| Concerns like this are perennial: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604. A couple years ago I gathered a bunch of links about the history of "HN getting more political": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. That's not to say there isn't a decline, just that it's hard to discuss objectively. The dominant factor in such perceptions is randomness; more precisely, the streaks that occur in randomness that feel like they can't possibly be random. That explains why people have been saying the same things in identical language for so long. You could even make one of those guessing-game sites out of such comments. For example: 2010 or 2020? The community is full of ideologues to the point where the comments are most often just predictable talking points being regurgitated ad nauseum. Everyone talks about the intelligent conversation, and it does happen, but far more times it’s just the same clichés repeated over and over. (2010, of course, or the question wouldn't have made sense, but you see the point.) A decade is a lifetime in internet dog years, so HN already has survived these concerns long-term. If there is a downward trend, it's a slow one. Some of the things we've done to stave it off (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...) must have done something. Other old threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 |
If I list all the 1990 articles warning about Global Warming, does that somehow mean it's not a real and serious problem?