We've had these types of threads posted several times before and they've always been fun, though it seems like /g/ are really struggling for material this time around.
That said:
> [600 points] Why only web development matters (http :// nautil.us medium wordpress theverge gawker .com)
[1000 points] Some hot-button political issue that we know nothing about
[-1 points] An O(n) time algorithm for multiplying matrices
And that's why I have been phasing my tech news away from HN.
It's really enjoyable watching the 4chan folks take the piss out of here--though a lot of the posts are, I suspect, newfags (in the vernacular) posting purposefully bigoted things in language that isn't typical to /g/.
For all its immaturity, 4chan can be surprisingly clever. A lot of the commenters on that thread were complaining about having had accounts banned here, though.
I've never been a part of a comments section quite as dry as this one. I feel afraid of a shadowban if I make the slightest mistake. That sort of environment doesn't really foster the risk-taking that humor often requires.
I started frequenting HN because I kept encountering these kinds of problems everywhere else. Certain subjects just have more gravity as it were, and when present will inevitably take up all the oxygen in a room. The only way I know to manage it is to isolate it in sub-fora, and be very strict about containment.
An important difference between HN and other fourms I frequent(ed) however is that instead of taking offense and going on the defensive when 'attacked' by 4chan, they recognize the joke and find it funny. That alone puts HN lightyears ahead of those other organizations.
And regardless of why, it's exactly this kind of self-awareness and identity that enables people to discuss ideas without feeling threatened by them, something which has held back both social and scientific progress in the past.
"An important difference between HN and other fourms I frequent(ed) however is that instead of taking offense and going on the defensive when 'attacked' by 4chan, they recognize the joke and find it funny. That alone puts HN lightyears ahead of those other organizations."
This. This comment could just as easily have been on that 4chan thread as a great example of HN think to be laughed at.
Not sure what you mean by that. If you are asking if they are a joke, a parody on real racists/sexists would say, then no. The complaints are serious. If you mean that people who complain about social justice warriors are really racists/sexists, well that's hard to answer, because it depends on one's definition of social justice warrior and one's definition of racism and sexism.
I think that people are now using overt racism and sexism as protest against Social Justice. Since a Social Justice Warrior will define anyone who doesn't agree with them as a racist or sexist anyway, people make it as obvious as possible because there is no escape. The only thing left is to piss them off.
HN community VS 4chan community ? Really ? What if we'd stop pretending for just 1 sec, and just admit that many, many people are just the same here and there ?
Where does this lead ? As many here pretend to play the game, and play hardly, because they're aware of the rules, at least a small part of them, deep in their brain, also hate it. The feeling that most of time, crazy VC and tech race just lead nowhere is real. The worm is in the fruit already, and really, I'm pleased to record so.
The complaints about "SJWs", while indelicately phrased, aren't completely off-base. Hacker News has gotten way more PC over the past 5 years, much to its detriment. I remember what the site was like before the big reddit influx in 2010, and the actual political center wasn't that different, but the quality of discussion was a lot higher. People were forthright, analytical, and thorough. Conversation wasn't so prone to being dominated by groupthink, memes, and keeping up appearances.
Some of this doesn't come from HN itself but from the overall tech culture. But I think a big part of the story is that the site saw a massive expansion in users, thus becoming more generic and "public", meaning people have to be a bit more reflexive about what they say on here. When your audience is a trusted community of people with a shared understanding of the rights and protections that discussion participants grant to one another, you can cut through the bullshit a lot easier.
I know people that don't read HN because it's too virulently sexist, so having 4chan see it as too SJW is interesting.
Will we end up with two "social justice" realities, like we have with vaccination, creationism/evolution and climate change, where it's entirely possible to spend your entire browsing time on sites that agree with your opinions on everything?
Even after many HNers read this thread and appreciate the points being made, I'm sure we'll still see the same "Site I made in unique2me.js" garbage headlines in the top feed. Hopefully what we all take away from this is that we need to better spot patterns of articles/blogspam and self-moderate those submissions.
