[mpyne]

> I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.

On the contrary, avoidance of all politics is a wonderful individual solution to political extremism. Which is why so many "normal" people refuse to get involved at all, which is why all of us "normal" people end up so surprised every 2 years over a bunch of reactionary representatives being elected.

At least on HN you were able to have reasoned political discourse, which is far less aggravating. Even where I disagree with others I love being exposed to angles I hadn't considered, cultural nuances that might explain why something would work in the EU that wouldn't work in the U.S. (and vice versa), and all of that.

But from what I can tell even on HN we're shifting farther and farther away from that into the creationist mold of "I have decided what the answer must be, now I need only twist the facts to suit". Even where the answer that's decided on is actually right, that's no way to conduct a 'debate'.

[foobarbazqux]

So basically I feel the same way, having had several HN accounts over the years, and feeling totally disenfranchised as a voter, except that I think if more normal people said more normal, boring, nuanced, middle of the road type things about politics then the people having fights with each other wouldn't be so annoying, because they are a tiny fraction of the population. I understand this is a bit of a pipe dream, and it's frustrating when that tiny fraction dominates the conversation. It's just difficult to want to participate at all when people prioritize winning an argument over understanding the issues at hand.

[davidw]

> avoidance of all politics

Who ever said anything about that?

I'm quite interested, and in my own way, involved in politics. I also follow bicycle racing with a passion, for that matter. But I don't think either one belongs on this particular web site.

[foobarbazqux]

I looked back through your comments and I noticed you've been repeating this request somewhat frequently. What do you mean by politics, exactly?

[davidw]

This site has been a great resource for me in terms of startup material, also a good place to learn new things about 'computer stuff', and also occasionally read something genuinely new and interesting. I hate to see it dragged down into the mud of political debate, which tends to wreck communities such as this.

[foobarbazqux]

Ok, agreed more or less, and the mud slinging is terrible, but by political debate, what exactly do you mean?

I don't think you mean simply election politics, so my assumption is that you mean any kind of debate over government policy. In this example it would be a debate over the US government policy of pursuing suspects in high speed car chases.

I can understand how these kinds of things are off topic in the general case (Istanbul protests, Boston marathon, etc.), but are you saying they're still off topic when there's a fairly clear connection to a hacking / startup story? Are the discussions about rent control in SF off topic, for instance?

My belief is that there's a grey zone where considered discussion of the pros and cons is okay, even good. For instance, I wasn't even aware that there were debates about high speed chases at all, so for me this was something new and interesting. Most of the community wrecking I've seen has happened due to in-fighting and drama, but yes political mud fights are a common enough precursor to that, because they encourage people to hold grudges and take sides, at least in my experience.

[DanBC]

> My belief is that there's a grey zone where considered discussion of the pros and cons is okay, even good.

Considered discussion is welcome on HN. Unfortunately there are some topics where considered discussion is unlikely. Abortion; circumcision; Israel / Palestine; gun control; etc etc. It'd be fantastic if there was a site like HN where these topics could be discussed, especially if that site fostered calm rational discussion.

But these discussions too often deteriorate into noise, and worse into wider ranging down-voting and derailments in other threads.

[foobarbazqux]

Well there's lesswrong I suppose, although I'm not a member. I strongly believe that if PG changed the policy from upvote agreement, downvote disagreement to upvote civility, downvote incivility, the quality of discussions would improve. For example, I was not particularly civil in the comment that started this sub-thread, but nevertheless I got 42 upvotes.