Do I get back the 3,000 HN Karma points I lost to downvotes after years of suggesting fasting as a viable treatment for a whole host of "diseases"? One day people will see it as obvious as "smoking is bad for you". One day.
Due to my unpopular opinions about how some countries and companies are often targetted in US media, even on unrelated articles, this happens to me. I like taking breaks on HN, but the more it happens, the more I am going to other places instead.
This is not about being true or being right - just whether your conversation is following the mainstream opinion or not.
If later it proves to be right? Too bad for you. This is the case on most forums with up and downvoting, and it forces dissent out.
I am interested in conversation for learning and sharing. The post I read the more carefully are greyed out or dead. Most are ads or crankpots, but in 1% of the time I get gems.
Sinple example: would you have preferred to learn about intermittent fasting now, or 5 years ago? Me: 5 years ago, but too many downvotes may have pushed out of the community people like the parent poster.
[1] - https://github.com/
[2] - http://n-gate.com/
Not my sites, just an example. You can make the text as big, bold and readable as you wish. I prefer really simple stylesheets.
Thanks a lot for the gate suggestion, after checking it it seems to post a contrarian analysis - basically singling out the post I will be interested in reading!
I sometimes will get into a heated discussion w/ other on hn or reddit or you_name it. And maybe lose "virtual points" for this. At the end of the day the way I look at it is this: if the other person learns something or finds out something new, even if they don't agree, or I learn or find something new it's a win.