Comment by pcmoney | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pcmoney | Hacker News Reader

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I would strongly bias towards people who have built or created something anything even a small thing vs "experts" "academics" "blue checks" (Eg. John Arnold probably knows a lot more about economic fundamentals than most economists)

I would bias towards people who have a concrete position they are advocating for and not just talk about what they are against. Critique is cheap and mostly pointless without a real solution.

I tend to find the best accounts are ones that you disagree with on some things but not everything. Avoid people who still need herd acceptance to survive. So either niche accounts or people with a social moat/fairly uncancelable, this will get you rawer inputs.

DO NOT JUST FOLLOW PEOPLE YOU AGREE WITH. They should either make you think at a deeper level or inspire you. If they just parrot back what you already think then what's the point of reading what they have to say?

@evacide @JohnArnoldFndtn @sama @ShellenbergerMD @balajis @dhh @micsolana

Also find people who break up the monotony with interesting things: @Rainmaker1973 @Mikeachim @simonsarris

Also do not unfollow people just because they believe/do something your tribe says is "unforgivable". When someone asks you to hate a stranger on the internet, just say no.

> I would bias towards people who have a concrete position they are advocating for and not just talk about what they are against. Critique is cheap and mostly pointless without a real solution.

I'm a big believer in this. I feel a bunch of social issues would be assisted and better understood if people somehow had to attach a possible/attempted solution to any stated gripe. It would 1) serve to generally shut up complainers for a more positive enviroment, 2) make people aware of reasons things are often the way they are once they consider a problem more deeply and 3) aid healthier conversation.

I like the HN view conversation must be interesting or add value type approach. I hope this gets increasingly enforced here as there seems increased volume of low effort comments the last 6 months or so.

Explain in your own words what "blue check" means

Verified accounts

I know what it means, but the one I am responding to isn't, either out of ignorance or deliberately.

It doesn't mean anything more or anything less than that these people are verified to be who they claim they are. But the person above is trying to indicate it means some kind of "endorsement" by some vague "establishment" that he dislikes.

Blue checks typically mean large (sometimes rabid) twitter followings. Sometimes that’s fine but often their engagement in a topic can really derail it. Blue checks in practice mean more than just “verified account”.

Side note: anonymity can often improve the quality of online discussion. See: “breaking the social media prism”

Could have been more clear on that. Some of the accounts I follow are blue checks. What I meant is blue checks that are using their popularity to critique/support another issue very far afield of why they are a blue check.

Eg. Famous actor advocating for some luxury belief

Then "blue check" is completely incidental to the matter, and the real issue is that it is a very popular person. The same issue would exist for any popular user whether or not their account is blue checked.

Sure but it very rare for an account with substantial follower numbers not to be a blue check (unless they became prominent during a time when Twitter had suspended the verification program for new blue checks). Blue checks also get recommended as people to follow more which inflates their numbers so it is a feedback cycle.

I would wager that a blue check on Twitter is more valuable and monetizable than most 4 yr degrees.

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