> The article explains that people who are "intelligent," or just over analytical in nature, end up being less happy. They see through the BS of everyday life and are able to spot the negatives faster than any positives. This is the problem with HN: The community is too smart for its own good.
Starting from the position "this article's POV is true, and a relevant POV here" and jumping to "and therefore HN is too smart for its own good" seems a bit under-justified. Also the whole "if you're so smart, then why..." thing has always had its own "I'm clever, check this out" signaling aspect too. It's a subjective hand-wave of its own and it kind of muddies the waters here.
I think it's interesting to keep in mind that some people here have shared that they are measuring their happiness using third-party tools and methods, and checking out just fine. Or they have made huge strides to overcome challenging mental illnesses and taxing life lessons. Those events can even become so exciting that they obscure one's ability to effectively attend to others' pain and suffering, when that is appropriate.
So I'd add that despite your best efforts, you can be very happy and also come off completely toxic, which highlights the POV that toxicity is a very subjective perception.
If you really want empathy and kindness to happen more often in an informational community, IMO it's a good idea to separate that informative effort (which is laudable on its own) from your effort to critique the community at large. Such info-driven communities often have signs and guides all around which signal that more community critique has been received than can be meaningfully processed.
(P.S. The "People get so smart that they see through all the BS and therefore become unhappy for all their intellect" trope can be really damaging to personal growth. It may be a stage of exhaustion reached after a period of growth-stress, and it may be a stage of imminent breakthrough. We also may not have the right socio-cultural tags and memes to help people understand how to contextualize and mine the follow-on stages for resilience and improved mood levels. So I wish we could be gentler and more nuanced with our analysis of this particular issue. There are some hints that such stages can even lead us to see our ideals reached meaningfully without wearing ourselves down so much, and that's a huge mood lift by itself.)
Starting from the position "this article's POV is true, and a relevant POV here" and jumping to "and therefore HN is too smart for its own good" seems a bit under-justified. Also the whole "if you're so smart, then why..." thing has always had its own "I'm clever, check this out" signaling aspect too. It's a subjective hand-wave of its own and it kind of muddies the waters here.
I think it's interesting to keep in mind that some people here have shared that they are measuring their happiness using third-party tools and methods, and checking out just fine. Or they have made huge strides to overcome challenging mental illnesses and taxing life lessons. Those events can even become so exciting that they obscure one's ability to effectively attend to others' pain and suffering, when that is appropriate.
So I'd add that despite your best efforts, you can be very happy and also come off completely toxic, which highlights the POV that toxicity is a very subjective perception.
If you really want empathy and kindness to happen more often in an informational community, IMO it's a good idea to separate that informative effort (which is laudable on its own) from your effort to critique the community at large. Such info-driven communities often have signs and guides all around which signal that more community critique has been received than can be meaningfully processed.
(P.S. The "People get so smart that they see through all the BS and therefore become unhappy for all their intellect" trope can be really damaging to personal growth. It may be a stage of exhaustion reached after a period of growth-stress, and it may be a stage of imminent breakthrough. We also may not have the right socio-cultural tags and memes to help people understand how to contextualize and mine the follow-on stages for resilience and improved mood levels. So I wish we could be gentler and more nuanced with our analysis of this particular issue. There are some hints that such stages can even lead us to see our ideals reached meaningfully without wearing ourselves down so much, and that's a huge mood lift by itself.)