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Comment by kerkeslager | Hacker News Reader

So the example here is a feature that refuses to play Nickelback, and the argument for this "unprofessional" feature is that it's "human".

I don't care that it's "unprofessional"--I don't care about being unprofessional at all. I care about doing what's right and kind. And... this isn't kind, I think. It's just ganging up on Nickelback and their fans with everyone else in 2013 when this was written. I guess you could say this is human, but it's an example of human's worse impulses to bully, albeit a minor one, and it's not one I would want to lean into.

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I think your comment is a great example of a ruthless and cuthtroat nature that we're seeing with "insensitivity pushed policies". To call something unkind when making an option to refuse to play nickleback is absurd and an overrecation.

Contextually (for those who didn't suffer through the Nickleback age) Nickleback was a highly overplayed ban that produced similarly sounding songs with very weak albums with "one hit wonders". It spawned it's own genre called Butt Rock. It's a sign of a monopoly held by the music industry to influence what you heard and how much you heard it on the radio.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Butt%20Rock

The way I see it is that the feature is a confirming nod to the users' sense of humor and it gives an application a bit of personality. We used to have easter eggs, boss modes, and suprises in applications. (I think excel had a full on game built in)

Now it's all about a commoditize labor pushing code out to deliever underdeveloped features on an unreasonable timeline.

> To call something unkind when making an option to refuse to play nickleback is absurd and an overrecation.

I don't agree, especially considering that the option was enabled by default.

Taste is something that's often dear to a person, and telling someone they have bad taste is rude.

I've been trying over time to stop saying "this sucks" and instead say "I'm not a fan of this", when talking about pretty much anything subjective that's a matter of taste: music, TV, movies, art, food, architecture, etc. It's a way to recognize that I'm not the absolute arbiter of taste, and that what I like and don't like doesn't represent any sort of absolute positive or negative about anything.

> The way I see it is that the feature is a confirming nod to the users' sense of humor and it gives an application a bit of personality.

No, it's a nod to the developer's sense of humor. Regardless of Nickelback's provenance and their style of music (I was not a fan of them back then, but, again, I'm not the arbiter of what is good and bad, and neither are you), there were some people who did genuinely like them. Shitting on those people (especially when you're selling a product!) is just tacky and rude.

> We used to have easter eggs, boss modes, and suprises in applications. (I think excel had a full on game built in)

Yes, and, by and large, those things are positive, joyful things. They weren't dissing a particular type of person who likes a particular type of $THING or $ACTIVITY. And when they were, they tended to fall flat, like this music app's unkind option.

I agree that there are unfortunately fewer easter eggs out there now, but I don't think that has anything to do with whether or not this particular feature is a good or bad easter egg.

I'll close with:

> I think your comment is a great example of a ruthless and cuthtroat nature that we're seeing with "insensitivity pushed policies". To call something unkind when making an option to refuse to play nickleback is absurd and an overrecation.

Maybe look in the mirror a for a bit; calling the GP's comment "ruthless and cutthroat" is the real absurd overreaction here.

As an aside to changing your wording so slightly, everyone with two fingers of forehead will very quickly determine that whenever you say "this sucks" it's your biased personal opinion. Maybe such a strong statement from you will cause some people not to mention that they actually like X but, functionally, they will just ignore your opinion on this topic and move on.

If someone goes out of their way to say Nickelback sucks, sure, obviously that's their biased personal opinion. But the bias that leads to saying Nickelback sucks is going to show up in all sorts of other areas and cause much worse problems.

If you hate Nickelback because it's popular to hate Nickelback, I have to wonder what other things do you hate because it's popular to hate them?

(cause much worse problems) Like what, making Chad Kuger make more IG reels where he's annoyed by still touring and people who don't go shitting on the band?

No, like hating a child[1]. Or like hating furries. Or trans people. Or black people. Or any other people it's popular to hate, even though there's no good reason to hate them. And that's setting aside more nuanced discussions which you've already demonstrated yourself incapable of having, because your hatred is more important to you than basic reasoning.

One effect of your Nickelback hate which affects you personally, is that whenever Nickelback comes up, you make yourself less likeable than Nickelback to most listeners whenever you talk about them. I think less of you for holding this opinion, and I'm not the only one.

Your hatred is indefensible. Why even form an opinion on this? It literally only makes things worse for everyone, especially for you. I mean, I don't particularly care for Nickelback myself, so I do what any sane person does when they don't care for a band: I don't think about them. I probably haven't thought of Nickelback in 5 years before this conversation. Right now I'm actually a little curious and might go listen to them since I literally don't remember what they sound like.

