Comment by johnfn

I would say that HN was at least as sharply negative during the cryptocurrency craze. I recall various submissions asking "Why is HN so anti-crypto?" as well.

I say "simply" because, as I mentioned, it's an invariant—possibly the most consistent phenomenon we've observed on HN [1]. I admit I didn't add anything to substantiate that! it would have been too much of a digression. (Not that that ever stopped me before...)

The interesting question is, if it's so consistent, how can it go unnoticed for so long (as you've reported) and/or get perceived as one-sided ("HN is so anti-A") when in fact it is almost always two-sided ("HN users are divided on A")?

The answer is that what you notice depends on how you feel [2]. If you like A, or (more precisely) if you dislike anti-A, you are far more likely to notice anti-A posts. Not only that, but you will weight them more heavily, meaning they make a stronger impression on you than the median post does—even the median pro-A post.

These two variables, frequency and impact, combine to produce a picture of the site as anti-A—so strongly that people often use universals like "always" and "never" when describing it. In reality, HN is a statistical cloud, but your pre-existing feelings determine which datapoints you happen to notice (i.e. frequency) and how strongly they affect you (i.e. impact). [3]

This is why people with opposing views feel the same about how biased HN is, but in opposite directions: A is certain that the site is anti-A, and B is just as certain that it's anti-B. It's simply (<-- that word again!) that their feelings cause them to notice different datapoints. Abstract out the directional bit (pro- or anti-, A or B), and their perceptions become isomorphic.

Unfortunately for us, HN is more afflicted by this than other sites of comparable or larger size, because all of them organize the community into silos [4], meaning they're sharded by social group (e.g. Twitter's follow lists), or by content (e.g. Reddit's subreddits), and so on. HN is non-siloed, meaning everyone is in the same place: all the As, all the anti-As, all the Bs, all the anti-Bs - we're all roaming the same threads and bumping into each other. You are more likely to run into datapoints you find disagreeable, and therefore more likely to feel that the community is biased against your view, and - what's worse - more biased the more strongly you feel!

Once or twice a year, some reply I'm writing gets hijacked by my sadness about this and turns into a digressive lament. Why? because although I believe that in reality HN is somewhat (<-- not to exaggerate) more thoughtful and tolerant than other communities of the same or greater size, the dynamic I've just described means it inevitably gets perceived as less so. [5]

I believe this is why one so often hears about how toxic, nasty, negative HN is—not that it isn't those things! but the relative level of them gets distorted. Humans can't take much of what we dislike and disagree with before resorting to generalization and other internal barriers. This is essentially an immune response. It often takes only a handful of datapoints (3, or 2, or maybe even just 1) before the impression burns into the retina and becomes permanent [6].

This is most painful when the topic is close to one's heart—for example, when one's own work is being criticized. In cases like that, it doesn't take much before one feels wounded, and such impressions rarely go away.

In one case I saw, some people were agreeing about how terrible and mean Hacker News is, and to prove the point, one of them linked to a vile reply he had received. That reply, however, was from Twitter—not from HN at all! He hastened to add "HN is the same"—somewhat self-refutingly, since if it were true, an actual example would not have been hard to find. In reality, while such vile comments do show up on HN, the community quickly flags most of them, and moderators eventually flag most of the rest.

That is an example of the skew in perception I'm talking about, and even though it made me feel terrible, I don't mean to be critical because I understand where it comes from. It comes from fundamentals [7]: specifically, how HN's design interacts with human hard-wiring. Because those are fundamentals, this is not going to change, nor can it be affected by argument. Sad!

Or rather, it could only change if we changed the foundation of HN's design—in this case, by sharding the site into silos—but (a) I'd be scared to tamper with DNA at that level, and (b) if the above is correct, then it's good for the world that this place exists. It just can't expect to be perceived as such [5]. End of this season's lament.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

There's probably a lot to say about it's merits or problems, but given the demographics (or my perception of them) is largely "software people" can you really be that surprised or angry given that this could snuff out a _lot_ of people's livelihoods like nothing we've probably seen in our lifetimes?

It is just a few people. Any time people are unpleasant to others or post in an uninteresting way I add them to a personal list that filters out their comments. Rapidly the site becomes more usable. The negativity is from a few highly polarized individuals.

I know others also do this - though often they are kind enough to auto-fold.

I think there's definitely groups on both sides, and I feel like it's similar to cryptocurrency a few years back. There's people really into it, and in response there's people really against it. On a smaller scale, see for example rust. In contrast there isn't as much vitriol against, say, world hunger because there isn't people very obviously pro-that to push against.

IMO it's because AI outputs don't pass "is this corpses" test and trigger uncanny valley response. There's something in AI that instantly cause unsuspecting viewers to become alert and hostile.

At the same time, cut raw steaks don't alert people in the same way as corpses do, and that is a double standard, in a way, I guess.

Same experience. But that's simply because you think you're experienced but the OP knows that you're just deluding yourself. Just kidding.

More seriously, I think this is a true reflection of a cultural phenomena. All discussions have become more polarized. There is a more of a generational divide in perception and discussion. I would also say there is a loss of nuance.

To complicate this even further there is a real diversity of experiences depending on many factors.

I mean we had flame wars on USENET but somehow it feels to me that most discourse even on controversial topics was civil. When we had tabs vs. spaces flamewars (or whatever the fun topic of the day was) everyone knew they were in a flame war (and often acknowledged that). Or maybe I'm just being nostalgic/biased.

I see the anti-AI sentiments in my work place. I think people are genuinely worried/concerned and don't know how this is going to change our world or even where we are exactly. This is also spilling into adjacent areas where people have strong emotional responses to (the rich, the economy, job market, politics, environment etc.).

Did You build it? Or did you manage the build of it? Could you have done it without AI? If not, you didn't do it.

A drill is just a tool. You can screw a screw without one. AI is just a tool, you can do things without it, too.

But AI applied in a manner you could not otherwise complete on your own is not a tool. It's a slave. None of the ideas or creations presented in that instance are your own. You just cheated someone out of a paycheck they may have otherwise earned.

Its divided because its the first time the previously more class unaware techbros have been critically challenged by the consequences of their actions - oh shit we might lose our jobs.

10 years ago "Disrupting X" was seen as a good thing. Now its come for them its a different story.

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