Ask HN: Non-technical people – what brings you to HN? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Non-technical people – what brings you to HN?

22 pointsdawg-17 comments

I'm in grad school studying to be a Speech-Language Pathologist. Never written a line of code in my life. But I'm on HN because I am interested in a lot of the things you guys are talking about - especially natural language processing, speech recognition, augmented reality/MR, and bioethics related to technology. A big emerging area in my field is in using AAC (Augmented and Alternative Communication) technology to help those with disabilities communicate. There is a ton of opportunity for innovation in that area, and reading HN gives me great ideas and inspiration.

Just curious how many people are out there lurking for similar reasons as me - trying to apply cool new ideas in tech to innovate in other fields.

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I sometimes find the articles and links shared here interesting.

But the most interesting thing to me is the cognitive dissonance, ego, obstinacy, and single-mindedness of the discussions.

If you question the idea that this place is anything but some kind of algonquin round table for the techno-elite then you’ll get a stern rebuke from the moderators. The reality is that HN is exceptionally good content marketing for a VC company.

It’s just as funny to me as browsing /r/SubredditDrama or any other hobby forum.

> But the most interesting thing to me is the cognitive dissonance, ego, obstinacy, and single-mindedness of the discussions.

Can you illustrate your points of complaint with examples, please?

> It’s just as funny to me as browsing /r/SubredditDrama or any other hobby forum.

I think no community should take themselves too seriously. People are people at the end of the day. :)

IMHO: Stack Overflow was (and perhaps still is) a toxic place, and I am not alone with this sentiment:

https://insights.dice.com/2019/10/17/stack-overflow-moderato...

I find HN way better in that regard (friendliness).

> Can you illustrate your points of complaint with examples, please?

No.

Start with any discussion about one of these topics: nutrition, James Damore, exercise, marketing, health, equality, racism.

With the greatest of respect, a response of "illustrate your points of complaint [about us] with examples" is kind of case in point. You phrased it very politely and I promise I'm assuming good intent, but it is kind of funny. I don't think anyone needs convincing that there's plenty of egotism and single-mindedness here.

Personally I would point to, very broadly, any discussion at all on finance or multilateralism.

The top comments on HN tend to have a very poor understanding of what the EU even is, how it works, what value it provides, and what it can and (especially) can't or shouldn't do.

Similarly, there isn't a huge amount of sophisticated discussion around banking and finance. I actually detect a hint of sulking some of the time, that there's this other difficult and well-paid field that the average HN commenter just does not understand. This was a bit more obvious a few years ago when Quantitative Easing and Bitcoin were in the news more often, but it still occasionally bubbles up under Matt Levine articles too.

My apologies. Yes that was perhaps a little weird from me. (But I am a socially awkward person anyway. :))

My intention was to inquire why person X came to that conclusion. Many people have different experiences throughout their lives. Some rich people wouldn't be perhaps able to empathize with poor people (making less than 10k a year). Some of them don't know (most of the time) what it is like to live with 10k a year and trying to make ends meet.

Louis CK expressed that sentiment in a clever manner: https://youtu.be/P3jLufZx3IM

So why did I come up with the "rich people example"? Well, I am trying to illustrate that we all have our blind spots somewhere. Different people, different experiences (and with that different levels of empathy/understanding).

Anyway, thanks for your input, paulcole & ploika! I think, I can see your point/sentiment better now.

> The top comments on HN tend to have a very poor understanding of what the EU even is, how it works, what value it provides, and what it can and (especially) can't or shouldn't do. ... similarly, there isn't a huge amount of sophisticated discussion around banking and finance

Are these subjects you're particularly knowledgeable about? I find also for certain subjects I know a lot more about than most subjects (e.g. for me, music, philosophy, chess) each time I read a page of HN comments on the subject I swear it will be the last. The page is filled with misinformation, people who know nothing about the subject miscorrecting others, people just guessing aloud at length etc. I didn't want to be that guy who brings up the Gell-Mann amnesia effect yet again, having seen it mentioned on here so many times in the last few days! – but I then wonder if discussions that are opaque to me, because I know nothing about the subject, are as low-quality as those where I can judge the quality. Mostly I just trust they are far better. I'm sure on tech-related subjects the quality is higher.. But maybe every page seems woefully bad, to an expert in that subject, I don't know.

I have the feeling this comment has been written thousands of times before on HN.

> If you question the idea that this place is anything but some kind of algonquin round table for the techno-elite then you’ll get a stern rebuke from the moderators.

I note the absence of any such stern rebuke in reply to your comment, yet you did exactly what you said.

The issue isn't questioning HN. The issue is the tone. People who question HN, on HN, often do so very hostilely, veering into personal or group attacks and various other behavior that is against guidelines. That gets you a stern rebuke from the moderators.

> But the most interesting thing to me is the cognitive dissonance, ego, obstinacy, and single-mindedness of the discussions.

Sigh. Yeah. People who can't change their minds, and who will argue to the ends of the earth. I find it annoying and frustrating rather than interesting, though...

I'm a graphic designer but started tinkering in Unity about three or four years ago after work as a hobby, and am currently working my way through Watch and Code to learn the basics of Javascript.

In general I find HN to have more interesting articles and a higher quality of discussion than other news aggregators (such as Reddit, which I also frequent).

I think HN would benefit if more people would hop on board from different walks of life (doctors, lawyers, artists, moviemakers, photographers, manual laborers, philosophers, historians, economists ...).

So it is good to have you here.

All you need here is basically curiosity and friendliness.

I'm a Project Manager & Operations Responsible at a Healthcare SME in Switzerland. My technical abilities are limited to Python & Swift (Amateur, Self-taught).

I browse HN daily for the interesting articles and comments. For the total disconnect it has with politics & non-helpful BS.

I use it to always have one foot inside the pool of technology development.

It's the only place where you never know what you'll learn next.

I really wish more people from "non-computer related" technical fields would contribute more here. It doesn't matter what; i see HN as a "curiosity-feeding" platform. Also it doesn't have to be the "Hard" Sciences; "Soft" sciences like Social Behaviour, Psychological insight etc. would also be welcomed. The domain knowledge coupled to solving problems in those domains (with/without aid of Computing) is what i would really like to read/understand more.

> "Soft" sciences ... would also be welcomed

Thats a hard pass from me :D.

I know complex adaptive systems are hard to understand, but you should really try.

Smart and intelligent people, interesting and insightful articles and discussions.

Maybe only half of the articles and comments I read here are tech-related.

BG: BA but also does data modeling and some scripting, overall non-technical.

The need to pursue a more technical career path brought me here. I'm 15-18 years away from a planned semi-retirement and my financial is good so far, so I don't care about "Fuck you" money and the business part of HN bores me. What is really intresting to me are topics that go deep into a programming topic e.g. compiler design.

What is BG: BA?

Sorry I meant my background is business analysis

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