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Comment by openplatypus | Hacker News Reader

HN is mostly US audience.

EU = bad

US = good

But weren't people here supposed to be intellectually curious, and have the cognitive tools to overcome things like instinctive tribalism?

I think you'll find at least 1/4 of HN comments are indicative of stating things from a place of strong instinctive tribalism, but this crowd are just very slightly better at using words to defend our position in a more noble way.

That's OK, it shows we're human, it's not all AI slop here (yet?).

I guess being smart sometimes doesn’t lead you to have a more accurate opinion, but to develop more sophisticated rhetorical devices to defend your inaccurate opinion?

Oh man, just wait until you see the research on fMRI timing on when decision making vs rationalization parts of the brain engage.

Hint: rationalization tends to be after.

Not to say that it can’t be overridden with training and/or self-reflection/self-skepticism, but first reactions tend to allows follow this pattern.

I'm aware of that, but opinions aren't quick decisions, they form over time, so that might be a different mechanism at work.

Edit: hmm, I suppose voicing your hot take about a news piece is a quick decision though.

Yeah. I’ve been steadily figuring out why the ‘strong, silent type’ used to be 1) so much more common, and 2) hated by a certain type of personality, and 3) might be a better approach than anyone wants to think about.

Intellectually curious doesn't necessarily overrule base human tendencies.

They may be more likely to have the capacity, but no way it's amy kind of guarantee.

That's a curiously limited form of curiosity, if it doesn't even examine the base tendencies of the operating human.

Individual human behaviour is full of little seeming hypocrisies and counter intuitiveness when looked at from the outside. There's usually some explanation that makes sense to the individual themselves or a blind spot they're in denial about or don't realise they have.

A lot of human behaviour is learned and becomes habitualised rather than logically thought through. Habits are sub-conscious and therefore logic doesn't (as) often get applied.

I’d refer you back to the statement of a primarily US based audience.

In my subjective opinion, when it comes to Apple specifically, all kinds of unpaid labor will emerge from the ether to defend them on anonymous or pseudonymous message boards.

"Intellectually curious" on hn is either the soft glove on the fist of moderation or a thought terminating mallet against opposing views.

Seems to depend on time of day

timezones probably, EU is more likely to be on HN at different times to US

This is certainly the case. I have noticed this in voting patterns as well. I often comment strongly in favor of EU regulations (I believe capitalism is fairer and benefits consumers more with stronger regulations). During times the US is asleep such comments often get a lot of upvotes. During times where EU and the US are up, there seems to be much more contention in the voting, with votes swinging up and down a lot.

By the way, I don't think this is a good way of voting. IMO comments should be upvoted if they provide good insights (even if you disagree with them) and downvoted when they are low-content/trolling/full of fallacies.

I have noticed this trend, too.

I regularly have posts that go from say +10 in the evening to -5 in the morning (I post from the EU). I mostly agree with your observations. That said,

> IMO comments should be upvoted if they provide good insights (even if you disagree with them) and downvoted when they are low-content/trolling/full of fallacies.

Votes are not a popularity contest. Only you see your score, and it does not matter one bit whether you have 2 or 20 upvotes on a post. Even moderate negative scores don’t matter. The grey threshold is more important, and you have to post something quite bad to end up there. I think I read a good post that was dead once.

The system is working and the end result is what you want. Sure, it could be better, but we are never going to get a perfect implementation because humans are social animals, and not always very rational.

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