I do not envy what dang does. It's a hard job. But at the end of the day these positions end up effectively enforcing the middle ground logical fallacy.
dang's job sucks, but him pushing for moderation (as in moderate behavior regardless of opinion being expressed) is exactly what makes HN enjoyable even in threads where I don't necessarily agree with the consensus.
You didn't explain how it's a fallacy rather than just state it is. The middle ground might be right in some stuff, it might also be extremely damaging in others.
I'm sure you can think of examples for that.
In my opinion that sort of ever more absurd "if you're not with us you're against us" type thinking is what has turned social media into such a cesspool, and by enforcing a sort of moderate state, that sort of person gets pushed away, making the space more tolerable for healthier minds.
Eg. with abortion it's almost impossible to have a civil, nuanced debate on social media because the extremes of both sides have cemented themselves into (fairly hypocritical) positions that paint everyone who isn't fully with them as an enemy, even though there's a lot of room for reasonable compromise and healthy debate on the effects and tradeoffs of specifics of related policy.
Most Americans would argue (and there's data to back this up) that abortion shouldn't even be something that we need to have a nuanced discussion about. The idea of nuanced discussion for everything is how stuff get pushed into harmful and extremist views.
The idea of "nuanced discussion" doesn't really work when the outcome of one side of the nuanced discussion is the subjugation of a whole class of people.
America went through "nuanced discussion" about the "Japanese problem". It went through "nuanced discussion" about civil rights. Most of this ended up either literally fucking over a group of innocent people, or delaying action that should've been taken decades prior.
The idea that a "nuanced discussion" is the way to go is exactly what that fallacy is talking about. Basically you can't have people's rights and lives talked about as if one side of the discussion has the right to take that away from them.
Think about how long it took us to legalize gay marriage. The only thing that got the ball really rolling was stonewall.
Or think about the Vietnam War. Extremists helped end it.
How about climate change? Do we have a nuanced discussion between the older population who is going to be dead by the time this becomes a problem, or do we listen to the climate extemists who are generally younger and the ones who are going to get fucked by this?
Anyway, middle ground politics is a dead area and not something that always works. The people who like it are generally the people who are fine with the status quo. So of course you're going to see angry view points (who most of the time have all the right to be angry) as a cesspool.
Dang has personally dinged me a few times -- maybe I'd disagree with a few, but the guy seems alright. Sometimes I troll and don't get caught, sometimes I'm being honest but dang dings me.
I dunno', but this is by far the best forum on the modern web. Of all fallacies, the "middle ground fallacy" seems to me to be the best.