Hacker News Reader

Comment by f38zf5vdt | Hacker News Reader

For a while I'd really enjoyed HackerNews for the lack of politics. It was great not to hear about Trump during the Trump presidency, but since then and COVID times I find more and more highly politicized editorials being propelled to the top of the front page.

I'm pretty close to no longer visiting here.

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Yeah, I just tend to avoid political posts and threads altogether. Speaking as a trans woman who doesn’t use Twitter or most other social media, it can feel like I don’t have a voice and I’m just seeing this debate play out. But in a way I’m fine with that. Online it’s like people either hate me because I’m trans or hate others on my behalf because they’re not trans-inclusive enough. My lived experience is nowhere near as extreme. To most of my friends, family and coworkers, I’m the only trans person they know and the topic of gender rarely comes up. Aside from a few friends and family who disowned me early in my transition, I’ve found that people are generally respectful. Strangers can sometimes be mean / scary / creepy and dating isn’t easy (most guys aren’t into trans girls or if they are it’s usually a fetish thing) - so I just try to avoid situations where I’m unsafe or feeling bad vibes.

I know that was a bit off-topic but I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s okay to create distance between you and the things that bring you down. I’ve found so much interesting content through Hacker News and it would be a shame to throw that away just because the politics here don’t always align with my own.

This is normal fluctuation. People have been saying such things since the early years of HN—see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.

There was a great deal of Trump discussion here, too. Such perceptions are prone to sample bias.

I'm not sure why you couldn't simply skip the topics that you don't like, and completely avoid them, regardless of whether the reason for your lack of interest is politics or just that you never owned a ZX Spectrum or whatever.

True, but a counterpoint: One may not like the topic but it may be best to be aware of what the conversation is should one find oneself someday blindsided by some political decision with negative consequences informed by these discussions.

Supporting evidence: I've gotta keep tabs on which places I shouldn't travel to in my own country where I was born and raised because people keep trying to make it illegal to use the bathroom safely [1] after getting scared by conversations such as the ones I've seen in this thread.

[1] - https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legis...

I agree. There also seems to be more right-wing outrage-of-the-day bubbling up here.

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