Hacker News Reader

Comment by dagmx | Hacker News Reader

> Not sure what a thinly resourced piece like this is doing so high up on HN.

Honestly, and anecdotally, I think there's been a large influx of people recently on the right wing spectrum and/or the more outrage driven spectrum. I've noticed a considerable shift in the number of outraged comments and right wing view points in the last few months.

I believe this ties in to the deplatforming of Parler. I can only surmise that it either led to a lot of lurkers becoming more active, or an influx of new members joining to share their outrage and sticking around. Or maybe it did shift existing members over to being more sensitive about what they perceive as internet policing.

View on HN

We were here all along, and yes the current trajectory of the World is starting to rattle things.

We might have been too polite and kept things to ourselves, not that the "Left" understands Social and Philosophical equilibrium.

Maybe we should talk more about things that separate us to bridge them, rather than pointing ever angrier fingers.

Maybe the median person just doesn’t hold extremely intricate positions in these issues but they are being forced to choose a position. You really need to break these claims down a lot to get any sensible discussion. All in or all out are not the options.

I think part of the issue is how a lot of people who may not hold intricate views have a hard time separating well formed, nuanced views from their emotional world view stances. I feel like there's an inherent desire in tech, where knowledge is seen as strength, to always speak up even to show understanding via having an opinion. I know I fall prey to it myself too.

So people in the median often either stay out of discussions they don't have a stake in, or they espouse the most easily digestible view. Unfortunately those happen to usually be more reactionary and simplified views, since nuanced views require greater subject onboarding. Either way, it results in a large skew towards reactionary comments on social media sites.

This original submission being a great example, where many comments are about thought policing, without substance.

The tech world, while seen as largely as being left wing, has had a strong right-wing libertarian streak. This streak seems to have followed the same right-ward march and increase in rhetoric as your standard conservatism.

Oh definitely agreed. Even in silicon valley, which is perceived as a liberal tech Mecca, I'd say I run into a significant number of right wing libertarians.

I read a really good post somewhere that it's because libertarianism is highly based in absolute logical theory. This correlates really well with software engineering. There's a sense that the world can be reduced to an ideal localized function. But it ignores why we need designers to accommodate the human element or architecture that considers error handling.

Furthermore as a result of it being based in logical absolutism, it's really easy to corrupt by introducing polarizing concepts under the guise of "rational thought experiments" and the like.

I think the problem is that you're taking people who disagree with you on a single issue and lumping them into a general "my enemy" group. (It can be inferred that you see yourself as left wing). I hate "deplatforming" with a passion, but wouldn't mind public healthcare and more corporate regulations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com