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Comment by kyro | Hacker News Reader

There is a large percentage of users on HN who are neither tactful nor socially competent.

I've been here for 6+ years and while much of the time the discussions can be insightful, many other times you get people who are overly aggressive and downright mean because they're either unable to control their jealousy or throw away all decency for the pursuit of Truth and Accuracy.

I really don't know if it's because of something like Aspergers, or that maybe hackers tend to be overly analytical and take pride in that over being civil. I find myself complaining about it from time to time.

This is the norm here.

Edit: OP, "A Dribbling, Selfish Jerk" should be the title of your blog from now on.

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  > neither tactful nor socially competent.

We're also "living a lie", that is, we've fooled ourselves into thinking that we're participating in an actual conversation, when in fact this is just a near-anonymous, non-synchronous message board. Without most of the social cues that we get when we're in a face-to-face conversation, the result is something that very easily becomes pedantic or insensitive.

Although what we're having now may not be considered a "real-world" conversation, we are not completely without social cues. You and I both know what's appropriate and not to say to one another. People who are pedantic and insensitive willingly ignore the thousands of face-to-face conversations they've had throughout their lives. It may be a quick and emotional dismissal, but a dismissal nonetheless.

I've been guilty of it. It's that when the right submission is made here, I am always surprised at how indecent and plain weird people act. Remember the story of the Pakistani girl with the Microsoft certification? What would possess a mid-20s man to comment and belittle that achievement, however factually unimpressive it may be, is just way beyond me. And throw in the countless threads about YC startup fiascos.

I get it's easier to be an asshole online; I'm not oblivious to that. It's that hacker dickishness can be particularly sharp and cruel, probably because it's usually made under the guise of logic and reason.

  > I get it's easier to be an asshole online

Your point is well taken, and I think we agree.

My point is simply that the mechanics of interaction on HN do little address the missing social cues that (my programmer brain theorizes) would help. The social evolution that HN is going through is nothing new[1]: It's been understood since newsgroups or before.

For example, I have no idea if you're a native speaker/writer of English or not. (I might cut you more slack on your grammar.) I have no idea if you and I share the same culture. (I might cut you slack on certain culturally sensitive issues.) I don't know if you're new to computers or an expert. (I might respond to your comments differently.) The conversation presents itself as real-time and throw-away, yet since comments are stored indefinitely I must write as deliberately as if I'm writing a book.

[1] Here's just one analysis: "A Group is its own worst enemy" by Clay Shirky: http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

"I might cut you more slack"

"I might cut you slack on certain"

"I don't know if you're new"

The dichotomy that I've notice is that when someone goes on HN with their belly exposed "I lost my job it's Christmas" or "I'm depressed and.." etc. they get treated with almost universal kindness by some of the same crowd (but not necessarily the same people) that will ravage someone who makes a stupid comment (and might be in line to jump off some bridge or abuse some drug to feel better).

It appears to be a hardware limit - humans can only consider a given number of other humans as individuals. Everyone else composes "the others" and are treated less favorably.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

OK, the notion that its a hardware limit appears (from my reading him many moons ago and now quickly checking wikipedia) to be his. Nonetheless, I don't accept this premise.

This theory always seemed to me to be attempting to account for the absurd size of our neocortex, and proposes a somewhat convincing rationale for this (i.e. the need to socialise and deal with many other humans).

Now, this sort of selection pressure has not reduced in the modern world. Far from it, one's ability to maintain larger social groups could easily be extremely adaptive in that you have both a greater opportunity to meet potential mates, and may additionally come into contact with resources through these larger groups which make you a better potential mate.

Therefore, it would seem to me that while Dunbar's limit may be at a particular level now, in our current society it may well be being selected for, and perhaps will be much higher in the future. Or perhaps I am completely wrong.

It is possible for one to group somebody outside our Dunbar number and not be a douche[0]. Empathy is not as strong for people we don't know, but it is still possible to have it (or even convincingly fake it as many on the Autism spectrum[1] do).

In fact that empathy is what allows normal conversations to occur "in the real". That people lose that empathy online isn't surprising, they are talking to a screen, after all. But I also believe that those who can see past the pixels and into the virtual eyes of the person they are talking to make better real-life people. It also makes for much better conversations[2] online.

0. I'm going to go Godwin here just by saying I'm going Godwin here. You know what I mean!

1. My wife works for a pediatrician and has told me they are no longer considering Asperger's as its own syndrome (disease, disorder, I always get those mixed up); it is just a place on the spectrum. I have no separate source and just thought it was interesting. I also realize trusting what a single doctor says is a really stupid move on my part, so please feel free to shred me.

2. If for no other reason than you don't have to read a bunch of self-effacing, defensive crap, such as I wrote in the above footnote.

1. I heard that too, actually. It looks like they just dropped it from the DSM-5: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/02/aspergers-synd...

I guess it makes sense in a way, but it'll probably just confuse popular conception of autism even further. Ah well.

"or that maybe hackers tend to be overly analytical"

Another reason is that someone could be having a bad day and since making a comment is so quick with little friction the bad comes out. In general I'm guessing that a slew of the wrong type of comments would get you banned so consistent behavior like this would not be tolerated (and would be downvoted).

Except there is a category of scathing comments that come across as well thought out but really aren't that tend to get upvoted a lot. It's easy to arbitrarily pick something apart. It's much harder to do so constructively (why is it bad, how should it be fixed, etc).[1]

As a result, HN is a very negative place. When I agree or disagree with an article, when I click on the comments button, I am literally thinking "Lets see why HN thinks I'm wrong (if I agree) or right (if I disagree)." I can pretty much always count on the top rated comment to be a negative reaction to the post.

When it is that common, it isn't just being analytical. It is being negative.

1. Compare "I can't read your site" with "While trying to read your site, I'm distracted by all the widgets, making it hard to find the actual content. When I do find the content, it just looks like a wall of text because the headlines look so similar to the body text."

>I've been here for 6+ years and while much of the time the discussions can be insightful, many other times you get people who are overly aggressive and downright mean because they're either unable to control their jealousy or throw away all decency for the pursuit of Truth and Accuracy.

For me, plain stupid I can cope with, but the worst offenders are the seemingly benign types, that go passive-aggressive on you.

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