Hacker News Reader

Comment by anewaccount2021 | Hacker News Reader

anewaccount2021

does anyone really believe anything pseudoanonymously contributed on the web anymore? I don't. For all you know, the person you are "debating" on disqus is a bot. Or a sockpuppet. Or someone real who is only taking a contrary position to alleviate boredom. Now to go to Yelp and review some restaurants I've never been to...maybe after that, go to reddit and tell people my parents died of covid so I can be angry for karma

View on HN

I have two other accounts here. Why?

Because otherwise I couldn't speak honestly about certain events: I'd either make myself unemployable or make a mess for innocent people.

I.e. because of my unnamed accounts you get to hear more facts.

I also take as much care to be correct on my unnamed accounts such as this one as on the other ones, and I take care not to upvote my own comments. I sometimes have started a discussion with one account and replied downthread in another (not sure if this account or my previous unnamed one) but I try to limit this.

PS: no, haven't breached NDA.

If the bots has reasonable and well formed arguments does it matter? And if they don't why would you care whether there are real people behind them, would you listen to them if there was?

https://xkcd.com/810/

Along these same lines, debate isn't about winning against someone else. It should be an exploration of facts and logic to seek "truth" or common ground. Even debating against a bot can be beneficial to better understanding or questioning both sides of the argument.

Exactly! We play games against bots all the time to improve our own skills; why wouldn't the same tactic work to improve our own knowledge?

Sadly enough, I'm more likely to believe basically anything posted to the web over a story run by any of the major media outlets.

I find the things in my highly curated Twitter feed of almost exclusively anonymous accounts far more trustworthy than anything from the verified bluechecks on there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com