Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hayst4ck 1149 days ago
> What everyone on Hacker News seems to long for is an Internet limited to 'that class' of people.

Yep, that is exactly what I want. I want to be around and interact with other educated people who act in good faith and I don't want to be around uneducated people who act in bad faith or can't see or aren't open to the contradictions in their own ideas.

Eternal September is the name of this idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_News

  Graham stated he hopes to avoid the Eternal September 
  that results in the general decline of intelligent 
  discourse within a community.
http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

  The good things in a community site come from people more 
  than technology; it's mainly in the prevention of bad 
  things that technology comes into play. Technology 
  certainly can enhance discussion. Nested comments do, for 
  example. But I'd rather use a site with primitive 
  features and smart, nice users than a more advanced one 
  whose users were idiots or trolls.
1 comments

Why are you phrasing things as if "educated" and "good faith" are related?

> I don't want to be around uneducated people who act in bad faith

Are you fine with being around educated people who act in bad faith? Those generally cause much more damage.

In the game of prisoners dilemma, I want to be around people who practice the winning strategy.

A game to demonstrate why that is important: https://ncase.me/trust/

If you cooperate when others defect, you promote defection as a strategy.

If you defect when others cooperate, you undermine cooperation as a winning strategy.

So a community that shut down defectors and cooperates by default creates a community based around cooperation -- a high trust community.

Bad faith is another word for defection. It is hard to understand the game you are playing or see the consequences of your actions without education.