I actually like this layout. It's fast and easy to read, renders ok on mobile and is lightweight. I'm grateful that the maintainers didn't switch to an over-the-top look-at-my-framework.js thing just to make it look modern at the detriment of usability.
Just going to point out that that link contains hate speech directed at women, people of color and the LGBTQ community. I know YCombinator's been talking up diversity as of late, so maybe a good idea to not be linking to hate?
I've been reading HN for 4+ years now, and I think that practically every post in that thread is spot-on. HN has turned into the very thing that I thought the guidelines were designed to prevent. The internet doesn't need another reddit, it's bad enough as it is.
HN has become host to feminist shilling and corporate endorsements, on top of the already flawed content model that encourages disengagement to the point where people are just reposting headlines and treating HN as a comments section for the article itself.
Either way, there's something to be said for constructive criticism like this, and HN can potentially learn from this.
I hate to tell you this but HN has always been about "corporate endorsements" - this is primarily a startup site, which means you're going to see a lot of VC and SF culture around here.
Learn what? The whole thread is basically a fond pop at HN, with the usual 4chan dribble thrown in (like the faggot/nigger shock commentary).
I'm not sure how the vein of commentary about the headlines being business/startup oriented is a negative criticism, since that's the point of HN - and if anything, the business side of the forum has been dying off for quite a while.
Perhaps people became more aware of the causes of feminism? Whenever a belief of mine is very convenient for me I always try to tear it down just in case there is some hidden bias or other logical fallacy.
We've had these types of threads posted several times before and they've always been fun, though it seems like /g/ are really struggling for material this time around.
That said:
> [600 points] Why only web development matters (http :// nautil.us medium wordpress theverge gawker .com)
Here's the first one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373
Some really good ones in there.
You're not wrong, but I find it I still find it hilarious. It's a good thread for a Friday afternoon laugh.
Why not just say "you're right"
There is some inspired content in that link. My personal fave:
We're disrupting the 1gorillion dollar [insert industry] sign up for our beta to check it out[0].
[0]We just need your name, address, credit card, and birth date. To verify your a human.[1]
[1] and we store all of this in clear text files on our server.[2]
[2] which was written using [insert new hipster language] by some guy who's been programming for 3 weeks.[3]
[3] but we promise not use your data to mine the shit out of you and sell it to advertisers.[4]
[4] jk
Oh shit, 5 footnotes in a single comment? We've got another David Foster Wallace here.
It's probably making fun of Paul Graham's essays, which have footnotes in that style (though not usually nested)[0].
[0] Like this.
3 replies →
Some are kinda on point:
And that's why I have been phasing my tech news away from HN.
It's really enjoyable watching the 4chan folks take the piss out of here--though a lot of the posts are, I suspect, newfags (in the vernacular) posting purposefully bigoted things in language that isn't typical to /g/.
> And that's why I have been phasing my tech news away from HN.
To where?
1 reply →
"[145 points] Node.js + ASM.js + Angular.js + Coffee Script: how I built my static website"
That one made me laugh out loud. Some of them are quite good.
"But progressive enhancement is the past!"
[213 points] Sleeping considered harmful - Why I stopped sleeping
I liked this one.
For all its immaturity, 4chan can be surprisingly clever. A lot of the commenters on that thread were complaining about having had accounts banned here, though.
Posting 4chan style comments would be a quick way to get banned from... from quite a lot of place actually.
2 replies →
"Harm considered harmful"
'“Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful' actually exists: http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html
It's refreshing to see what people post without fear of retaliation or identification on the web.
Gold!
"Ask HN: Why won't VCs invest in our dating app, and why is it because we're women founders?"
"[1583] We taught 13 women from Sierra Leone node.js"
These are great; my favourites are:
> How I rewrote Bash in javascript.
> I decided to re-implement Javascript in Javascript. It failed. Here is my story.
> [450 points] Why I have private Github repos at my startup but everyone else should give away their software for free.
It's so true ;~;
Can an interpreted language be completely written in itself?
yes
Uninformed opinion I'll try to pass off as insightful and fact-centric by using footnotes [1][2][3].
