For instance, in a lot of threads on some new technology or idea, one of the top comments is "I'm amazed by the negativity here on HN. This is a cool <thing> and even though it's not perfect we should appreciate the effort the author has put in" - where the other toplevel comments are legitimate technical criticism (usually in a polite manner, no less).
I've seen this same comment, in various flavors, at the top of dozens of HN thread in the past couple of years.
Some of these people are being genuine, but others are literally just engaging in amigdala-hijacking because they want to shut down criticism of something they like, and that contributes to the "everything that isn't gushing positivity is negative" effect that you're seeing.
The funny thing about this here audience is that it is made up of the kinds of folks you would see in all those cringey OpenAI videos. I.e. the sort of person who can do this whole technical criticism all day long but wouldn't be able to identify the correct emotional response if it hit them over the head. And that's what we're all here for - to talk shop.
Thing is - we don't actually influence others' thinking with the right emotional language just by leaving an entry behind on HN. We're not engaging in "amigdala-hijacking" to "shut down criticism" when we respond to a comment. There is a bunch of repetitive online cliché's in play here, but it would be a stretch to say that there are these amigdala-hijackers. Intentionally steering the thread and redefining what negativity is.
People aren't being aggressive enough about their downvotes and flags, methinks.
- "you should reevaluate your experience level and seniority."
- "Sounds more like "Expert Hobbyist" than "Expert Programmer"."
- "Go is hardly a replacement with its weaker type system."
- "Wouldn’t want to have to pay attention ;-)"
- "I'm surprised how devs are afraid to look behind the curtain of a library"
- "I know the author is making shit up"
- "popular with the wannabes"
Hacker News comments are absolutely riddled with this kind of empty put-down that isn't worth the diskspace it's saved on let alone the combined hours of reader-lifetime wasted reading it; is it so bad to have a reminder that there's more to a discussion than shitting on things and people?
> "legitimate technical criticism"
So what? One can make correct criticism of anything. Just because you can think of a criticism doesn't make it useful, relevant, meaningful, interesting, or valuable. Some criticism might be, but not because it is criticism and accurate.
> "they can undermine others' thinking skills"
Are you seriously arguing that not posting a flood of every legitimate criticism means the reader's thinking skills must have been undermined? That the only time it's reasonable to be positive, optimistic, enthusiastic, or supportive, is for something which is literally perfect?
Amigdala-hijacking, emotional manipulation, and categorical dismissiveness of others' criticisms are clearly not good.
> Look at this Nim thread
Yes, I'm looking at it, and I'm seeing a lot of good criticism (including the second-to-top comment[1], some of which is out of love for the language.
You cherry-picked a tiny subset of comments that are negative, over half of which aren't even about the topic of the post - which means that they're completely unrelated to my comment, and you either put them there because you didn't read my comment carefully before replying to it, or you intentionally put them there to try to dishonestly bolster your argument.
As an example of the effect I'm referring to, this recent thread on STG[2], the top comment of which starts with "Lots of bad takes in this thread" as a way of dismissing every single valid criticism in the rest of the submission.
> is it so bad to have a reminder that there's more to a discussion than shitting on things and people?
This is a dishonest portrayal of what's going on, which is that, instead of downvoting and flagging those empty put-downs, or responding to specific bad comments, malicious users post a sneering, value-less, emotionally manipulative comment at the toplevel of a submission that vaguely gestures to "negative" comments in the rest of the thread, that dismisses every legitimate criticism along with all of the bad ones. This is "sneering", and it's against the HN guidelines, as well as dishonest and value-less.
> So what? One can make correct criticism of anything. Just because you can think of a criticism doesn't make it useful, relevant, meaningful, interesting, or valuable. Some criticism might be, but not because it is criticism and accurate.
I never claimed that all criticism is "useful, relevant, meaningful, interesting, or valuable". Don't put words in my mouth.
