Hacker News Reader

Comment by jemmyw | Hacker News Reader

I think you're confusing people commenting in context with people's real thoughts. In a way, your question is reductive - reducing the commenters to their comments and ignoring the richness of their real and probably conflicting thoughts.

I know within myself I don't have a completely coherent world view. And I don't feel a need to correct that. When I comment on things it's not always my view, not always thought out, reactive, perhaps insightful in a moment but not long term, or maybe a burst of clarity to my otherwise unclear mind.

Plus you get slices of people commenting on different articles. I didn't comment on that one, but I am on this one. So you're grouping everyone commenting together.

View on HN

I think one thing that makes me doubt this is the frequency with which I see replies to other comments that are obviously unaware of the context those comments were made in - even the immediate parent! I accept that many people will not read a posted article. But reading the thread one is adding to (or even an extra layer or two up!) seems like it should be a minimum.

If people were routinely commenting in context, their real thoughts may well differ from their comments. Often, though, it seems people are offering their real thoughts about whatever sentence they see in front of them.

Reacting to anything that makes them a teensy bit angry.

But I'm not sure that means its their real view. I got really angry at some things said at work recently, and I wanted to jump straight into chat and say what I thought. I let it simmer and after awhile realised that I was wrong and they were right, my anger was completely misplaced and reactionary.

With an internet comment on HC you have to get in there right away or nobody will read your angry reply, so people won't (a) read up the thread and (b) take time away to think about it.

Fair enough. Though I guess where that leads me is that by encouraging that level of interaction, this medium may still be leading to the state OP is concerned about. You suggested OP might be reductionist - but if that’s the case, it’s evidence of a spiral downwards into reductionism that’s driven by decontextualization. OP sees reductionism, then ends up reinforcing it, so to speak.

And if we accept that, then OP’s premise seems likely to be true if most HN users are doing most of their “social” engagement in decontextualized spaces like this one, rather than remaining rooted in community and the fullness of others’ humanity.

Your points are something to think about. They're quite far from what I thought my point was, which is more individual and along the lines of "when the discussion is about X then I'm thinking and focussing on X and not taking a wider view, my comments are not encompassing my own wider view on the issue".

I love this comment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com