jdp23

I'd paraphrase this last interaction as

me: it's incoherent to see politics as pervasive and then try to exclude politics from discussions of technology

you: it's not incoherent to see politics as pervasive and then exclude them from a social holiday dinner where the goal is a pleasant agreeable vibe

We seem to be speaking at cross-purposes.

Anyhow, I agree with you many people on HN say they don't want political discussion on HN because they see the comments as low-quality, or breaking what they otherwise see as a pleasant and agreeable vibe. And I think I understand your perspective:

- you think the OP would be stronger if it had mentioned that - you don't like it when people characterize your position (acknowleding the importance of politics but still not wanting to have political discussions on Hacker News) as avoidance ("ostrich mentality") or intellectually incoherent

The people you're citing in that thread were supporting an absolute ban on political discussion on HN. That certainly sounds like ostriching to me. And sure, JM could have pointed out the specific nuanced intellectual incoherency of the people in that thread acknowledging pervasiveness of politics and then trying to exclude politics from discussions here - 'dang described it as "delusional" - but I don't see him leaving that out as distorting his argument.

Right. In fact, I included your quote saying "the existing guidelines have it about right" in my essay. So I thought it was pretty entertaining that the top-rated comment here summarizes the discussion in the post announcing the experiment without paying any attention to the result of the experiment.

But wait a second, the "detox experiment" was abandoned after only two days. 'dang summarized the learnings as

"it's impossible to define 'politics' with any consensus because that question is itself highly political, and that HN is at its best when it can meander through all the (intellectually) interesting things, some of which inevitably have political dimensions."

More at https://medium.com/a-change-is-coming/learning-from-hacker-n...

As Marcy Wheeler points out, this is something Bryan Krebs had suggested last month:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/01/a-shakeup-in-russias-top...

https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/02/26/reuters-confirms-krebs...

Thanks!

If you're not syncing to iCloud, do you still need to disable CallKit to keep your current levels of privacy?

Indeed - there are limits to the "only following orders" defense.

rayiner, I'm curious what you think about Dershowitz' argument that she should have resigned?

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/317...

Great to hear, thanks!

Yes, it seems like a good choice of algorithm. And it seems like the implementation is also decent - they looked at that as well. It's a useful report and kudos to Open Technology Fund for funding it and to Matrix for making it public!

Still, this is only one piece of the overall security of Riot, so I'm still interested in knowing if there's any work going on looking at the bigger picture.

Are there any plans to do a security audit on Riot? The useful report by NCC [1] looks at libolm (which implements the end-to-end encryption) but of course that's only part of the whole product.

[1] https://matrix.org/blog/2016/11/21/matrixs-olm-end-to-end-en...

Exactly. This was a key part of company culture throughout the 80s and 90s and at the time it was viewed as a signficant productivity win. ('Peopleware' discusses it, IIRC). By the 2000s, with space crunches, they got away from it as a general policy.

And, before anybody starts flagging this as political: the "political detox" experiment is over. See Dan's announcement at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251

'wingerlang, I quoted you in https://medium.com/a-change-is-coming/learning-from-hacker-n...

Yes, it's over: https://medium.com/a-change-is-coming/learning-from-hacker-n...

FYI for people considering flagging this: the "political detox" experiment is over.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251

Thanks, I had missed the discussion of the reading list!

If you think there's a better term, I'm certainly up for suggestions.

But why do you think it's uncharitable? People who say they "prefer meritocracy" are in fact taking an anti-diversity position. Maybe they don't understand it's anti-diversity, in which case pointing it out may encourage them to think more about it and understand why. Or maybe they don't care, in which case they certainly wouldn't take it as a moral judgement.

That could help. And maybe adjusting the threshold for flamewar detection - with the "hide subthread" functionality the cost of a flamewar might be somewhat lower.

Thanks again for sharing your learnings. Unsurprisingly I have some thoughts of my own, but first I'm curious about what others have learned ...

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13132782

Thanks for the response; those seem like good learnings.

In terms of hot-button-topic stories getting buried, it's not just flagging - the flame war detection logic also plays a role. On diversity stories, for example, once they reach the front page we often see a large number of strongly worded (but clearly legitimate) anti-diversity posts. When people reply, heavy discussion ensues; and in any case, there's often a lot of piling on in agreement. Pretty soon the post is back to page 3 or 4. Of course there's the option of not replying, but leaving the anti-diversity viewpoint unchallenged strongly reinforces the stereotype of HN as a place that's hostile to diversity. So right now there isn't any good answer.

'dang, thanks for the announcement. Are you going to write up what else you learned from the experiment?

Also, when you say the guidelines have it about right, there's a lot of evidence that the current implementation favors people who want to bury stories that relate to politics (or other hot-button topics like diversity). Are there plans to look at this?

+1. Well said.

Tammarrian Rogers and I used that tweet of Anil's in our Open Source Bridge session on "A new approach to software".

It'll be interesting to see how the moderators treat this. It's exactly the kind of stuff a lot of people on HN want to talk about - and have a lot to add.

It's interesting to see how you interpret my words. Thanks for the discussion.

It's not nuanced at all, it's quite clear. And I was very explicit about why I don't see it as a good use of my time or energy to try to explain it to you.

If this is something you really want to understand (whether or not you agree), invest the effort (which may also mean finding a way to get beyond any limits your belief system is leading to).

If you do that, you don't need any further explanation from me.

If you don't do that, nothing I say will help you understand.

I'm describing, not prescribing (and I'm specifically talking about HN and YC, not making general claims).

Yes, women can be anti-feminist. As you said, these are tricky issues.

If you haven't yet understood why many people see the political ban as aligning with this, then either you haven't tried very hard or your belief system is preventing you from understanding. There's plenty of information here and in other discussions, so give it another try.

Thanks for the feedback. You're probably right that the downvotes aren't related to the first two sentences. Pro-diversity stuff routinely gets downvoted here, especially when it uses the f-word.

Still, if you read more closely, I didn't call people bigoted because they disagree. I called the people who are "anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, anti-trans (etc)" bigots. That seems like the right word to me.

Thanks for the reply. I agree that identity intersects with beliefs -- and more generally worldview, including epistemology, ontology, etc. And yes, there are certainly some areas where there are debates about whether particular behavior is or isn't anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, or anti-trans. As you say, these things are tricky.

Still, the points I was making ''aren't'' tricky.

- For the dimensions that I listed (and implied with the "etc"), in today's environment, HN is kidding themselves by thinking they can welcome "both sides"

- the feedback they're getting is from people (including me) who see YC and 'dang personally as aligning themselves with the antis by blocking political discussion

> That said, I suspect you mean "you can't welcome both women, and people who hold anti-woman beliefs".

No, I meant very specifically that in today's context HN - and by extension YC - can't simultaneously be welcoming to anti-feminists - and welcoming to women and allies.

Great to hear!

congrats, Anil! Great news for Fog Creek, and a great opportunity for you to have a big impact on software development!

Hopefully one of the early things you'll be focusing on is the diversity of GoMix's technology (including building accessibility in by default) and its community. There's huge potential, and a great chance to address it at a relatively early stage.