> Are you seriously arguing that not posting a flood of every legitimate criticism means the reader's thinking skills must have been undermined? That the only time it's reasonable to be positive, optimistic, enthusiastic, or supportive, is for something which is literally perfect?
I never claimed this either.
It appears that, given the repeated misinterpretations of my points, and the malicious technique of trying to pretend that I made claims that I didn't, you're one of those dishonest people that resorts to emotional manipulation to try to get their way, because they know they can't actually make a coherent argument for it.
Ironic (or, perhaps not?) that someone defending emotional manipulation and dishonesty resorts to it themselves.
The sub-clause "you're one of those dishonest people that resorts to emotional manipulation to try to get their way" alone laden with emotionally manipulative affect that this reads like a self-referential example.
"You're one of those" is a phrase often, and certainly in this case, used for the purposes of othering.
"dishonest people" speaks for itself.
"resorts to emotional manipulation to try to get their way" assumes bad faith on behalf of somebody you barely know.
There's a lot I agree with on in your post, but the irony doesn't exactly stop with jodrellblank.
You stating that again doesn't make it more supported, or more clear. There's nothing automatically unbiased and unmanipulative about criticism, and there's nothing automatically justified and useful about criticism. Opening a thread where there's all criticism is (or can be) just as manipulative as a thread where there's a lot of enthusiasm. The typical geek internet response is to claim that being critical is somehow meritocratic, unbiased, real, but it isn't inherently that.
> "over half of which aren't even about the topic of the post ... you intentionally put them there to try to dishonestly bolster your argument"
I know, right?! I have to skim read and filter out piles of irrelevant miserable put-down dismissive low-thought low-effort dross and it often isn't even about the topic of the post! I intentionally put them there to try and honestly bolster my argument that opening a thread full of cynicism has a manipulative effect on the reader's emotional state and to counter your implied claim that enthusiasm is manipulative and criticism isn't.
> "the top comment of which starts with "Lots of bad takes in this thread" as a way of dismissing every single valid criticism in the rest of the submission."
But they explicitly dismiss the bad takes and not every single take? For someone who is complaining that I am putting words in your mouth and you hate it, you are putting words in their mouth which go directly against what they said. e.g. there are some takes complaining that the article is 'compelling people to work for no money' and that comment says the regulation would be met by a clear expiry date for the game on the store. The company is willing to fund it for some time before they cut their losses, and this asks them to tell the customer what that time is. That critical comment starts "I think a legal remedy here won't work." because the only legal remedy they bothered to think about is compelling people to work for free. It doesn't comment on the proposals put to governments in the article, or the movement, or even expand on much detail why they think a legal remedy can't work. But it still contributes to the miasma of "don't try things, everything's shit, don't even bother, nothing can work, nothing is worth doing, don't you know there was a flaw once, somewhere, something was tried and didn't work" which absolutely is emotionally manipulative when read in bulk.
> "I never claimed that all criticism is "useful, relevant, meaningful, interesting, or valuable". Don't put words in my mouth."
You argued that point. You said "they want to shut down criticism of something they like" as if that's a bad thing which should not be happening. If you argue that, then you think criticism has some inherent value. I say it doesn't have inherent value; there area vastly more options to criticise a thing than to praise a thing, so people who choose criticism are more likely pulling from a big pool of low effort cached thoughts, than a small pool of high effort (positive or critical) thoughts, so a critical comment is more likely a bad comment than a good comment. Dismissing a whole lot of critical comments in one go is therefore a reasonable response.
> "I never claimed this either."
OK let's go with, you said: "undermines people's critical thinking skills" and I say "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". Reading a comment which says "lots of bad takes here" does not undermine people's critical thinking skills.
My claim is more that reading a dozen comments "this library had a bug!" "this maintainer was rude to me!" "The documentation is way out of date" "I know someone who tried this in 1982 and found it was impossible" really does kill a reader's interest in looking deeper into a thing, and such criticisms are both factually correct and low effort, low value, and quite reasonable to be dismissed in bulk without "responding to specific bad comments" particularly because the ratio of possible criticisms to possible praise is something approaching infinity-to-one. (even if a thing is absolutely perfect, people can criticise it for being the wrong thing, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, by the wrong person, etc.).
