Hacker News Reader

Comment by peakaboo | Hacker News Reader

HN never has two sides on important topics such as vaccines and science. It also used to be extreamly unaware of Googles role in controlling and censoring the entire Internet but that has changed in the last few years and there is hope of awareness here.

I just find it quite narrow minded in the other topics and very much in the "don't question science" camp.

View on HN

I’ve yet to meet a single person that wasn’t into some weird pseudoscience or just full of hubris that likes to categorize a philosophy of “listen to the experts, look at the literature not isolated studies” as “don’t question science.”

I listen to experts, just the ones arguing that the vaccines are dangerous.

Since when were we not allowed to listen to the experts we think make sense to us? I feel like social media has polarized us so much we can't even talk to eachother anymore if we don't listen to the same experts.

You listen to only one side of the expert argument, that’s an issue. Let’s switch the topic to climate change, would anyone on HN give weight to the 1% of ‘experts’ that deny climate change? No of course not because the consensus of reasonable experts is that climate change is here. Consensus of scientific thought is how we filter for what is true to the best of our knowledge.

>would anyone on HN give weight to the 1% of ‘experts’ that deny climate change?

Yes. Name any consensus opinion and at least one contrarian will show up to denounce it. Just look at COVID - every single thread about it is packed with anti-vaxxers and skeptics.

HN is still a decent news aggregator as long as you turn on "showdead" and browse through new submissions a bit. Upvoted stories and comments are more often one-sided, but there is lots of diversity in what gets submitted, and even discussed at the margins, including some crazy stuff but also some interesting stuff you definitely would not find discussed in mainstream news.

Ah, the 2 sides.. the rational side, and the conspiracy-riddled side.

Of course both sides believe they're the rational one, and the other side is the nutjob wacko one.. and both believe they're right.

I personally would argue that the HN community does a good job at applying the scientific method and question unsupported conclusions.

I don't think it's about believing which side is right. Many subjective topics aren't popular on HN because there's no way to reach a census. I have also noticed that most comments don't engage with exaggerated and flame bait language. People are generally listened to and responded to respectfully. There's going to be exceptions, but I see less troll type comments on HN and that's why I respect it as a source.

The "nutjob wacko" opinions are respectfully heard and then respectfully torn apart.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com