Ask HN: Does reading Hacker News makes you happy?

Yes, it is like walking into a coffee shop full of smart people and listening to their conversations. It is inspiring in a subtle and constructive way. The mental models acquired over many years of reading HN are extremely helpful in navigating the tech/career landscape.

Ian Anderson of the band Jethro Tull was once asked in an interview with MTV if he watched it. When he said he did, the interviewer was surprised that he liked that kind of music. He looked horrified and said, "I don't watch the news because I like what I see!"

I don't read HN to be happy; I read it to be informed.

It's not about being happy. Life to most hackers is a quest for wisdom or the truth.

HN reminds me of the digital version of the Speech of the Birds by Attar (aka The Conference of the Birds). Attar was the inspiration for Rumi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conference_of_the_Birds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attar_of_Nishapur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi

Yes. I used to be conflicted by the number of times I would check and rescan for new content throughout most days. The f(votes, recency) blending of posts encourages slot-machine behaviour. Once I realized this, I sought out different front-ends and ultimately made one myself[0], initially for consuming while semi-offline during my commutes, and now just use by default.

[0] https://hackerer.news/ [1] https://github.com/git-grep/hackerer-news (I think this is the right repo, there might be a more recent one on Gitlab or elsewhere I don't recall it's been a while)

Yes it does in a way that I cannot describe. Seeing the collective consciousness of thousands of hackers constantly at work makes me feel the world is alive and buzzing. It’s like glancing outside my window (on a skyscraper) looking mixed traffic go by on a super highway.

Most importantly it keeps me informed. I usually try and go through all of /newest everyday (not checking out every link of course!). The discussions are usually very good (except for certain topics that don't even belong here).

So yes, I'd say reading HN me happy.

Not every post or comment, but generally yes.

I'm very happy this place exists.

There was another site I used to hang out on years ago called hackthissite.org.

Sometimes HN reminds me a bit of that, or old chat rooms. I just like hanging out with hackers. Puts me at ease.

It neither makes me happy nor unhappy. I find it interesting and often enlightening.

It starts with being happy, and then turning into a feeling of guilt and despair once you realise that you have spent hours reading the posts, comments and following the links posted by others.

Not really, but I was addicted to Reddit and HN is atleast a better use of my time due to being about tech and other interesting content, and less addicting. So here I am.

I prefer the misery of Slashdot a tad more, but their site is unusable. But yes, the consistent stream of burnout and stress posts make me feel like I’m not the only one going crazy.

Now and again yes. But there are days where it's just time filler content and hero worship.

It sounds like it makes you unhappy. Why is that?

Reading HN enrages me, yet I cannot stop.

No

Yes