> "you're one of those dishonest people that resorts to emotional manipulation to try to get their way, because they know they can't actually make a coherent argument for it."
I've made a pretty coherent argument:
- most critical comments on a HN thread are not worth reading.
- They have a detrimental effect on the topic and reader.
- Therefore there are far too many of them.
- It's justified to dismiss them in bulk, because the space of possible critical/engaging comments means the work to respond to every bad take is far too much, and the people who make low effort bad takes do not respond well to replying individually.
- You have not offered any support for your claim that reading a dismissive/positive comment "undermines critical thinking skills".
I neither claimed nor implied either of those things, and it's pretty clear that my argument rests on neither.
> I have to skim read and filter out piles of irrelevant miserable put-down dismissive low-thought low-effort dross and it often isn't even about the topic of the post!
So, you conceded that you put "evidence" in your original comment that was completely irrelevant to my points, and are trying to divert the argument.
> opening a thread full of cynicism has a manipulative effect on the reader's emotional state
This is false, and completely nonsensical. A bunch of comments from different, uncoordinated entities literally cannot be "manipulative" according to the literal dictionary definition of the word, which requires intention, which literally cannot happen with a bunch of random unassociated strangers:
"A manipulative person tries to control people to their advantage" "tending to influence or control someone or something to your advantage, often without anyone knowing it"[1]
This is you misusing language to try to bolster your point.
> counter your implied claim that enthusiasm is manipulative and criticism isn't
There is zero implication of that anywhere in my comment. That's the third time you've dishonestly put words in my mouth.
> But they explicitly dismiss the bad takes and not every single take?
Yet again, factually false, and extremely dishonest. You know very well that there's no way to tell which takes they considered to be "bad" and so that this is a general dismissal of criticism they disagree with.
> You said "they want to shut down criticism of something they like" as if that's a bad thing which should not be happening.
With the context of my original comment, which is specifically the case of the emotionally manipulative "The negativity here is amazing" type - yes, that's obviously a bad thing, because it's being done in a manipulative way that doesn't address the problems of the critical comment.
> You argued that point. [...] If you argue that, then you think criticism has some inherent value.
No, it very obviously does not. That's a very bad reading comprehension and/or logical thinking failure, and the fourth time you've put words in my mouth.
It's pretty embarrassing that I have to spell this out in so much detail, but because you repeatedly misinterpret my words and maliciously put words in my mouth, here we go: I believe that some criticism has value and some does not. The kind of "wow why is everyone so negative" categorical dismissal both dismisses valueless criticism (which is fine, in isolation) and dismisses valid criticism, which is malicious and bad. I never once said that criticism has inherent value, nor did I imply it, nor does any part of my argument rest upon that point.
> there area vastly more options to criticise a thing than to praise a thing, so people who choose criticism are more likely pulling from a big pool of low effort cached thoughts, than a small pool of high effort (positive or critical) thoughts, so a critical comment is more likely a bad comment than a good comment. Dismissing a whole lot of critical comments in one go is therefore a reasonable response.
This is an extremely bad argument. Humans are not statistical models. Thoughts are not a mathematical space that you randomly sample from. Dismissing someone's argument via emotional manipulation is evil. Categorically dismissing a bunch of comments via emotional manipulation when you have the full capability to assess the bad ones individually (via downvoting, flagging, or responding) is also evil and indicates that you are a person who either fundamentally does not have the ability to think rationally, or is malicious enough that they employ this technique anyway because they're trying to manipulate others.
> OK let's go with, you said: "undermines people's critical thinking skills" and I say "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"
This is dishonest rhetorical reframing. If you write an emotionally manipulative comment that doesn't make a logical argument but uses charged language to undermine a position without actually addressing its points logically, that subverts someone's logical thinking capability by pressuring them to respond emotionally, because by definition it's a manipulative statement. That is tautologically true and needs zero evidence.