[1] theatlantic.com [2] theverge.com [3] blog.tumblr.com
Archive link for future readers : https://archive.rebeccablacktech.com/g/thread/48696148
Someone mentioned that they hated the lack of humor in HN's comments section, which I tend to agree with.
Humour is allowed here. Just not the same humour as you get on reddit, with links to memes, or annoying puns.
I've never been a part of a comments section quite as dry as this one. I feel afraid of a shadowban if I make the slightest mistake. That sort of environment doesn't really foster the risk-taking that humor often requires.
1 reply →
"Humour is allowed here"
The existence of that sentence (written in all seriousness) suggests that it doesn't really stand a chance though.
I started frequenting HN because I kept encountering these kinds of problems everywhere else. Certain subjects just have more gravity as it were, and when present will inevitably take up all the oxygen in a room. The only way I know to manage it is to isolate it in sub-fora, and be very strict about containment.
An important difference between HN and other fourms I frequent(ed) however is that instead of taking offense and going on the defensive when 'attacked' by 4chan, they recognize the joke and find it funny. That alone puts HN lightyears ahead of those other organizations.
And regardless of why, it's exactly this kind of self-awareness and identity that enables people to discuss ideas without feeling threatened by them, something which has held back both social and scientific progress in the past.
"An important difference between HN and other fourms I frequent(ed) however is that instead of taking offense and going on the defensive when 'attacked' by 4chan, they recognize the joke and find it funny. That alone puts HN lightyears ahead of those other organizations."
This. This comment could just as easily have been on that 4chan thread as a great example of HN think to be laughed at.
My fav: Why I rewrote Go in node.js in Java to play tic tac toe
> [dead] I'm Terry Davis and I created TempleOS
How many people know who Terry Davis is?
Everyone with showdead=yes.
So I'm out of the loop. Are complaints about social justice warriors just a modern twist on "I'm not racist, but..."?
Not sure what you mean by that. If you are asking if they are a joke, a parody on real racists/sexists would say, then no. The complaints are serious. If you mean that people who complain about social justice warriors are really racists/sexists, well that's hard to answer, because it depends on one's definition of social justice warrior and one's definition of racism and sexism.
I think that people are now using overt racism and sexism as protest against Social Justice. Since a Social Justice Warrior will define anyone who doesn't agree with them as a racist or sexist anyway, people make it as obvious as possible because there is no escape. The only thing left is to piss them off.
3 replies →
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Are the perspectives of racists not welcome here? No interest in the thoughts of Lee Kwan Yew and Nelson Mandela? I respect these schools of thought.
I liked this one
> Anonymous 06/26/15(Fri)17:51:52 No.48697104 [600 points] [meta] 4chan technology board satires hacker news, hilarious.
That was the original title of this thread but someone changed it.
I believe there are simply 2 submissions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9787986
That reminds me of the time I googled "Google" on Google while visiting Google and the universe ended.
Most of these are incredibly accurate parodies of HN. As someone who reads HN every day, these are making me cry laughing.
I wonder how they got to know their material so well...
I wonder too !
HN community VS 4chan community ? Really ? What if we'd stop pretending for just 1 sec, and just admit that many, many people are just the same here and there ? Where does this lead ? As many here pretend to play the game, and play hardly, because they're aware of the rules, at least a small part of them, deep in their brain, also hate it. The feeling that most of time, crazy VC and tech race just lead nowhere is real. The worm is in the fruit already, and really, I'm pleased to record so.
1 reply →
Yeah, and also the stupid 4chan racism and constant fear of "SJW"s.
The complaints about "SJWs", while indelicately phrased, aren't completely off-base. Hacker News has gotten way more PC over the past 5 years, much to its detriment. I remember what the site was like before the big reddit influx in 2010, and the actual political center wasn't that different, but the quality of discussion was a lot higher. People were forthright, analytical, and thorough. Conversation wasn't so prone to being dominated by groupthink, memes, and keeping up appearances.
