Comment by ninkendo

I have a strong emotional investment in what’s happening to my country. That’s why I’m getting upset. It has fuck all to do with HN. I’m getting upset about what’s happening with my country and predictably taking it out on other HN commenters, and other HN commenters are upset about what’s happening and are clearly taking it out on me. (I basically painted a big target on my forehead saying “I flagged this post” and people are talking to me as if I’m one of the ICE supporters or something.)

I’m not against politics on HN. I’m against anger-driven discussions on the internet in general. It’s not only bad discussion by this site’s standards, it’s bad for the world. As in, the internet causes us to hate each other more than we otherwise would, and those divisions are (I believe) directly responsible for the shape of the political landscape today. This is not a game… people talk online, they develop hatred for other people they wouldn’t otherwise have, and take that hatred to the voting booth.

And I don’t count myself as better than average here either: I’m just as likely to post flippant one-line hot take responses to someone else’s flippant one-line hot take responses. I’m just as angry as all of you. I’m not trying to ignore anything, I’m not trying to silence anyone. I’m only saying that arguing angrily at strangers on the internet is the opposite of constructive towards actually fixing any real problems, and we would be better off with “normal” journalism where we hear the news from experts and discuss it with people we generally trust.