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Comment by leanstartupnoob | Hacker News Reader

From my perspective it seems like HN abandoned the mandate of intellectually curious stories and conversations and is instead a place where only non-controversial stories and conversations are encouraged. If people can only talk about things where no one can vociferously disagree then we aren't really being inquisitive and curious, merely eccentric.

Your comment of "discussion here is marginally* more substantive" footnoted that it's not particularly good also seems a bit condescending. Its dismissive to those attempting to engage with these stories in good faith even if a vocal minority are behaving in bad faith. When a dozen stories are popping up and disappearing in a few hours it feels a lot harder to participate in a thoughtful and substantial ways.

I can understand HN is in a rough spot. But on the other hand, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

View on HN

> a place where only non-controversial stories and conversations are encouraged

I've made a list of 23 threads (see the reply below), all from the last month. There are over 13k comments in those threads alone, and it's not a complete list.

It's interesting how claims like "only non-controversial stories" or "no discussion of this sort shall be allowed" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42976817) arise during periods when there's a sharp increase in such threads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978572).

At first that seems counterintuitive (like Jevons' paradox, or Yogi Berra's "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"). But it's not so paradoxical. These aren't factual propositions, they're expressions of a feeling—what people are really saying is not that there is no coverage of these topics, but that they would like more coverage. They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough". Which is fair enough. The community always splits between users who want more and users who feel like it's too much.

Also, it's easy to miss any particular thread or sequence of threads. Even among regular HN readers, there will be many who haven't seen even one of the 23 threads listed below, or who only saw 1 or 2, and therefore might naturally feel like none of this is being discussed. Among those, there will be some who feel strongly about it, and some of these will naturally express their feeling in the way I described above. Nonetheless, in reality there is a large amount of this discussion happening—it is by far the most-discussed topic of recent weeks, and will likely continue to be.

> also seems a bit condescending

Sorry for giving that impression! I often add a disclaimer like that because I don't want to sound like I'm making excessive claims about HN's discussion quality. The most I can say is that median discussion quality here is modestly better than elsewhere on the internet, but at its worst it's still pretty bad. I don't mean to put down HN commenters who are using the site thoughtfully. You have to remember that as moderators we see a lot of stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018472, to pick the most recent example. In fact we must see more of that than any other reader, simply because it's our job to.

Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43004889 - Feb 2025 (937 comments)

Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42981756 - Feb 2025 (1768 comments)

Announcing the data.gov archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42970039 - Feb 2025 (127 comments)

Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (348 comments)

DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42966412 - Feb 2025 (105 comments)

DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 - Feb 2025 (373 comments)

20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950790 - Feb 2025 (547 comments)

What's happening inside the NIH and NSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42940257 - Feb 2025 (1519 comments)

Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 - Feb 2025 (133 comments)

Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 - Feb 2025 (654 comments)

Words flagged in search of current NSF awards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42932760 - Feb 2025 (154 comments)

The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2978 comments)

CDC: Unpublished manuscripts mentioning certain topics must be pulled or revised - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905937 - Feb 2025 (719 comments)

Phyllis Fong, who was investigating Neuralink, "forcefully removed " - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42902355 - Feb 2025 (214 comments)

CDC data are disappearing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897696 - Feb 2025 (589 comments)

The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42895331 - Feb 2025 (270 comments)

NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with executive orders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42886661 - Jan 2025 (488 comments)

Archivists work to save disappearing data.gov datasets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42881367 - Jan 2025 (238 comments)

Trump's Federal Funding Freeze and Mean-Field Game Theory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42863339 - Jan 2025 (89 comments)

Deferred resignation email to federal employees - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42859552 - Jan 2025 (151 comments)

'Never seen anything like this' – NIH meetings and travel halted abruptly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817910 - Jan 2025 (111 comments)

NIH hit with freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42798960 - Jan 2025 (440 comments)

United States Digital Service renamed to DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775684 - Jan 2025 (98 comments)

> They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough".

