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Comment by forapurpose | Hacker News Reader

> HN generally works very well

After reading a few discussions over the last few days, I was thinking to my self that HN was better than ever, and very good (with one serious shortcoming). Even the echo chamber is much better than I remember.

EDIT: The shortcoming, IMHO, is the abandonment of politics. HN is the ideal place to solve that problem, with s sophisticated audience open to and interested in experimentation and in problem solving. The goal of propagandists is not to persuade you, but to paralyze you; to shut down real discussion and debate. HN is, unwittingly, capitulating and cooperating with them. HN is another success for them.

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> The shortcoming, IMHO, is the abandonment of politics. HN is the ideal place to solve that problem

No, it's really not, as HN demonstrates most of the time it interacts with politics.

> HN is the ideal place to solve that problem

That's an illusion, for reasons I attempted to describe here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16443431

Thanks for responding.

> That's an illusion, for reasons I attempted to describe here

That implies that it's an unsolvable problem, if I understand correctly. There's no reason to think this problem is any more difficult than all the other 'unsolvable' ones and this one is particularly, I would even say 'extremely' valuable to work on.

I don't believe we simply could introduce political topics and it would work due to some HN magic. It would take serious work and experimentation to find a solution, but I think HN is better suited than other places to do that work. And a solution could change discourse in the country and the world, at a time when discourse on the Internet problems SV has invented has become a very dangerous weapon for some, and is tearing society apart.

I realize that "we" means you and sctb more than anyone, and so it's a request and encouragement. I still think it's the most valuable thing HN could do, potentially world-changing. Previous generations had books and leaders that changed the course of history; this time it might be software or a software-based technique that turns the tide. I hope that at least you will keep it in mind.

I don't know that it's impossible. But if I'm certain about anything re HN, it's that it would be unwise to try to make it be that, for the same reason we don't do radical medical research on living humans.

Our first responsibility is to take care of what we have. The way to take care of a complex system is to be sensitive to feedback and adapt. We can apply that principle here. Look at what happens when the political taps get opened beyond a notch or two. Discussion becomes nasty, brutish, long, and predictable. That's what we want less of, so opening the taps all the way is not an option. For similar reasons, closing them all the way isn't an option either.

I don't disagree completely. I think there's a chance HN can slowly develop greater capacity in this area. But it would need to be very slow and not something we try directly to control. Anything as complex and fragile as HN needs a light touch.

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