Same goes for HN. Even with throwaways, the point system serves as this “corrective” barometer, that you’re expected to notice, even care about, and supposed to strive toward.
But perhaps most pathetically, even the moderators are brainwashed by it, as if the positivity trends of some mob are the smartest ruler to obey.
So, what if I disagree with the mob, and what if I’m right?
Well, the eigenstate of schroedinger’s cat tells us that there’s some degree of probablity that excuses us from ever taking that bet, so you can eat this hellban and lap up the antikarma like it’s the secretions of your wildest fantasy.
Enjoy the vacuum of the echochamber. In space, no one can hear you scream.
This is slightly meta, but I find it interesting that the person you're attacking is questioning the utility of a point-based system and yet that very system is trying to silence your speech rather than theirs. The mob wants you to know that refusing to question the mob is against the rules.
The mob wants to think it's self-critical when asked directly.
But I dare the mob to be self-critical of some popularly held belief without the pretext of this meta commentary. HN can be very one sided, and it shows in lots of discussions, from ads to piracy to language choices.
Railing against trends is less a commentary against the premise of the site, and more a commentary against the emergent whims of groupthink.
Points systems amplify the perception of groupthink, and getting karma stomped into a ban happens a lot.
Getting banned for a greyed out comment is kind of lame, and I think a certain sort of darwinism, of letting vitriolic people express their contempt has utility.
In other words, more people should develop a thick skin, and fewer people should be silenced. In theory, that sounds good, but obviously it can also go wrong, to let people bloviate too much.
I think the solution is to permit the full stream but classify and sort the responses, but in most cases, NLP just isn’t good enough to automate grouped selections of comments, so we get stuck with a one dimensional mechanical turk voting rank. Yay versus boo!
I don’t enjoy the idea of AI submerging buried comments deepet, but trusting people to vote according to quality of discussion is a dubious gambit, and you really only get an edge detection doppler return revealing the joints of political fault lines, which gets old when holy wars guide many an opinion.
The principle still stands. Why care about points? Wasn’t that the motivating factor to remove displaying comment points on HN in the first place? Facilitating hive mentality?
If everyone agrees with a comment it probably adds no value. If everyone disagrees it probably adds no value. Maybe interesting discussions should be sorted by controversial, but I don’t think that would be a “safe space”.
That's a fallacy. The best comments in HN aren't the "edgy" or controversial ones, they are the ones where someone shares information that I've never seen somewhere else.
Saying offensive things doesn't lift the level of discourse, no matter how much people who would love not to be downvoted complain about the "hive mind".
In a way that's 4chans strength. The comments and threads that get most noticed are the ones with most replies - ie the most controversial ones. Thats why Alexandria Ocasio Cortz is one of the most prominently posted figures on 4chans alt-light/pol/ board
But perhaps most pathetically, even the moderators are brainwashed by it, as if the positivity trends of some mob are the smartest ruler to obey.
So, what if I disagree with the mob, and what if I’m right?
Well, the eigenstate of schroedinger’s cat tells us that there’s some degree of probablity that excuses us from ever taking that bet, so you can eat this hellban and lap up the antikarma like it’s the secretions of your wildest fantasy.
Enjoy the vacuum of the echochamber. In space, no one can hear you scream.