Comment by onecommentman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onecommentman | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the valiant attempts to keep this discussion from devolving into a full-fledged dumpster fire.

1. The US, by the most generally accepted definition, has had continuous governance as a democracy since 1788. Just one more election, and not the most contentious or momentous by a long shot.

2. Current reported spread in votes between D and R are pretty slim, 75.0M v. 70.7M Wikipedia 11PM EST 11/7.

3. Whatever your partisan opinion, at least 70M American adults, 48.5% of those voting, disagree with you and think you’re an idiot. Try not to confirm the fact with your comments.

4. Challenging the validity of the voting process is a time-honored tradition during tight races. Stop sounding like newbies. This is the only time that the validity of the electoral process gets enough visibility to figure out if anything’s broke. Seriously broke? See 1.

5. A paper trail is a beautiful thing.

6. And what a wonderfully fertile field these comments are for use as examples of propaganda, inflammatory rhetoric and logical fallacies. Wish I was teaching a course right about now. Timely for the application of manure on fields too...

7. It would be nice if the mods kept the discussion away from an r/politics-ization of HN. The sides are pretty obvious and enforcing an arbitrary quota of half blue hurrah/half red hurrah would lead to a better flow and balance. Heavy-handed, but appropriate in these few cases IMHO.

The brilliant, stupid, wise, foolish, angry, mellow, old, young, rich, poor, naive, cynical, kind, nasty, sophisticated, brutish American people have spoken. Whether you agree with the results or not, it’s a beautiful thing.

This is a really good post for the most part, but I strongly disagree with

> enforcing an arbitrary quota of half blue hurrah/half red hurrah would lead to a better flow and balance

This forum isn’t meant to represent the American electorate. We’re a global community of hackers with unique interests and values, and there’s no reason why we should be forced to reflect a divided America if we ourselves are not nearly as divided.

I agree. While I haven't read through all of this discussion so perhaps I'm missing the dumpster fire, I've found that HN in general is much more accepting of contrary opinions than anywhere else I hang out online. (as long as they're presented respectfully and any controversial claims are argued coherently, especially with data)

Political viewpoints are a point of marginalisation, and if we believe in creating inclusive communities, the same should apply to politics. We elevate the viewpoints of minorities in tech, and I would love to see us not draw the line at politics.

> Whatever your partisan opinion, at least 70M American adults, 48.5% of those voting, disagree with you and think you’re an idiot.

This is a site for hackers - people with a special affinity for technology, science, building things, and solving problems.

Openly supporting a president who gleefully ignores the advice of scientists and bans immigrants from Muslim countries is inherently harmful to the work of hackers not to mention life on this planet.

To pretend both sides have equal merit just because large numbers of people exist on each is dishonest.

I feel HN has a decent balance of world events and tech. This is one of those occasions where I do want to engage in a conversation and hear the diversity of opinions.

Sure, obvious flame wars ought to be banned, but I’ve learned a ton about the strategy of different candidates and how it panned out. Various hypothesis on why things went a certain way and the permutations of what-if scenarios.

As you say, it’s a beautiful thing.

1. Does continuous governance include a civil war? This wasn’t the most contentious election seeing as a previous one of ours did in fact lead to civil war, but it wasn’t “just one more election.” I reckon this election brought us closer to civil war than any since Lincoln. And whereas the trouble of Lincoln’s time was necessary for the moral growth of our nation, Trump has provoked our current discord merely to aid his dictatorial intents. The democracy was nearly lost. It may still be. But at least now we have a chance. If that’s not momentous I don’t know what is.

> enforcing an arbitrary quota of half blue hurrah/half red hurrah would lead to a better flow and balance

Very fine people on both sides.

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