[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.

[zfg]

> I may be wrong about that, but we will have to wait to find out.

You are wrong.

> That's a trope, indeed already a cliché

Dude, that you think you might be right demonstrates that you haven't been paying attention.

Musk doesn't just have form, he's going for the record.

There will be a stink around Y Combinator's AI Startup School event. Musk will bring the stink with him.

And the source of that stink may be as simple as attendees having family members sacked by DOGE. Or it might be because he's of such weak character that he lies about being good at video games. Or perhaps it will be America's sell out of Ukraine, something Musk has advocated for:

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126714896/elon-musk-ukraine-...

There's lots to choose from.