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drtillberg

I don't understand the waves of down votes in this thread. Not very HN-like.

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It's very HN-like to downvote a flamebait comment made without any details, reasoning, or evidence.

Is it adding anything to the conversation?

Yes it is. Libertarianism is not a welcome here

That's part of it. But I think it's bigger-- when it comes to topics like this, especially legal/economic ones, a community that ordinarily impresses on technical and scientific subjects as wise and timeless, displays a bizarre groupthink that levels at a secondary school-level sophistication. It's sad.

People with opposite politics have the opposite picture:

HN often aligns with more Libertarian ideologies https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21316611

There is a definite right-libertarian bias on HN, whether you want to acknowledge that or not. Everything not toeing that line is attacked and downvoted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21432833

Hacker News has become a forum for uber nationalistic right-winged libertarians https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231654

There's a lot of very neoliberal or libertarian politics going on in the comments round here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21186128

hacker news is a bubble of mostly middle class white male libertarians https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20637454

If you go against any kind of socially conservative or libertarian perspective it will get down voted and very likely flagged. It's always been this way. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643695

It's totally expected. This is a heavy technolibertarian site https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19230037

the techno-libertarian norm around here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18671955

Hacker News has a libertarian leaning ideology among both its community and site-runners https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019694

Because it's HN, where opinions other than "hooray libertarian technocracy" are frowned upon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307091

this site is a haven for alt-right and libertarian people who believe this stuff https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205262

There are just as many claims of the opposite; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21449589 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21245485. In reality, HN is a large pluralistic community, with more than enough material to support any impression of bias that you're primed for. The comments you notice and dislike make a stronger impression than the comments you agree with, building up a feeling that the community is against you. This can't be a function of HN, because HN is the same for everybody. Rather, it's in the eye of the beholder: an afterimage of the things they ran into and disliked here. The phenomenon is so consistent that you can not only predict what someone's opinions are, but also how intensely they hold them, from their image of the community's bias.

I appreciate that you are passionate on the point @dang, but I read those comments you link as confirming there is a perception among users that folks are flaming and downvoting on HN to pursue a political or ideological agenda. They flame and downvote each other, I guess. I love HN, but I'm not impressed by the quality of this discourse or by labels like 'flamebait', anecdotally it's getting worse, and I'm not even convinced the activity even is that authentic or organic.

I don't see a disagreement here? Yes, politically committed users flame and downvote each other, and the quality of the discourse when they do that is unimpressive.

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