That made me realize that maybe the percentage of users who are biased in their judgement by working at FAANG is too high here.
Is there something similar to Hackernews which is less influenced by corporate interests?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26912977
Probably wasn't downvoted because of some roaming downvote squad of FAANG-employed users. Lots of more straightforward reasons you can see here
Yes.
> Probably wasn't downvoted because of some roaming downvote squad of FAANG-employed users. Lots of more straightforward reasons you can see here
Yeah, well, um, is reading HN with the rulebook open in a tab a thing that people actually do?
And why did they then upvote the person who called my argument "stupid" right below? Isn't that a more blatant rule-violation?
HN users do seem to upvote a lot of calls for government crackdown on freedom-embracing technology, so I wouldn't be totally opposed to "yes, there's people who strictly abide the rulebook, they like rules here", it's just not my style of interacting with humans. I just try to be honest and avoid being completely rude.
Not any more than driving on public roads with an open book of traffic laws in hand.
And why did they then upvote the person who called my argument "stupid" right below? Isn't that a more blatant rule-violation
If you get on the bus and deliberately kick the person in the handicapped seat in the shin, you're going to get tossed out a lot faster than if you just accidentally elbow someone and don't apologize.
it's just not my style of interacting with humans. I just try to be honest and avoid being completely rude.
One of HN's most basic conventions is not to go on about downvotes (right after not being yell-y). It shouldn't surprise you too much, now what you know this, that humans are quite honestly finding the opposite behaviour very rude and are honestly letting you know. It's like showing up at a library yelling (say, about government crackdowns, aliens, the lack of generics in go) and honestly finding out everyone would honestly prefer you to shush because that's honestly not how libraries work.
The comment I write that get the most downvotes are comments where I honestly did not explain my position all that well and others misunderstand my comment.
In general try not to worry to much about up- or downvotes. They don’t really matter and can just as much reflect the current mood and situation of the person voting.
Still also try to reflect on your downvoted posts. Where you perhaps wrong? If not, use the opportunity to refine and clarify you position and arguments in the future. If you can’t formulate your critisism, then perhaps don’t comment until you can, if upvotes matter that much to you.
I will reconsider.
I have no ties to Google, I don't live in the US, I'll never work in a FAANG and in fact I dislike Google likely as much as you do.
Well, see, that's interesting, because even if I had known you would consider what I would say as "inflammatory" before I wrote it, I would have brushed that off because:
Google is not only inflammatory as well but actual full blown cancer on our society, isn't it?
They are absorbing insane amounts of control over what humans consider as the truth. They willingly coax users into actually building a database on how they browse the web - complete surveillance.
They also basically own root access on a large percentage of surveillance devices which almost everyone has in their pocket.
So perhaps "inflammatory" isn't the 100% perfect word, but Google certainly is something worse than "inflammatory".
Hence my threshold for stopping myself from bashing them is very high.
I hope you can understand what I mean?
At the end of the day, IMO what really matters is being true to what you believe, regardless of what others do.
For instance, if you think it's dangerous to use Go because of its ties to Google, by all means don't use it and share it. I have the same thought regarding lots of Google services, although I disagree in this particular instance.
I personally would also hate to be in an environment where everyone thinks like me (i.e. an echo chamber). I grow as a person (and professional) when I'm confronted with views I don't agree with or I had never thought of. And in that sense HN has been a great learning experience so far.
As for your question, a less business-focused news aggregator I like to read is https://lobste.rs, lots of good stuff there.
Thank you! I will have a look at the site!
(And yes, I agree echo chambers are bad, I merely grant myself an exception in trying to filter corporate viewpoints out because they're basically everywhere in daily life so I really don't think I need to see any more of them to know their point of view.)
Well, when procuring physical product, the source of its raw materials is relevant as well, you wouldn't want rain forests to be chopped down for your wood - so why aren't the raw materials of software relevant when considering if you want to use it?
I would stick with HN and live with the downvotes. It also helps to make any criticism polite.
