well, I don't make any secret that I'm an asshole, but if you got this far... I'm ticked off at HN for:
1) being exactly the hollow echo chamber that leads to bubbles, because amidst the "We're just connecting investors to founders" is the networking, smiling, and meaningless business-talk that leads to Color (Remember Color?) getting funded. And HN would like to distance itself, saying it, too, was skeptical of Color, but Color at least had some hint of being innovative and all too many startups I see here are bad ideas _and_ bland ones.
2) This account got hell-banned, probably because I drunkenly chewed out an asshat. Now, I have two things to say on that score: d'ya think I wouldn't notice? A pathetically childish technical "crowd management" technique that I get around by going to my other account on any other browser I have open for my various Reddit names. I'll give it one credit, though, it spurred me to leave for good for Android+technology+buildapc+programming+javascript. I make a habit of checking back here every so often. Quality's crap. And the actual quality articles get complaints about being poor quality.
Also on that score, I'm not really sure I regret going off on that guy. I don't really disagree with anything I said, but at the same time I'm faced with the fact that I'm not at all a nice person. But HN doesn't let you delete comments, which is some sort of redneck backwards, and the way I see it it's not fair to the dude or to me to have that moment enshrined forever. Best I can do is camouflage it a bit.
3) Along the lines of hell-banning, the meta-awareness of this place is so stuffy and clueless. Policies do not constitute meaningful group decisions. Reddit has what, fifteen metacirclebrokes? HN just has occasional rabid debate about problems and whether or not they are problems and then pg does whatever, as well as a constant barrage of "We're not reddit" and various other pretentions. Now I'm a pretty damn pretentious person, but that also comes with a fair amount of self-loathing--and granted, HN has that too (what else is that but this?), but not in any meaningful, sculpted way.
4) My Backbone tech article and in fact all my articles get ignored here. And I'm not being sour grapes about that: I was in fact quite pleased that my first WBH got a handful of HN views. But that Backbone article did _great_ in /r/javascript, and maybe HN has a noise/signal problem, but if so, it's one that means you have to be somebody or you have use friends to be seen.
HN is already being gamed. And I don't think it has the capacity to deal with that. It comes with being a part of the Networking Circlejerk.
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So, HN, enjoy your startup launches and your occasional gender-war debacles and your considered harmful considered self-referential.
I've been moving away from HN recently and this is the first article in a while to really spark my interest.
Lots more is involved here than just pop culture; comparative culture, the divide between pop and 'high art,' and the cultural effects of economic success.
I had the same question, and I hope you see what I mean when I say I hope I never have to use it ;)--but looking at demo page and use cases it's a v. neat acceleration!
>Do you mean that the victim-blaming is what these people actually believe and therefore it's a form of "truth"
That's obvious to the point of uselessness. I think we're on the same page re: victim-blaming being a big problem. I don't dismiss any of the comments that talk about victim-blaming.
The only thing I'm really pushing for is: this conversation should happen. And it is, between you and me.
The psychologist you cite I myself cited. The point of discussing anything is that no discussions lead to more rape.
Unless you're afraid.
If you're afraid that real discussion will cause more rape, and that the sacrifice of real understanding is worth pretending that that more rape doesn't exist.
Because that's the guarantee.
That's what that meh-ish psychologist proved.
We will not forget. Because there's nothing we're not afraid to know.
Are you saying you can't comprehend what I was trying to mean?
Your second paragraph is exactly the attitude that I despise. I don't care what your intent is: the effect is you want to hide what people really think.
There are no tools to handle that discussion. And that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. And that means we'll find the tools for it.
Clueless.
edit: I feel like I'm in the midst of the argument that HN doesn't want. And I both don't want it and do want it in the same breath.
HN doesn't have the self-examination reddit does. It just doesn't. HN manages it by careful changes to its ruleset.
Reddit manages it by having an incredibly uncontrolled diverse ecosystem of recursively examinative subreddits.
And while I admire HN's adherence to quality, I will endure downvote after downvote unto hellban in order to defy our stodginess.
My insulting comment had _upvotes_. That's _pathetic_. I played the lower bound on how my comment would be received and still won as measured by applause.
You had to ignore that comment and respond to this one instead. That's how much you lost.
So dust yourself off, pick yourself up, and see where you went wrong.
It's not a bad thing to be a loser because we're all terrible. We're all really wrong about a lot of things.
But the difference between people laughing at you and people laughing with you is how much you laugh.
Dude, I _like_ you. You spent the effort to type, what, two thousand words, _three_ thousand words about how much you value truth? That's admirable. That's awesome.
But you fucked up big, because you thought we cared, because you missed the point of "No one gives a shit" so hilariously _truthfully_ that everyone is laughing at you, that probably the best response is someone's "tl;dr" down below.
You think you know things other people don't. No one knows things other people don't! I don't! I'm just trying to move truth around like every other sonofabitch that ever walked this planet.
Failure is the most terrible thing that can ever happen to you because it helps you access the truth. "Fail early, fail often" isn't about releasing early, it's about seeking evidence. Evidence of how much the thing you're spending your glory on, how much that thing you're working on will be received.
I'd be nothing without that evidence, even if it reduced me to nothing.
And what that results in is bazillions of startups built by pg and by HN and by this idea that even failed ideas are a part of success. Because they are!
Zuckerberg got lucky. That thread about years-old Y-combinator thread proves that hard work moves more people into success than luck ever could.
And I'm waxing melodramatic but _you've_ been so melodramatic, and maybe that's balance.
So fuck you. You staked out a position and lost it, and you're still trying to fight it.
Because if you really believed what you've said, that every word you've said is defensible and true and worth saying...
well, then you wouldn't have to defend it against people telling you absolutely base insults.
You suck.
You're awful.
But you're ok in my book, because you tried hard. You said a truth that resonates with me, even if I've heard it before.
I didn't even read your post. I skimmed it. I got the bits that mattered, which are: you're absolutely committed to making things work.
Which is the only thing that matters.
I hate you. But that's the best form of respect I can give you.
Please hate me. Hate me for being right, or hate me for being wrong.
Because then you have an opinion about my speaking my piece.