[1] Remember Rebecca Black?

I think it's a stretch to go from "someone hates Nickelback" to "therefore they probably are transphobic or racist". Especially since "hate" in this instance is an exaggeration used for effect. It's highly unlikely that their "hatred" of Nickelback has any meaningful similarity to a racist's hatred of black people.

I'm not saying that everyone who hates Nickelback is a racist or transphobic.

I'm saying that the same thinking (or lack thereof) which causes people to pile onto hating Nickelback is the one that causes people to be racist or transphobic.

Not thinking for yourself means that you'll hate what the people around you hate. If the people around you are left-leaning, you probably won't hate black or trans people. But, there's definitely some irrational hate going around in left-leaning communities.

Probably the greatest correlation I'd point out is between hating Nickelback and hating Rebecca Black--because if you're getting your opinions on who to hate from internet culture, internet culture was going to tell you to hate both those people. And here's the problem: unlike Nickelback, when Rebecca Black started getting hated on the internet she was 14. Blogs and news sources written by adults were piling onto hating a child. Anyone with a shred of empathy who thought for themselves at all, imagined what it was like to be Rebecca Black in 2011 and was horrified by people's behavior.

> Taste is something that's often dear to a person, and telling someone they have bad taste is rude.

The perception of rude is in the eye of the beholder.(Within context of course)

I could see a much better argument here if this was for a specific small struggling artist. But we're not, we're talking about a multi-platinum RIAA over promoted band.

> I've been trying over time to stop saying "this sucks" and instead say "I'm not a fan of this", when talking about pretty much anything subjective that's a matter of taste: music, TV, movies, art, food, architecture, etc. It's a way to recognize that I'm not the absolute arbiter of taste, and that what I like and don't like doesn't represent any sort of absolute positive or negative about anything.

Congrats. I think it is great that you're self acknowledging and modifying your own behavior. However, your decision not to put in a harsh description of your opinion "this sucks" comes off as an insecurity rather than an improvement. You're softing your language over fear of perception. It's not adding anything to the conversation.

Tell me that Scala sucks... I won't take offense. Telling me it sucks tells me you've had experience here and there were things that you really didn't like. This leads me to ask "why? what happened?"

Tell me that you're not a fan of scala... this comes of as a thing that you didn't even try here. You don't even have an emotional response enough to indicate that you had any investment into it.

> not the arbiter of what is good and bad,

Yea you are. Your decisions, your preferences, your experiences shape that. You're not what many would be considered to be a trusted arbiter.

-----

Where I was going with the easter egg and ruthless/cutthroat commentary: What I'm talking about is that we're seeing applications that are extremely ridged, minimally featured only for their value on the market, and we're seeing an elimination of the individual who created them. Saying that a "ban nickleback option" is unkind is promoting the idea that the creator should not be perceived as unkind.

> However, your decision not to put in a harsh description of your opinion "this sucks" comes off as an insecurity rather than an improvement. You're softing your language over fear of perception. It's not adding anything to the conversation.

Your decision to hate Nickelback comes across as insecurity, trying to have "right" opinions by piling onto the same opinion as a bunch of people on the internet. Posturing that you don't care about other people's opinions fools no one, because a) your entire hatred of Nickelback is other people's opinions that you adopted, b) you're here trying to change people's opinions, and c) you should care about other people's opinions; you can't please everyone but other people's opinions do affect you, and staying likable when it's absurdly simple to do so, is worth doing.

And hating Nickelback is not adding anything to the conversation.

That assumes that the person actually hates Nickelback. Personally, I actually like Nickelback and I would find the option funny. That is to say, I think it's more likely that the inclusion of the option was a joke rather than an actual hatred of Nicelback.

In the original app, sure, it's probably just a joke.

The person I'm responding to, however, pretty clearly actually hates Nickelback.

1. You don't know me at all if you think I'm pushing "insensitivity pushed policies". I'm not pushing "policies" at all, I'm encouraging people to be kind and to use their brains to figure out what "kind" is, instead of piling onto hating something.

2. You drastically overestimated the tone of my post if you think it's "ruthless and cutthroat". I don't think it's kind to ridicule a band or it's fans, but it's not that big a deal. Remember where I said, "albeit a minor one"?

If hating something as bland as Nickelback is the hill you choose to die on, I dunno man, maybe pick better battles?

> Contextually (for those who didn't suffer through the Nickleback age) Nickleback was a highly overplayed ban that produced similarly sounding songs with very weak albums with "one hit wonders". It spawned it's own genre called Butt Rock. It's a sign of a monopoly held by the music industry to influence what you heard and how much you heard it on the radio.