OTOH, one is confronted by corporate interests all day long merely by existing, they're everywhere.
I'm really not sure if I need to see any more of that to get their point.
This place is no exception except it is done under the veneer of being objective (when it rarely is). You can be polite as you like, but if you have an actual dissenting opinion you will be downvoted or even be flagged over nothing.
Please don't do any of that here—it's not what HN is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
That's why you should take care of protecting your identity online.
As for upsides, I see many. If you don't expose yourself to contrary opinions, there can be no development, you basically shut yourself to anything that could be beneficial to you, especially in the long run. I'm very grateful whenever someone makes me realize I made a mistake or didn't see the complete picture, it's priceless.
Yes, sometimes you hit the wall, but it's also important to recognize people have different worldviews and that's one of the things that make life interesting.
In the future, you won't be allowed to be anonymous online. Governments don't like it and sooner or later they won't allow it or make it very difficult to be anonymous.
> As for upsides, I see many. If you don't expose yourself to contrary opinions, there can be no development, you basically shut yourself to anything that could be beneficial to you, especially in the long run. I'm very grateful whenever someone makes me realize I made a mistake or didn't see the complete picture, it's priceless.
I am not talking about intellectual debate which is fine. I am specifically talking about why people end up forming bubbles that don't pay attention to those outside of their group.
What you are saying is fine if you are dealing with honest actors. But I am specifically talking about the times that you aren't. There are mobs, they specifically go after dissenters and they won't stop, they don't get punished (or very rarely there is repercussions) or push back due to this behaviour.
Thus people will go to places that gives them at least pseudo-anonymity and avoid talking to others on the outside because the risk maybe to great for them to simply express a dissenting opinion.
Also some of these dissenting opinions aren't anything normally one would even consider extreme.
I avoid extrapolation because it can be very deceptive. We're talking about this website, now. As it is, it's very easy to have two accounts: one linked to your startup/company/real identity, and another one where you can express your opinions more freely.
Yes, of course there are many people who are aggressive about their views and basically intolerant, but if someone crosses the line they'll be downvoted here too, even if they have leftish/progressive views. Frankly, of many places on today's Internet, HN is one of the nicest to be.
> Yes, of course there are many people who are aggressive about their views and basically intolerant, but if someone crosses the line they'll be downvoted here too, even if they have leftish/progressive views.
The gamification of social interaction creates the intolerant views and all the negative incentives around it. Downvoting / Upvoting is part of that. It is literally the mob deciding whether you have a right to be heard. I rather there were the rules and nothing else.
> Frankly, of many places on today's Internet, HN is one of the nicest to be.
Which is another reason why dissenting opinion is quashed because people self-censor. Sometimes some things have to be said and they have to be said in an unpleasant manner.
It is pretty clear at this point we are just talking past one another though.
That's also a large incentive to consider something else, if people here can censor my content to the point where I even myself cannot read it anymore that's rather...google-esque?
*EDIT*: It somehow is visible again now. Will read it again.
The downvoting and flagging you keep getting is due to fact that you keep breaking the guidelines [1], in particular this paragraph:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
You broke that with your original comment, then posted this submission, which painted yourself as a victim whilst trashing the rest of the community, and now you're painting yourself as a victim again.
I don't think many other communities welcome that kind of behaviour.
As you'll find if you search HN's history (via the input box at the bottom of each page or at this link [2]), there is endless criticism of the major tech platforms here and there is always an appetite for more.
It just has to be thoughtful and stay close to the site's guiding principle, which is of gratifying intellectual curiosity.
Do you upvote or downvote based on agreement, or whether you thought the comment was worth reading, well said, important point, etc? Do you assume others are doing the same, and your vote counts reflect that?
I say votes dont matter; people hit those buttons for many reasons and we'll never know what those reasons were and shouldn't care.
If you felt it was worth saying, good. If you still do, better. If others disagree or not, here on HN; does it actually matter? Does it matter any more if they voted for grammar over content?
Guess a point has been made by that?