[AndrewKemendo]

It just reinforces for me that addiction is a human problem not a problem with technology

I know dang basically works tirelessly to not change the format in order to not induce those addictive patterns

but yet here we all are

[chistev]

It's a website with the smartest people in the world. The level of conversations here are unrivaled in internet communities.

It's understandable to be addicted. Lol.

I visit this place multiple times a day.

[phantasmish]

99% of social science or political topics and 50% of technical topics here do not… read as smart, and you’d be much better off spending the same time reading the first chapter of a relevant 101-level college textbook.

[seizethecheese]

It's entirely possible that this is the smartest place on the internet, but also often dumb. In fact, it seems likely. More of an indictment of the rest of the places on the internet.

[squeefers]

> It's entirely possible that this is the smartest place on the internet,

i cant find the link, but there was a post about how to "be nice" and it was a revelation to a worrying amount of "geniuses" on here. bare in mind the sum total of the advice was "be nice, dont be rude"

[seizethecheese]

1. niceness and genius are orthogonal

2. your characterization of the article sounds uncharitable

3. my point isn't exactly that this is necessarily the smartest place

[squeefers]

1. but social skills and genius are 2. im still staggered at how elementary it was 3. ok?

[ssdspoimdsjvv]

Intelligence has many dimensions.

[the_af]

> It's entirely possible that this is the smartest place on the internet, but also often dumb. In fact, it seems likely. More of an indictment of the rest of the places on the internet.

Almost every (non-troll) online community that is relatively peaceful and has some semblance of moderation to remove flamewars thinks of itself as "the best community". Usually as compared to reddit, though if it's on reddit they will compare themselves to some other (hated) sub.

It's a fact of the internet. Every online community thinks of itself as the smartest, more thoughtful, more civilized. HN is no exception.

It goes without saying HN is not the smartest or more thoughtful online community. It's just... ok. Not the worst, not the best. Certainly NOT the place with the smartest people, though some smart people frequent it. As a regular, you can soon figure out HN's unspoken rules, blindspots, and areas where the group opinion is more likely to be accurate.

[jrowen]

> It goes without saying HN is not the smartest or more thoughtful online community.

How does that go without saying? Name some others then, compare and contrast. As-is your argument is just posturing.

[the_af]

> Name some others then, compare and contrast.

No need, because whether an online community is more thoughtful or smarter than another is very subjective. Almost by definition, HN is not it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that. Of course, by internet law, HN (or a subset of its members) considers itself to be the smartest, more thoughtful online community.

There are communities I like better, which are smarter and more thoughtful, but I've no desire to argue with you.

> As-is your argument is just posturing

Nah. Hard pass. Nice try though!

[fwip]

It's really not 'the smartest people.' It's people interested in tech, and often in making-a-lot-of-money-in-tech. It does have a lot of people with significant industry experience, which is cool.

[worksonmine]

> It's really not 'the smartest people.'

This was especially obvious during Covid, I even stopped visiting because the comment section was so crazy.

[steve_adams_86]

> the smartest people in the world

But also, people like me. Be careful what you choose to believe on this website

[the_af]

> It's a website with the smartest people in the world.

Nice joke!

At least, I hope it was a joke...

[krapp]

Any professional forum or technical subreddit with good moderation and gatekeeping blows Hacker News out of the water any day of the week.

[linhns]

Also the level of flak is unrivaled.

[andrepd]

Poe's Law for a parody of the self-important sv techbro

[the_af]

It's a testament to Poe's Law that I genuinely cannot tell if the OP was being funny or not.

[mrguyorama]

There's a reason why HN of all places has such a terrible record of handling actual sarcasm and telling it apart from genuine belief and that reason is NOT that "HN is really smart" lol

[the_af]

Agreed! I think HN is average, and its userbase think themselves smarter than they really are.

... but I still cannot tell if the original commenter was sarcastic or not! ;)

[dzink]

This one is at least healthy-ish for the mind. I’d much rather hacker news than any other news. Social Media is an emotional rage-bait cesspool these days. If it’s not for Hacker News those of us who abstain from the rest would be living in the dark.

[PurpleRamen]

But, would the addiction become worse if HN changed, or would there be a point where they could cure it?

[ZuoCen_Liu]

Perhaps this is the role of HN - at least it still allows us to reflect.