Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists.
I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will.
I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to kill ourselves via climate change, but we would deserve it.
This sort of generalization is notoriously unreliable and subject to cognitive bias. People are far more likely to notice what they dislike, and to weight it more heavily. This produces false feelings of generality:
That's why users with opposing views to yours make the opposite generalization [1]. It's not that HN is any different—they simply dislike different things. This is one of the most reliable phenomena I've seen on HN. It's so reliable that one can accurately predict people's politics (or other preferences) simply by flipping a bit on the generalizations they make.
Since we are here, Daniel, and also with reference to something I wrote nearby: I think the guidelines should be augmented, in terms of "downvoting without justification should be frowned upon". Otherwise, some would be tempted to just downvote something because they "feel differently": posts are not polls ("how many like strawberry, how many dislike it"). In general, downvoting should be accompanied by posting the underlying reasons - it should take posts evidently inconsistent with the purpose (cheap cheer, cheap joke etc.) to be exceptionally downvoted silently.
I understand HN is pretty conservative in terms of structure and rules, but I believe this should be a general norm that would be consistent with the spirit of the site (intellectuality and promotion of meaningful posts), and beneficial if made explicit.
It is a common suggestion but I think it would be a mistake to require people to post reasons for their downvotes. It would produce a ton of noise (because people would just make shit up) and dramatically increase meta-bickering about downvotes, which we already have too much of.
Edit: here's a partial list of past explanations about this, in case anyone is interested in seeing how it has come up over the years: https://news.ycombinator.com/downvote-reasons
There are probably quite a few ancaps, and I've seen a fair few communists, but I have yet to see a genuine fascist. That suggests to me your using the term more as a slur than as a word that actually means something.
Upvote and downvote do not work that way at HN and should not be interpreted that way without analysis. Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense. Experience mostly reflects the principle (some noise must be expected).
Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.
There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate.
In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places.
By the way:
> a story HN members tell themselves to feel special
Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.
Please don't be an asshole in HN comments, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You've done this repeatedly (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28673020), and that's not cool.
Sorry to pile on the scolding I already posted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28963043), but I don't think this description of HN users is either accurate or fair. You can find samples of anything in any large-enough sample, but the median HN user doesn't say that they're special, and we certainly would never claim such a thing.
Comments like this are one reason why we added this guideline: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." I can appreciate the reasons for supercilious putdowns on the internet, but they make for lousy conversation.
Moistly, there was no claim of specialness in that idea, and there was no bait. You almost seem to defend a relativism in which all ideas are worth the same, if you make "making sense" akin to "specialness". If that were true, there would be no point to debate. Surely, feeling alone does not constitute any basis for rational exchange - only for communication in terms of "sharing". HN does not read like "There is a shortage if lithium" // "I feel your pain, bro": some of us are very glad it so is, because it would make a largely useless, noisy reading.
Disambiguation at re-reading: «Surely, feeling alone does not constitute any basis for rational exchange» is to be read as "A mediated (unfiltered) expression of feelings in a language which does not work for rational exchange, consistently is noise when attempting that (information exchange, insight and debate)".
Expressed in my unedited (too late), it «feeling alone» ("feeling" alone) could have been read as "when feeling lonely". Which is not what was intended, but seems almost a point: if somebody is here for the greatest laughters, enveloping warmth, or tickling, I am not sure it is the place. Some language and thinking is fit here, some elsewhere.
Thanks for the kind reply. I know that people sometimes say such things, but they're a tiny minority of HN users. I cringe inwardly when I hear them, and I'm probably oversensitive on the point.
Hi Daniel. Sorry but I do not quite understand your point. It seems like you are censoring my statement «Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense», and you found it cringeful - it even seems like you state you are glad "my position represents a minority". I am also interested in your "sensitivity", also (not just in terms of sheer human relation) because I do not quite understand what "touches" you in that direction.
I have not yet managed to read (all) pg's interventions. I just read though that according to him "down arrows [can be used to] express agreement". As I tried to observe formerly, though, this contrasts with the direction of "reasoning". If one just "felt" disagreement, but cannot justify it (or will not out of laziness), there will be no progress, no discussion, no quality. The guidelines, I a pretty sure, specify to warn against cheapness, and there is very little cheaper than one's statement "I disagree [end of statement]". What are we debating for if disagreement is not rationalized? I was pretty sure we are meant to be reasoning here, not to do some expressive "performance art". (Note: which I do myself, as an aside luxury, always taking care though that the intellectual structure it accompanies appears solid. Never alone, never without the important bits attached.)
What I tried to express in fact to the user that seems obsessed about the idea that some "feel special", in my last intervention, is that "expression of "feeling" will be consistent with this apparent framework when it will be expressed within a rational framework, which will allow it to be managed within a discussion". Without that, it will not be "information exchange, insight and debate": it will be noise. The very fact that on average we restrain ourselves from joking, to try to keep density high, is indicative.
The quality of debates here are completely different from what you can find elsewhere: as mentioned, for example, YT and Reddit - where noise and low quality are abysmally huge. What is the filter that causes that increase, if not that using the "head" is promoted here instead of lower bits? (It was a rhetoric formula: I am sure it is that.) To quote Daniel G. (read somewhere else), "We are just trying to build a [cannot remember term] that does not suck". It is the direction of consistency with "intellectual curiosity" which is granting that.
Tireless moderation is what makes this place a bit better. It is the only thing that makes this place better. Remove the moderation and HN will immediately become a Reddit cesspool.
I just meant that when enthusiastic users make what seem to me to be excessive claims about HN, I feel embarrassed (a.k.a. cringe). Also, I brace myself because I know that other users are going to get triggered by it.
I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will.
I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to kill ourselves via climate change, but we would deserve it.