Some of this doesn't come from HN itself but from the overall tech culture. But I think a big part of the story is that the site saw a massive expansion in users, thus becoming more generic and "public", meaning people have to be a bit more reflexive about what they say on here. When your audience is a trusted community of people with a shared understanding of the rights and protections that discussion participants grant to one another, you can cut through the bullshit a lot easier.
1 reply →
SJW represent :)
I know people that don't read HN because it's too virulently sexist, so having 4chan see it as too SJW is interesting.
Will we end up with two "social justice" realities, like we have with vaccination, creationism/evolution and climate change, where it's entirely possible to spend your entire browsing time on sites that agree with your opinions on everything?
So HN "is" "virulently sexist" and 4chan merely "sees it" as "too SJW". Sigh
yeah, you're right, I let my prejudices show a bit there.
Even after many HNers read this thread and appreciate the points being made, I'm sure we'll still see the same "Site I made in unique2me.js" garbage headlines in the top feed. Hopefully what we all take away from this is that we need to better spot patterns of articles/blogspam and self-moderate those submissions.
> [999 points] Why we raised $6 billion in a series J and deferred IPO
I wouldn't be surprised to see this in a few years.
> Shitty layout from 2003
I actually like this layout. It's fast and easy to read, renders ok on mobile and is lightweight. I'm grateful that the maintainers didn't switch to an over-the-top look-at-my-framework.js thing just to make it look modern at the detriment of usability.
"Edit: why all these downvotes?"
Just going to point out that that link contains hate speech directed at women, people of color and the LGBTQ community. I know YCombinator's been talking up diversity as of late, so maybe a good idea to not be linking to hate?
This community is a joke on every site that isn't HN. And yet, I post.
Most communities are a joke to other communities. Whether it's online communities, religions, races, countries, hobbies, whatever.
I agree, but in this case I don't think you understand the severity.
The best humor is that which is based upon reality.
And goddamn is this hilarious.
Nailed it.
I'll be honest - the "Ask PG" comment was kinda spot-on.
Could also be replaced with "Ask <anyone mildly successful in the industry>" and applied to real life events populated by the same crowd.
"The SJW aspect is the most annoying. When guys in the Valley make $160K and then talk about income inequality, it sort of makes me laugh."
I've been reading HN for 4+ years now, and I think that practically every post in that thread is spot-on. HN has turned into the very thing that I thought the guidelines were designed to prevent. The internet doesn't need another reddit, it's bad enough as it is.
HN has become host to feminist shilling and corporate endorsements, on top of the already flawed content model that encourages disengagement to the point where people are just reposting headlines and treating HN as a comments section for the article itself.
Either way, there's something to be said for constructive criticism like this, and HN can potentially learn from this.
It won't. But it could.
I hate to tell you this but HN has always been about "corporate endorsements" - this is primarily a startup site, which means you're going to see a lot of VC and SF culture around here.
> . . . people are just reposting headlines and treating HN as a comments section for the article itself.
This is exactly what I do. What is the right way to use HN?
HN is a link aggregator with comments. It's difficult for the format to be used any other way.
>HN can potentially learn from this.
Learn what? The whole thread is basically a fond pop at HN, with the usual 4chan dribble thrown in (like the faggot/nigger shock commentary).
I'm not sure how the vein of commentary about the headlines being business/startup oriented is a negative criticism, since that's the point of HN - and if anything, the business side of the forum has been dying off for quite a while.
That comment was about how HN could learn from 4chan's layout. For example, I think comment trees are way harder to read than a linear stream.
Learn not to take yourself too seriously, which plenty of folks around here do.
1 reply →
"feminist shilling"
no, those aren't my legitimate opinions. i'm a brainwashed shill. you've got me.
I knew it!
> HN has become host to feminist shilling
Perhaps people became more aware of the causes of feminism? Whenever a belief of mine is very convenient for me I always try to tear it down just in case there is some hidden bias or other logical fallacy.
my fav: J(ew) Combinator
mine also
haha 4chan has real hackers man
Well this is bit meta...