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Comment by ardit33 | Hacker News Reader

^ it seems that HN needs to do some garbage collection, and remove the state linked accounts here as well

It breaks the site guidelines to insinuate this with no objective basis. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

Another user expressing a view you dislike is evidence of nothing but that a topic is divisive. Accusing, attacking, and insinuating otherwise about people is one of the most popular internet sports, but it's poison, so we don't allow it here.

I don't have any windows into state activity but we have extensive experience with internet behavior on HN, and I can tell you for certain that the vast majority of these accusations are 100% pure projection. People run across a few data points and connect the dots with their imagination, usually to concoct a sinister picture to explain what they notice and dislike. An internet forum is a massively multiplayer Rorschach test. That's why accusations of abuse need some objective basis or some form of evidence or...something, rather than nothing at all. It's all too easy to fire off rounds of these cheap shots without considering who you may be wounding (because that's what unjust accusation does) or what it does to the community.

It seems that if the distance between the other person's view and our own is too great, it's somehow too much of a stretch to believe that they could possibly be sincere, so we turn them into enemies, manipulators, astroturfers or spies. Now just imagine what this does to someone foreign (say, a 22-year-old Ph.D. student studying in another country and language) when they show up and they get hounded in this way, accused of being a foreign agent or a communist shill or whatever it is—simply because they come from a different background and speak from that perspective.

Is that the kind of community we want to be? how we want to treat others? Of course not; it's ignorant and indecent. What would you say about a small country town that treated outsiders like that? Every HN user would have a lot of choice language to label that sort of behavior in others, and would feel utterly superior to it. Yet we're constructed the same way and do the same thing, and not only do we not see this in ourselves, we're certain that we're right and noble for doing it.

I don't mean to pick on you personally; like I said, it's popular. But it's harmful and it comes from someplace dark in human nature, so please don't go there here. This isn't theoretical—people have already been hounded away from HN simply because they were of a different background and tried to express their views. That's sickening. None of us wants to be a person who would do that or belong to a community that would do that, so let's take conscious care to actually not do it.

HN is a much more international community than it seems, first because HN members are living in many different countries, but also because many HN members immigrated to different countries, or their families did, not so long ago. Some are from China or have Chinese family background, but there are a lot of different backgrounds here. We can either turn that into a strength by building the capacity to hear opposing perspectives, or we can behave like a mob. Unfortunately, mob behavior is the default, because it happens unconsciously and unintentionally, and actually we feel quite innocent when doing so—so if we want any other outcome, we need to work at it. Please let's do that work.

This has come up a lot, especially in the last year or two. Here are some past comments if anyone wants more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21200971

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403358

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21195898

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22609080

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21818462

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21195089

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22869961

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

you're leveling a claim i might agree with, but i don't think you're doing so in an appropriate way (as in, if everybody behaved this way when similar feelings arose, we'd have a real shit community)

if you have a problem with the statement, can you address where it's inaccurate? or can you be more explicit with your own assertion in order that the rest of us can address where your inaccuracies are.

GP here, I am moderately surprised that the parent post implied I am linked with Chinese government. Usually people would be more subtle.

I was born and raised in mainland China, left to US for PhD at 22.

I gradually understand why westners show various degree of hatred towards the Chinese government, CCP, and not so rarely the Chinese people. And also see the equally ridiculous negative biased of Chinese people towards westners.

From a self-interest perspective, I try to state the less emotional charged description on news relevant to China. Because I am seeing the risk of becoming one of the scapegoat of the Sino-US conflict. For example, while I was called linking to Chinese government, I am equally possible being called "banana man" (yellow skin with white heart, you get the idea) by passionate Chinese netizens.

I am actively risking my reputation on this forum by behaving like this. As for a long time I am well aware of the genuine political and cultural biases.

But I believe this is best for my situation. I cannot just watching the hatred grow between the common people without an action. That is also hurting the my own and my family's future.

This caught-in-the-middle position is common enough on HN that I wrote about it when a similar issue came up last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21200971. That's a long post; the part that your comment reminded me of is this:

What you're most likely getting is (for example, let's say) a Chinese-Canadian Amazon or Microsoft employee, who's been reading HN for years and is suddenly hurt and dismayed by all the aggressive anti-Chinese comments that have been showing up on the site—or (let's say) a Chinese grad student who stayed in the US, got a good job and played by the rules, and back home in China is the one holding the other side of the argument, defending the US and his American friends to his family who have been hearing nasty things about them over there.

It is a difficult position to be in, because you get attacked from both sides, and not just about something small, but in deep and painful places.

Thanks for the deep understanding shown in the posts. One correction: I am 36 years old with 2 kids born and raised in US now, was stating it was 22 years when I came to US. :)

I really appreciate that you understand the situation people like us are in. That is especially encouraging given the rapidly deteriorating situation in recent years. The great irony, however, is that, coincidentally, both China and US saw outliner leaders come into power. Like an old Chinese saying “the good fortune never come with a companion, but the ill-fortune seldom come alone” (福无双至祸不单行）.

Aside from activities here, I try to proactively engage with my network in mainland China to debacle common biases towards US. My personal goal is to improve understanding.

I have changed from a heavily indoctrinated young Chinese student to become one who is able to appreciate the deep cultural convictions and altruistic intentions of American people. I have seen the same vigorous pursue of better life and unwavering self reliance from both American and Chinese people. I firmly believe the value structures of American and Chinese people are inherently compatible. The confrontation should be avoidable.

I would be hugely disappointed if US and China end up into Cold War like confrontation. That will be an unprecedented waste of human value, and squander of historical opportunity of advancing the international community to a more productive stage.

>Like an old Chinese saying “the good fortune never come with a companion, but the ill-fortune seldom come alone” (福无双至祸不单行) .

This reminded me of the Anna Karenina principle [1] (but sort of the opposite): "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle

Well if there is an effective technical approach to do that, I'd very well support that effort.

Unfortunately, so far, only Chinese government figured out how to do that. And I think any independent individuals would not want to adopt that...

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