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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Why would HN be a particularly good venue for that conversation? There are a lot of smart people here, but a lot of the factors that make HN a good place for technical discussions make it a horrible place for softer discussions like those about sexism.

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I am still rather surprised at the number of HN folks that believe we can somehow detach the socio-political / cultural / gender aspects of society from the technological choices.

The notion that HN should only focus on the “technology” establishes a rather broken model, where no such polemic or axis exists.

Are there not potentially greater entrepreneurial opportunities for a collective that has a holistic view of the culture?

> a lot of the factors that make HN a good place for technical discussions make it a horrible place for softer discussions like those about sexism.

Such as being 5% female.

While that certainly makes it a bad place for the sexism discussion, that certainly does not make it a good place for technical discussions!

Sure, whenever there's a massive imbalance between the genders, it's going to be less productive than when there's a balance. It also doesn't help much if the sexism discussion occurs among a group of 95% females - which is typically what happens.

On the contrary, that would make it better. We can have a rational discussion without all the drama. ;)

It's interesting that none of the smart hackers here have 'innovated' an open discussion forum yet. Everyone knows of the problems with moderation and hellbanning, everyone knows that this forum isn't a democracy and yet, here we all are.

Why do you assume that democracy is the right model for discussion? Even with the problems of moderation and hellbanning, the system here is better than something purely open.

I've seen pure open discussions, and I don't want to have anything to do with them.

Disagree with your thoughts on the system being better. Check some of the comments in the article and you might understand why.

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