> particularly because the ratio of possible criticisms to possible praise is something approaching infinity-to-one
And, as we previously discussed, this is a meaningless statement that has no basis in reality because statements are not mathematical sets. And, even if they were, this is a claim for which the statement "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" applies. I'm looking forward to your proof that the measure of criticisms in the set of statements is greater than the measure of the set of praise.
> most critical comments on a HN thread are not worth reading
This is also a "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" case. And, here, it turns out that it's fairly easy to gather evidence against it - for instance, the first five critical comments on that Nim thread (44938094, 44939336, 44939757, 44939770, and 44941418) are all worth reading and not zero-value. I'm looking forward to you finding every single critical comment in that thread and labeling them as worth reading or not to support your very bold claim.
And, of course, that undermines your entire argument at the end - not that the other inferences were valid anyway:
> It's justified to dismiss them in bulk, because the space of possible critical/engaging comments means the work to respond to every bad take is far too much
Nobody said you had to respond to those critical comments individually - there are flag and downvote buttons, you know. And even if there weren't - emotionally undermining someone's logical point is evil, so this still is not justified, unless there are zero valid criticisms made in the entire thread (and you somehow have the clairvoyance to know that none will be posted after you make your comment). The ends do not justify the means.
Your entire response was full of logical fallacies, dishonest manipulation and reframing, failure to read and/or understand my points, and repeated lying and trying to claim I said or meant something that I never did (four times now).
I don't think it's possible to argue logically with you, so this is now no longer about changing your mind, and more about countering your invalid claims so that other HN readers won't be deceived.
And, given the voting on our respective comments, I think that I've done a pretty good job so far.
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/manipula...
> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
All of these apply to both value-less critical comments (which I'm not defending), and to undermining valuable critical comments - therefore, "wow why is everyone so negative" posts are literally directly against the guidelines and have no place here.
And I'm not defending people being genuinely mean-spirited or just dunking on people's projects, either - I downvote and flag that stuff because it doesn't belong either.
Why should we? I don't want people to be more positive here, I want people to find more holes and argue more, why should I appreciate effort to change the site to something I don't want it to be?
The HN guidelines are pretty clear that "gushing praise" and "making HN a more positive space" is not what HN is for. Have you read them?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
"Gushing praise" is the opposite of intellectual curiosity - it's anti-intellectual. That kind of thing is categorically inappropriate for HN. It doesn't belong here, and comments that try to advance it also don't belong here.
It's also pretty clear that treating everything with gushing praise is an incredibly bad idea. If someone expressed a repulsive opinion like "maybe we should segregate people based on race", then you wouldn't try to "make HN a more positive space" by accepting that sentiment, would you? Along another axis, if someone is trying to learn a skill or create something new, and they're doing a very bad job of it, then unconditional positivity hurts them by making them think that what's bad is good, and actively inhibiting them from improving. But that's pretty close to what you're advocating for, given what I wrote in the comment that you are responding to.
Notice also that I'm not advocating for people to be mean-spirited or thoughtlessly critical on HN, either. You should read my comment more carefully to try to determine what I'm actually saying before you respond.
Not sure if part of a broader trend, or a simply reflection of it, but when mentoring/coaching middle and high school aged kids, I’m finding they struggle to accept feedback in anyway other than “I failed.” A few years back, the same age group was more likely to accept and view feedback as an opportunity so long as you led with praising strengths. Now it’s like threading a needle every time.
I get it to some extent, a lot of people looking to inject doubt and their own ideas show up with some sort of Socratic method that really is meant to drive the conversation to a specific point, not honest.
But it also means actually honest questions are often voted or shouted down.
It seems like the methodology of discussion on the internet now only allows for everyone to show up with very concrete opinions and your opinion will then be judged. No opinion or honest questions... citizens of the internet assume the worst if you're anything but in lock step with them.
