[williamcotton]

Really, saying that "maybe you might be ignorant" is breaking the HN guidelines? I think the more likely explanation is that I'm breaking the HN party line and quite clearly pointing out that the ethos that the author was referring to is quite rampant here in Silicon Valley. If we're both engaging in unethical behavior, where are his downvotes?

This place is a circle jerk of anti-intellectualism and smug arrogance. Juvenile phrases about how anyone suffering these days deserves their fate. "Why didn't they just learn JavaScript!?".

Oh, but if it's the poor and blue collar there will be some pity for their fate, barely masked contempt for the unwashed masses. But the middle class? Eviscerated and this forum spits on their grave. The story goes that they squandered their privileged position in the world.

No one can write a proper response. No one can address the content in the author's essay because there is no respect nor understanding for what has been written. Like frothing lobotomized acolytes of McLuhan the only mantra is that the "median is the only message".

Human subjectivity is reduced to a cold bowl of porridge. Everyone's opinions are equally dismissible. The only thing that matters is what can be quantified. The size of one's paycheck takes precedence. Further irony is that everyone thinks they are "creatives" and better than those mongrels in finance or law. This is just our generations version of the Wolf of Wall Street but in the lambs clothes of the globally cultured. "We teach people to code so they can better their economic stature and increase their quantifiable measurements and therefor become a better and happier person!".

Downvotes and upvotes... those ARE part of the problem! They destroy dialog. It turns what could be healthy discussion in an American Idol like popularity contest. "Vote next week for your favorite asshole!". You think it is an ethical device? Have you ever noticed that tptacek, the holder of the most "karma" on HN is basically a troll? My language is in no way more inflammatory than his. He's just got the foot soldiers to put people in their place.

All that these things do is turn forums in to an echo chamber. The other approach is to use active moderation to get rid of the trolls. But that's not the agenda. That's not the belief. The church of quantification must attempt to remove all subjective and therefor inefficient human biases.

Label them "gatekeepers" and convince the world you're doing it a service when you instead shift the power to secretive algorithms that are controlled by a small cabal of wealthy elites.

DOWNVOTE THIS!

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[tptacek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8zQHO40Cys

The funny thing is, personal attacks aside, I actually agree with a lot of what you have to say, especially about karma and about the impact of the Internet on artists. And on that latter point, you & I do in fact disagree sharply with the majority of the site. You pick weird enemies.

[williamcotton]

I will get hella defensive about people getting bullied, those down on their luck or otherwise marginalized. To a fault.

I have no inherent respect for the powerful although I will sometimes shamefully choose not to bite the hand that feeds me.

I tend to agree with most of the points you make as well. I should stop ragging on you. I'm sorry. You're not a troll. You're just terse. The Hemingway of commenters. I hope you don't drink as much as he did.

[tptacek]

I'm not sure you're wrong about me and didn't take offense. I think you should rethink whether HN is rigged against your point of view. I think HN's moderators are just as irritated by groupthink as you are. I also think you should ask yourself whether you're commenting to persuade, or (like me) because you like debate, or (in your case, this time) just to vent. It's fine to vent, but I don't think you can legitimately get irritated at the mods for tamping that down, because venting gets disruptive and unproductive fast.

[williamcotton]

I deserve to get downvoted for venting. Nothing else to say really.

[dang]

Well, I'll add a few things. I meant to say more last night but there was too much going on.

You overestimated your disagreement with the people who (try to) manage this site. I'm personally sympathetic to a lot of what you were trying to say—small-minded technical literalism is a personal bugbear—and appreciated the emotion in your venting as something real. It's refreshing when someone says how they feel instead of sniping from an intellectual bunker. Your comment became more alive when you did that.

But you (i.e. we, i.e. any of us) can't take out your frustration on individual other users. First, if one can do it, everyone can do it, and that way lies lameness. Second, we're figments on an internet forum to each other, which means we're mostly projection screens—we see what we imagine about each other and we're all almost certainly wrong. Discussion on that basis isn't interesting, just agitating.

The only way out of this is to cultivate the benefit of the doubt. That's harder than it sounds, because it requires awareness of when one is not doing it.

[williamcotton]

we're figments on an internet forum to each other, which means we're mostly projection screens—we see what we imagine about each other and we're all almost certainly wrong. Discussion on that basis isn't interesting, just agitating.

The irony here is that forums like this seem to promote "small-minded technical literalism". Upvotes, downvotes, threaded discussion, and a quantified system of points are antithetic to discussions on humanistic qualities.

But you're quite right, I should strive to be more mindful.

I should find better ways to show how upsetting I find it when people dismiss well-written essays as "bullshit" but fail to actually address the content on it's own terms.

The thing is, people consistently use downvotes to lazily express that they don't agree. I don't know if there is a solution to that.

Can't you see how all of this is actually directly related to the concerns addressed by the author in the actual article? A fiery response is about as middle-brow as it gets. I take no shame in being mortal and emotional. I'm not trying to transcend humanity and live forever nor try to attain some sort of idealized state of being.

But yeah, if everyone was just shouting explicitness back and worth we'd get nothing done. Save that for the sports bars.