Eh, I wouldn't say I like Nickelback; their music bores me a bit. But a) they're people, and b) people are allowed to like what they like.

> The way I see it is that the feature is a confirming nod to the users' sense of humor and it gives an application a bit of personality. We used to have easter eggs, boss modes, and suprises in applications. (I think excel had a full on game built in)

Yeah, and those things are pretty different from a mean-spirited joke at someone else's expense.

> Now it's all about a commoditize labor pushing code out to deliever underdeveloped features on an unreasonable timeline.

Bro, look at my comment history. I'm definitely not about commoditizing labor. :D

Right. A lot of things you do that are huuuman are “unprofessional” because they are inappropriate in a “professional” setting even though they are kind gestures. Like kissing someone.

But some have the attitude that “if you are not pissing some people off you are not expressing yourself”. Which is kind of different.

I’m just struggling to see the harm. I used to like Nickelback. Their music was loud and catchy. At worst I might be confused why my song wasn’t playing and turn off the toggle but it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.

> I care about doing what's right and kind

This might be controversial but I don’t think the optimal amount of unkindness is zero. Teasing has its place, in the right context. It keeps things interesting. A Nickelback toggle isn’t bullying in my mind, it’s just a playful departure from “someone’s got a case of the Mondays” sunshine and rainbows hell.

Now please get off my lawn.

Yeah, like I said, it's a pretty minor harm. I tend to think that the greatest harm people do by hating something for no reason, is to themselves.

One thing I'll mention though, is that there are a lot of kids out there who might like Nickelback, who don't have the same emotional framework as an adult for dealing with this sort of thing.

Couldn't agree more. The kind of "unprofessionalism" that brings us easter eggs and silly features should come from a place of positivity and joy, not from a place of negativity and unkindness to others.

I wouldn't add a feature like this simply because it's not nice to mock people, regardless of what I think about the music they like.

"Kind" is at best a context-dependent virtue. There are plenty of situations where being critical or divisive is the right thing.

And even when the harshness doesn't come from the best place, we still need it to some extent or we become fragile and blind to our own flaws.

> "Kind" is at best a context-dependent virtue. There are plenty of situations where being critical or divisive is the right thing.

Obviously.

Is hating Nickelback one of those situations?

> And even when the harshness doesn't come from the best place, we still need it to some extent or we become fragile and blind to our own flaws.

That's a fairly nuance-less view of kindness. Criticism, in the right context, is kind--it's not kindness to let problems stagnate when they can be fixed. For example, that is why I decided to criticize the author of this blog post.

But hating Nickelback, especially when it's just dogpiling onto a frankly boring meme, isn't trying to fix any flaw or problem. It's just being a dick in a way that it's popular to be a dick, because you can't be arsed to think for yourself about your own actions.

There's no 11th commandment to be nice.

Look, if you didn't find it funny, you're right. But those people who found it funny were also right. Humor is a matter of taste.

> It's just being a dick in a way that it's popular to be a dick, because you can't be arsed to think for yourself about your own actions.

Maybe, or maybe people think it's funny and based on relevant criticism of the band's musical range and the music industry overall.

> Criticism, in the right context, is kind--it's not kindness to let problems stagnate when they can be fixed.

There's no use in this conversation if you are just going to equivocate between "kind" and "good". Kindness, as I understand it, usually implies some sort of consideration for the feelings of other people, which is manifestly not always the right thing.

> There's no 11th commandment to be nice.

And there is a commandment not to covet your neighbor's slaves, so maybe the 10 commandments aren't a great example of morality.

> Look, if you didn't find it funny, you're right. But those people who found it funny were also right. Humor is a matter of taste.

Eh, I can see how it's a little funny. I just don't really support humor at other people's expense.

> > Criticism, in the right context, is kind--it's not kindness to let problems stagnate when they can be fixed.

> There's no use in this conversation if you are just going to equivocate between "kind" and "good". Kindness, as I understand it, usually implies some sort of consideration for the feelings of other people, which is manifestly not always the right thing.

I'm not equivocating between "kind" and "good".

Going with your definition of kind: sometimes, when you consider the feelings of others, you realize that them feeling bad in the short term because you tell them a hard-to-hear criticism, allows them to fix a problem and feel better in the long term.

I don't think it's necessarily "bullying", but if you want to include humor in your product, it should be original or at least funny. Ragging on nickelback was a hack joke then as it is now. Porkbun is a great example of a company doing humor well.

Look at it like this. If there is an option in some big app to refuse to play songs by your band (clearly requested way too often) one way or another your band is clearly king. It's a kudos in disguise

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