[dang]

Users flagged it. We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case it's not hard to guess: there have been countless stories like this and people are (rightly) tired of the repetition.

Edit: If you (or anyone) want further explanation, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43093299 and the links there. If, after that, you have a question that I haven't already answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

[the_duke]

I'd bet there is a concerted effort to quickly flag negative posts about Tesla / Musk, since it always happens very quickly on these stories.

[dang]

Positive ones are flagged even more quickly. It's true that some of the flags come from people who like/dislike the evil/great one, but the deeper issue here is the repetition. Anything this repetitive is going to generate an allergic response; all the more so if the repetitive topic is also an intensely divisive one.

[johnnyanmac]

People voted for radical change yet want to absolve themselves of the inevitable friction.

Though in the case of Musk he still might have had similar turmoil given the valuation of TSLA dwindling in 2024 and his antics on X. I don't know if a campaign against a tech person in the news should be suppressed just because people are "tired" of seeing it (meanwhile, AI posted a dozen times per day).

Is it too late to build in a simple regex filter for accounts?

[dang]

I don't think HN users wanting to preserve HN for its intended purpose of intellectual curiosity has much to do with "absolving themselves". It's simply a question of having a forum with that purpose rather than another.

[johnnyanmac]

"man is not a rational animal: he is a rationizing animal" -Robert A. Heinlein

We have varying phases of new hyped tech get many low quality articles that don't inspire curiosity but nonetheless satisfy some people's need to circle around the same talking points. I just find it unfortunate that the moment any overhyped tech is linked to "the real world" that we start to dismiss it.

I suppose the answer isn't surprising given the population's disposition of acting like computer scientists and not software engineers, but is techs effect on actual people not intellectually curious? Are we fine just tinkering with ideas and throwing pandora's box out for the rest of the world to handle?

>s simply a question of having a forum with that purpose rather than another.

Well I don't have any data, but at this point I don't think this is happening organically. That's my main concern. It's no coincidence this only seems to happen with negative press for a certain person, when months ago pretty much all news on this subject would not be flagged (hence the first part of my comment).

You do have the data, but if your data says otherwise, there's not much I can do. I'll just keep doing what I'm already doing and try to fight the suppression.

[dang]

I don't think what you're seeing is suppression—it's just the preference of the bulk of the community. That's frustrating when you feel strongly that it should be otherwise (for good reason), but there isn't some extraneous nefarious force at work here; it's just that most HN users don't want the site to turn into a battlefield.

[johnnyanmac]

I'd rather this be data-driven than feels-driven. But sadly I lack such data.

[zfg]

> HN users wanting to preserve HN for its intended purpose of intellectual curiosity

Curiosity is sustained and long term. Curiosity is being willing to understand things completely.

What you're arguing for is novelty and distraction. That is shallow thinking, not curious thinking.

A month ago after Musk's fascist salutes you said, "This sort of flare-up always feels absolutely critical in the moment—how can one possibly justify not dropping everything to orbit around it?—and then vanishes. Their half life is so brief that I'm surprised people don't notice how ephemeral they are. They come in an endless sequence, and they aren't what HN is supposed to be for. They're also not that hard to resist; it's not as if this is a borderline call."

You were clearly wrong. It hasn't vanished. You should be curious about that.

In four months Y Combinator will hold an AI Startup School event with speakers including Musk: https://events.ycombinator.com/ai-sus

Bias is a real problem in AI systems. Will you be at the event? What questions will you put to Musk about his biases and how they will be reflected in Grok?

Be curious. Ask those questions.

[ddxv]

That was pretty well written. I find myself agreeing with both points of view, that it is ephemeral and that it has had some sticking power.

As for whether this is something worth being curious about, definitely.

[dang]

I appreciate your thoughts on curiosity, but I don't think that argument addresses the situation as it is. The alternative here is not deeper curiosity—it's screaming matches and outright war.

Commenters who want to fight about these topics are not operating in curiosity mode, seeking to learn from each other. They're operating in battle mode, seeking to destroy each other, vent rage, and deploy verbal weapons such as snark, name-calling, and talking points at the enemy. None of that is what HN is for, as should be obvious to anyone who has read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html or spent much time here.

> You were clearly wrong. It hasn't vanished

HN has been around for 15+ years. A month isn't long at all. My expectation is still that this will subside, and when it does, it will sink into a swamp of amnesia, the same as has happened in the past.

[zfg]

No one forgets Zuckerberg thinks Facebook users are dumb fucks: https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...

They won't forget Musk's fascist salutes either. If anything, Musk's salutes have been more public, have done more brand damage, and have revealed worse character.

Musk and Zuckerberg are showing you who and what they are.

Pay attention.

[dang]

You may be right that people will remember that, and yes that's an interesting data point to compare it with.

I was talking about something else though. My claim is that the HN baseline will return to the status quo ante, just as it has after past political tsunamis, and that when it does, the current fever for every political story to be on the frontpage will fade into oblivion. I may be wrong about that, but we will have to wait to find out.

> showing you who and what they are. Pay attention.

That's a trope, indeed already a cliché, of internet political arguments. It would be in your interest to avoid those because although on a surface level they intensify a comment, at a deeper level they make it less persuasive (to the persuadable reader). I know you didn't ask for commenting advice and normally I wouldn't go there, but HN's guidelines specifically ask commenters to omit internet tropes: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.