[jmzwar]

Is this not the gratuitous negativity that Hacker News seeks to avoid? Satire is not universally good. Many start-ups in their infancy could be classified using that list. Indeed many of those start-up's founders come here for resources or support.

[kennywinker]

Social critique isn't the same as "gratuitous negativity". I got a lot out of reading the projects that came out of last year's hackathon.

[jmzwar]

How can 'Stupid Shit No One Needs' be classified as a social critique by any respectable semantician?

[coldtea]

>How can 'Stupid Shit No One Needs' be classified as a social critique by any respectable semantician?

In that we live in a society that, alas, DOES produce "stupid shit no one needs" by the ton?

[nl]

Because it makes people smile?

Also because they are actually going to make it?

Emoji is stupid shit no one needs. It also makes people smile.

[jmzwar]

Do you really need to criticise the actions of others as 'stupid' to make yourself smile?

[zaroth]

Is your dogged persistence in this thread simply a test of our collective ability to abide by the new policy?

[nl]

No.

They are your own ideas, or ideas of others at the hackathon where they self-identified as stupid.

[anonbanker]

how very meta; I was doing the exact thing to your post (criticizing your actions as stupid, and making myself smile).

[zer0rest]

There is nothing sacred enough to be protected from the words stupid, shit, fuck or any other word.

[jmzwar]

My point isn't that stupid ideas don't exist, but that the great ones seem stupid. Dropbox was criticised on here; many thought AirBnb stupid.

[crpatino]

Ok, I am going to bite. AirBnb is stupid. Every child that has heard about the Little Red Riding Hood should be able to figure that out.

The fact that we do not hear about even more horrible incidents regarding this service is for the most part due to society being overwhelmingly composed of more or less moral individuals (with an active remediation and PR campaign from the incumbents as a distant second reason). But I find hard to believe that anyone who can do any half decent risk assessment would sign in for that kind of liability.

[jasonjei]

Agreed! So was Facebook--it was just another MySpace clone. Or Google--another search engine. Sometimes the best ideas are seemingly stupid and pointless. I think the name is tongue-in-cheek because "stupid things" tend to become great ideas. I think it's a great idea this is going on.

[RobertKerans]

No, it's not tongue-in-cheek: staggeringly, stupid ideas generally (like, as in 99.9% generally) aren't, or don't become great ideas.

[jmzwar]

If you accept that then you've missed the broader point. Not a single founder would want their idea to appear on next years board of stupid ideas to satirise.

[angersock]

Many start-ups in their infancy could be classified using that list.

And maybe that's something we should be thinking about, yeah?

Indeed many of those start-up's founders come here for resources or support.

And we should be giving them resources to help get perspective on how shallow or first-world-problem their idea is, and support in finding a better way of allocating their time and energies.

[pjscott]

I dispute the premise. Very of the things on that list are accurate descriptions of real startups! I haven't heard of anybody working on flesh skeumorphism, for instance, and as far as I know the only person working on monetizing the eschaton is Peter Thiel.

[peterwwillis]

This isn't satire at all. This is a real hackathon designed specifically to develop stupid things for fun.

A lot of startups began as stupid ideas and became billion-dollar corporations. What's so negative about doing it on purpose?

[jmzwar]

There isn't anything negative about doing it, just posting a list of stupid ideas peppered with satirised versions of common ideas.

[peterwwillis]

It's stupid, but it's not negative. Actually quoting an existing product and calling it stupid would be negative. These are stupid ideas based on existing concepts, which is making fun without being mean.

The one thing on the list which could be maybe interpreted as negative is "Peter Thiel", but this is definitely not being "gratuitously" negative. Plus he's got 2.2 billion dollars so if his feelings get hurt he can buy some new ones.

[coldtea]

>Is this not the gratuitous negativity that Hacker News seeks to avoid? Satire is not universally good. Many start-ups in their infancy could be classified using that list.

And many startups are crap because of that, both in their infancy and later development.

There's nothing wrong with criticizing BAD things to snip them in the bud, and satire is not "gratuitous negativity", it's critique + humor.

[tim333]

From "New Hacker News Guideline by Sam Altman":

"Negativity isn't the problem -- gratuitous negativity is. By that we mean negativity that adds nothing of substance to a comment."

Doesn't say anything about not linking to satire. Though I've noted satire in the actual comments here doesn't seem to go down well.

[jcoffland]

I find it gratuitously awesome. How's that for positivity?

[raverbashing]

I wonder why there are so many people with absolutely no comprehension of sarcasm (and other similar constructs) on HN.

Probably the same who then complain about their companies favouring bosses who have more communication/social skills.

Or maybe they're just trolling.

I'm all for founding a company which specializes in "Stupid shit no one needs" and is valued at billions of dollars. Sign me up!

[crpatino]

> I'm all for founding a company which specializes in "Stupid shit no one needs" and is valued at billions of dollars. Sign me up!

At least in theory, companies "valued at billions" literally cannot specialize in "shit no one needs". That statement comes most likely from an observer that does not belong to your target market and has little capacity for empathy (this shit I don't need, therefore no one ought to need it).

Of course it is possible to sell worthless equity to gullible investors, if you happen to have a knack to find any. Though I don't think that's what you were talking about.

[tripzilch]

> companies "valued at billions" literally cannot specialize in "shit no one needs".

Yes they should diversify into "shit no one wants", "shit no one knows about", "shits no one gives" and "shits not taken".

[crpatino]

Of course, once you are already making billions, you can waste as much as those in idiotic dead end projects as you wish. I just assumed the GP was talking about startups.

[raverbashing]

Example (though probably not a billion dollars):

https://gigaom.com/2011/01/17/cheezburger-network-gets-30m-f...

Not sure what's the current valuation after this: http://www.geekwire.com/2013/cheezburger-cutting-35-staff-tr...

Of course, people like entertainment, though it's not something strictly necessary.

[crpatino]

Agreed, it is human nature to want some things that may ultimately be not good (or even actively harmful) for our own well being.

I was just pointing out the fact that there is a difference between "There's no market for X" and "Users of X would be better off doing without, so X should not exist."

The first is a fact, the second is a combination of a judgement of value + a prescription based on that particular judgement. And while there are many useful prescriptions based on judgements, there is a slippery slope that ends up with one small group doing all the judgements and the rest of society enduring the prescriptions. So, it's better to proceed with caution.

(Which itself is a judgement/prescription pair... so take it with a grain of salt, or not)

[tomjen3]

I guess you have a point, but a: this isn't targeting anything particular and this is done for fun (otherwise they wouldn't be making those silly categories).

[ianstallings]

They're just trying to have little fun and think outside the cylinder. I wouldn't take it so cynically.