Hacker News Reader

I think the greatest possible contribution to all of science that hacker news (the piece of software + the community) could provide would be to extend its general self-reinforcing conversational tone to include issues of conscience and the ethical, moral, and political implications of the subjects discussed here. We simply can't treat the two groups as separate.

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That sounds great, but isn't doable. It only seems doable, because of the dynamic described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16438476. What would actually happen is that it would make the community nastier and dumber until it died. Whom the gods would destroy, &c.

The fundamental tradeoff: the better HN gets, the more people want to use it for things that worsen it. This puts a cap on how good HN can ever get. All we can do is find ways to wriggle out of that tradeoff here and there.

Well that's depressing XD

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