I think many people are looking for context before diving into a conversation, I think that's a human thing. It can be a waste of time / disappointing to engage in a conversation and find the other person is really not participating and is there to drive the conversation to their point.
check my recent submission, the vitriol it received, and read this
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/youll-never-gue...
And I agree with jakeydus: I'm not seeing anything I could call "vitriol" in the top-level comments. I do, however, see people resent having their way of life (and of making a living) called into question. The one particularly snide top-level comment I saw was agreeing with you.
If YES, why do you think Meta is a normal company, with regular "contradictions", and why do you frame as ideological someone who just reminds people of what Meta and Zuckerberg do? If NO, how exactly do you justify your answer that negates what we know for a fact, and/or how do you justify Meta's behavior?
Yes.
From Wikipedia:
> An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge,
You are passing judgment and using emotionally charged words (such as "weaponizing", which also implies intent and motivations not in evidence) to make a point about what you consider moral. And you use your judgement to set up a completely false dichotomy with incoherent terms (I have absolutely no idea what you think the phrase "normal company" means here), while completely ignoring my point.
That is ideology.
My opinion of Meta as a company is not relevant to anything I have said so far.
It does not matter whether you are right or wrong about any of this.
My objection is to your rhetorical style, and to the placement of your arguments in an inappropriate forum. These objections do not require that I agree or disagree with you about anything at all. I am not interested in debating morality with you. That is the point.
As far as I can tell, you did not even stop to question whether I work for Meta in the first place. (I do not.)
I am tossing the ball off the field because this field is intended for a different sport entirely, and there is already a game in progress.
Many people will argue that they do good at Meta, and that they strive to do good. Their results probably are good too - meta is vast so statistically you will find good work and good outcomes.
Those people are already painted as evil, so why would they engage with the question ? Even if you are genuine and earnest?
I have seen people on HN publicly state that they flag anything they don't agree with, regardless of merit.
I guess they use it like some kind of super-down button.
* Commercial influence on computing has proven to be so problematic one wonders if the entire stack is a net negative, it shouldn’t even be a question.
All of the anti-big-tech comments I've ever seen that are flagged are flagged because they blatantly break the guidelines and/or are contentless and don't contribute in any meaningful sense aside from trying to incite outrage.
And those should be flagged.
I explicitly enable flagged and dead because sometimes there are nuggets in there which provide interesting context to what people think.
I will never flag anything. I dont get it.
Disappearing OT/ads/extreme ad hominems is a positive thing imo.
I vouch for things that I disagree with if they make good points. I have flagged things.
IMO the worst thing pg ever did for this site is to say that downvoting could be used for disagreement. I still bemoan the removal of downvote scores, and still wish for Slashdot-style voting, meta-moderation, and personalition of content scores.
They show up in the HN Active section quite regularly.
And virtually anything even remotely related to Twitter or most Elon Musk-related companies almost instantly get the hook.
And most people here seem to think that's fine; but it's not in line with what I understood when I read the guidelines, and it absolutely strikes me as negativity.
So the emotional process which results in the knee-jerk reactions to even the slightest and most valid critiques of AI (and the value structure underpinning Silicon Valley's pursuit of AGI) comes from the same place that religous nuts come from when they perceive an infringement upon their own agenda (Christianity, Islam, pick your flavor -- the reactivity is the same).
Yes, absolutely, we're shaped by everything we do, every interaction we have and every behavioral pattern we repeat over time. I don't think that's a controversial idea in the slightest. The extent of this is going to vary from person to person and probably depend on what proportion of time you spend interacting with bots vs well-adjusted humans and the younger people are, the stronger the effect will be, generally speaking.
As a tiny micro example, I think Reddit's /r/myBoyfriendisAI is an early glimpse into something that's going to become far, far more common with time. One person talking to ChatGPT and reaching a state where they receive and accept a marriage proposal is a novelty. 100,000 people doing the same is something quite different.