Hyperbole is worse than that, IMHO. It inflames and serves almost no other purpose.

Imagine someone writes, "politician X is the most corrupt ever". What does that tell us? One bit of information (yes/no on this politician), and that the author has strong emotions about it (maybe 2-4 more bits - are they 4 of 4 angry? 16 of 16?); or very possibly they want to perform strong emotion because that energizes the interaction, draws attention, 'wins' the day, or is an aggressive negotiating position (reducing it to ~1-2 bits); and/or they could do those things reflexively and without a conscious plan, participating in a fun social dynamic that is muscle memory from years on the the Internet (reducing it to ~0-2 bits). Maybe it's just easier.

Whatever it is, what we don't learn - what the hyperbole wipes out - is knowledge and learning. We learn - acquire novel knowledge - little regarding X; what X does black, white, and mostly grey (what shades?); what is corrupt and not corrupt about X; what corruption is, the grey areas, and how that applies here, and of course much more. There are gigabits or maybe terabits to say here, dissertations and books, more than could be said in a lifetime. Another thing we could learn is the author as a person and their feelings, including their anger - how, why, when, what kind, etc. - giga-terabits more. On these vast landscapes of knowledge and emotion, we need each other's perspectives and insights to navigate and see what's valuable.

But all real information and nuance and complexity is washed away by the ultimate, by hyperbole. It's so ___, there is nothing to think about. Just a few bits is all you need.

The volume of threads alone does not tell the full story because the visibility of controversial content is just as important as its existence. Even if thousands of comments exist on topics, the way the platform functions means these stories quickly fall off the front page and limits their influence. HN guidelines also discourage political or activating content, making it less likely that stories about these urgent issues, such as Trump stealing $80 million in FEMA aid from New York, will even be posted.

The destruction of the federal government is a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European people because it directly affects millions of lives in tangible ways. Yes historical curiosities are valuable, but they do not carry the same immediate, material consequences as a government being hollowed out from within.

That's a fair point and it's true that some of the threads I listed fell off the front page quickly, but others were on the front page for 7 hours, 9 hours, 22 hours, 26 hours, and so on.

> a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European because it directly affects millions of lives

For sure. I've made the same point many times over the years. I dug up a sample:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42413334 (Dec 2024)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36885572 (July 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27486354 (June 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25766970 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332076 (May 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22644521 (March 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21152524 (Oct 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16581518 (March 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)

The question isn't whether current events are more important than, say, "making my own basketball hoops" or "3rd century irrigation systems" or "Do spiders dream?" or any of the other obscure things that have spent time on HN's front page. Current events are far more important than these, and indeed almost anything on HN's front page.

But if you're arguing that HN should prioritize stories by importance, then you're arguing that HN should become a current affairs site. That's not the mandate of the site.

If you're not arguing that, then I think we agree in principle, and disagree only about the degree to which the valve for such stories should be open. I get that you think it should be opened further, and many users agree with you; but then, many users feel that it should be tightened further. We have to think about satisfying the whole community (as best we can), not just one constituency; and we have to think about preserving the site for its intended mandate, which could all too easily be washed away by a tsunami of legitimately more important stories.

I'd arguing that HN should take a stand against the unprecedented shift towards authoritarianism. At best be are in a new era of McCarthyism. At worst the entire federal government is going to crumble and be dissolved.

This is not hyperbole!

Trump and Elon have started the first round of firing federal workers. A friend's organization just laid off 1500 people because 80% of their funding comes from the federal government.

Yes, HN is a special place. But your silence allows countless other special places to be destroyed. By the end of Trump's term HN might not even survive anyway.

I hear you and I hear the other users expressing similar feelings, but what you guys need to understand is that the community is split on this, and the larger part does not want the frontpage to be taken over by this (or by anything else, presumably).

The more repetitive these threads get, the lower-quality they become. The most recent ones have been truly terrible, by the standards of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That's another key indicator of which way to adjust the valve. The more people are unable to discuss this topic thoughtfully, the further it drifts from the intended spirit of the site.

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