Why on earth are both of you getting downvoted so hard?
I am so tired of reading hacker news articles with comments that are so pushed down because of subjective opinionated voting that is so obviously skewed towards one personality type.
I have so many thoughts and opinions I want to contribute to these discussions but I have zero confidence it will fit within this type of environment that's been created.
It really saddens me to see some of the comments that get downvoted here.
I agree. My voting policy reflects: I reserve down vote for comments that worsen the quality of discussion. Examples are rude or dismissive comments that fail to address any point in the OPs comment or article.
At its worst, I've seen people get down voted for asking beginner level questions. The calibre of folk who post here can, by its nature, make commenting a nervous activity. Getting down voted for trying to expand your knowledge is both harmful and wrong.
If I see a comment down voted without the above properties, I up vote to neutralise whether I agree or not. If the comment contributes to debate or discussion, it should be valued. I know I value alternate perspectives.
I completely agree. I do the same thing for subjectively downvoted posts. I want HN to be a place where people share all kinds of ideas and ask questions at any level.
I'm not sure there's an awareness the effect a down vote can have on someone new here. I remember when I made a comment after joining and it got a down vote. I didn't comment for about 6 months.
The fact that down votes are silent makes things worse. Great, you've been down voted. Why? Ask why, down vote again. It's almost a recipe for gradual shaping to conformity of group opinion for anyone who wants to participate here. It can then come across as say these things, don't say these things and you'll be sailing.
I don't know, perhaps an explanatory comment should be encouraged so that real education happens. Otherwise its almost Pavlovian in nature, especially for the less confident and highly anxious.
That's fine. I think most of the HN community disagrees with him on that.
Given the way HN is designed (comments are ranked, low scores get grayed out, user karma scores are visible) if people downvote to express disagreement it would worsen the experience of reading comments, and, I suspect, the overall conversation.
I find HN to be quite rich, in both content and discussions about said content. I don't post because I usually don't have anything significant to add to the conversation.
I have to say though, your comment deeply disturbs me. Those weren't poisonous words. And I highly doubt that his comment, which seems quite informative, comes from his "dreams of a world made of slaves".
I can tell you're American. Constantly when I travel to the US, I get spoon fed this bullshit when people find out I'm Canadian. I have literally - on more than one occasion - had people tell me how they couldn't live in a "socialist" country like Canada. They then proceed to educate me (without any indication I want to hear shit about their opinions or beliefs) on the benefits of capitalism, how Obama is enslaving America, how universal health care is freedom lessening crap, and so on. It blows my mind the level of intolerance and subtle hatred.
He's just being part of the discussion, providing opposing information and some of his opinions. Chill the fuck out.
I assure you that your "burden" of having to "constantly" listen to Americans educate you about socialism is more than outweighed by people like you assuming we are all one homogeneous mass that behaves that way ("I can tell you're American" followed by a lecture about the "blow your mind" level of intolerance and hatred here, as if that is uniquely American)
I wonder how you maintain the cognitive dissonance that so many people here seem to hate Obama and Obamacare, yet somehow re-elect him. Must be confusing.
First, I didn't call it a burden so you can't exactly quote me as having said that. But it's cool, it is a pain in the ass so go for it.
Second, I don't think America is a "homogeneous mass that behaves that way" and neither did I say that. I said that this (getting to hear long-winded rants about political views, religion, social issues, etc.) occurs constantly when I'm in the US. You've confused my statement of anecdotal evidence as a statement of all encompassing truth. It isn't. I don't believe the majority of Americans are like this. I just think (note that word: think, not know, it's my opinion) you have a significant portion of people that are like this, are quite vocal about it, and aren't overly tolerant of differing opinions.
Third, I'm not confused and no simultaneously differing viewpoints are rolling around in my brain either. I didn't state my own opinions on the matter of Obama, capitalism, universal health care (bet you can guess where I stand on that one though), I merely stated MY experiences with the opinions of Americans I had ran into while traveling. Yes, you relected Obama. Cheers. 48.97% of people that voted didn't vote for Obama. Maybe the people I'm referring to are a subset of them, no?
My point is that I highly doubt you've met that many Americans, not enough to state an opinion on a "significant portion of Americans" at least -- hence my statement about judging us as a homogenous mass. Perhaps I should have been clearer: I suspect you are over-extrapolating. I also believe there are plenty of people from other countries with similar (and equally vocal) beliefs as well.
I visit Canada frequently, Nova Scotia to be exact, and in my time there I have run across some interesting viewpoints, but I would not pretend to have a firm grasp of any significant portion of Canadians. I understand it is one fairly isolated region, it is small, and I don't have full context.
Now, to give you some perspective, there are 310 MILLION Americans, which is 10 times more than Canada. I think people often don't realize this. There are as many people in California alone as all of Canada (more actually). Within the span of 9 hours we could drive and visit cities within California with such different ideologies you'd not understand how they can all operate together.
So excuse me for being highly suspicious of any person claiming they've met some Americans and thus reached some conclusion on how a significant portion of them think. Especially when normally something like this could just as easily be explained by confirmation bias and particularly vocal minorities.
I suppose my point is that I don't understand the need to bring "Americans" into this at all. You were having a discussion with one individual that you know little about, so what is the need to essentially say "I bet you are of nationality X for this negative reason". Outside of being a by the book presumptive and prejudicial position, it will also serve to alienate people that may otherwise agree with you.
I have visited plenty of other countries where people have expressed similar sentiments towards "socialism", Canada included. I'm not even sure why I'm bothering responding to this comment, it's so absurd and clearly blindingly biased. As if literally no one on earth other than Americans could dislike socialism that much.