Also like religious ideologies there’s a lack of critical thinking and an inverse of applicability. The last one has been in my mind for a few months now.
Back in the old days I’d start with a problem and find a solution to it. Now we start with a solution and try and create a problem that needs to be solved.
There a religious parallel to that but I’ve probably pissed off enough people now and don’t want to get nailed to a tree for my writings.
AI seems to be a attempt to go beyond Jane Jacobs', to go beyond systems of survival (commerce vs values) as vehicles of passion & meaning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival
It's made more headway than scientism because it at least tries to synthesize from both precursor systems, especially organized religion. Optimistically, I see it as a test case for a more wholesome ideology to come
From wiki:
>There are two main approaches to managing the separation of the two syndromes, neither of which is fully effective over time:
1. Caste systems – Establishing rigidly separated castes, with each caste being limited, by law and tradition, to use of one or the other of the two syndromes.
2. Knowledgeable flexibility – Having ways for people to shift back and forth between the two syndromes in an orderly way, so that the syndromes are used alternately but are not mixed in a harmful manner.
Scientists (adherents of scientism) have adopted both strats poorly, in particularly vacillating between curiosity and industrial applications. AI is more "effective" in comparison
Perhaps it is true that one ideology can be more wholesome than another, but it is definitely true that no ideology is without its poison --
An ideology is an incomplete mythology; only a mythology is capable of orienting us toward all facets of life, as life intrinsically and inextricably involves a mysterious aspect -- the domain of all that which we don't and may not ever understand. Ideologies reduce the territory (of reality; of lived experience) to a map which excludes that.
Now of course I'm not including aggressive or rude posts, because they are a different category.
So no I am not doing that.
In what world does "criticism" not default to "negative"?
Most things are imperfect. Assuming X is imperfect and has flaws isn't being negative, it's just being realistic.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough pal.
Constructive criticism involves being negative about the aspects that make something imperfect.
A realistic reaction to most things is a mixture of positive and negative.
The ethos of HN is to err on the side of assuming good faith and the strongest possible interpretation of other's positions, and to bring curiosity first and foremost. Curiosity often leads to questions.
Can you clarify what you mean by distinguishing between "questions" and "questioning"? How or why is one neutral while the other is probably negative?
I'll also point out that I'm questioning you here, not out of negativity, but because it's a critical aspect of communication.
> In what world does "criticism" not default to "negative"?
Criticism is what we each make of it. If you frame it as a negative thing, you'll probably find negativity. If you frame it as an opportunity to learn/expand on a critical dialogue, good things can come from it.
While I understand what you're getting at and get that some people are overly critical in a "default to negative" way, I've come to deeply appreciate constructive, thoughtful criticism from people I respect, and in those context, I don't think summing it up as "negative" really captures what's happening.
If you're building a product, getting friendly and familiar with (healthy) criticism is critical, and when applied correctly will make the product much better.
> Can you clarify what you mean by distinguishing between "questions" and "questioning"
"questioning" more directly implies doubt to me.
Regarding your distinction, I'm still confused. In a very literal sense, what is the difference between "questions" and "questioning" in your mind? i.e. what are some examples of how they manifest differently in a real world conversation?
It's hard to argue that asking questions isn't neutral, but being questioning implies doubt and it says so in the dictionary to back me up, it's not really more complex than that.
Constructive criticism and healthy debate is entirely possible without violating the guidelines, and happens quite a bit.
If people can’t figure out how to have conversations that aren’t “boring, pointless, fawning” while honoring the community guidelines, they:
1. Need to try harder
2. Or they should probably not be commenting here
The rules/ethos are not perfect, nor does the community always succeed in its goals. But I’ll take the dynamic here every day vs. sliding into the kind of toxic sludge fest that has infiltrated just about every social network.
This place is barely holding the hordes at bay as it is. I’m grateful for the guidelines and the collective will to abide by them as much as possible.