I mean weird as a polite way of saying apparently disingenuous. Your comments seem designed to deflect and divert the discussion away from its most salient points and into an arena which discussion is pointless (anyone can like any content they like, after all, no one could possibly dispute your interest in TikTok or that other people might find it interesting too). I feel relatively confident in suggesting that the issues the article points out are rather more important or at least important enough to warrant actual discussion.

I'm not angry about anything, nor do I dispute your thesis that from a content point of view there may be similarities. I just raise the question of how that contributes to a genuinely useful discussion about the sociopolitical implications of the app.

Ah, I see where we’re talking past one another. Yes, you’re right. My goal was to explicitly set aside the sociopolitical implications. Why?

Because there’s never any opportunity to talk about anything else on HN. One hundred percent of the time, it’s a big discussion about the political implications of TikTok. The only time it shows up here is when it’s done something newsworthy, and people are (rightly) upset or scared about it.

The missing context here is that top level comments aren’t required to be “on topic” in the sense you’re saying. Quite the opposite; as dang says, HN is consistently contrarian.

All I can say is that I’m never contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. That’d be lame, as well as boring. I’ve been a TikTok user for over three years now. This is simply a glimpse into that world — or at least, my poor attempt at giving one.

> My goal was to explicitly set aside the sociopolitical implications. Why? … Because there’s never any opportunity to talk about anything else on HN. One hundred percent of the time, it’s a big discussion about the political implications of TikTok.

I’d argue that “setting aside” the implications is a form of wishful thinking.

Everything you pointed out can be pointed out without discarding the implications or implying that having a stance regarding the risks is somehow equivalent to wishing HN would be banned.

TikTok is primarily an interesting topic here because of those implications and because many folks are quite willing to pretend the problem doesn’t exist as long as they get their dopamine hit.

But it is completely compatible with this reality to point out that the content can be joyful to experience, while acknowledging that the context of that experience is a serious issue.

And if TikTok is banned, people won’t stop creating the kinds of content found there. It’ll just move to the next big thing.

I hold no hatred for TikTok, but I don’t get your argument at all.

You’re comparing TikTok and HN in terms of entertainment value.

Parent comment is highlighting that there are more factors to consider if you want to seriously compare the two.

Wanting TikTok gone is not like wanting HN gone, unless you believe that the only thing that matters about TikTok is its entertainment value.

The entertainment value is what makes it a valuable strategic asset to the PRC. But judging it only on that entertainment value is the kind of logic that leads to acceptance of bills like the EARN IT act.

The underlying details matter, not just the entertainment value or supposed safety claims.

Entertainment value is the only thing that makes HN valuable to YC. Admitting that to yourself is important; I wasn’t able to set aside my feelings of “the community is gone” until realizing that it’s just a different kind of community. One that seeks a certain flavor of entertainment.

You keep coming back because HN makes you feel good. It’s both as simple and as complex as that.

EDIT: This topic is much more nuanced than my comment here. Entertainment doesn’t imply that it’s somehow a lesser endeavor. But if Dan stopped entertaining the community, it would fall apart. It’s a necessary step in order to get to the most gratifying aspects of HN, and it’s why incendiary topics are so tricky.

I think most people would agree that Reddit is less entertaining than HN. Entertainment doesn’t mean cheesy. I wouldn’t find most political discussions very entertaining, whereas someone explaining how they hunted down a subtle bug is one of the most entertaining types of comments.

The best commenters here “play for the audience” the same way street performers play for the crowd. It’s all about skill. And if it’s skill-based rather than something random, you’ll have to admit that there’s a target to aim for.

That target is “be entertaining.” It’s called intellectual gratification in the rules, but fundamentally, you come to HN instead of Reddit because you’re entertained here, not there.

It’s my job to write substantive comments here. And it’s one I do happily, because I get so much out of it in return. But I have to be keenly aware of whether you, the audience, are getting something out of it too. That’s the essence of being entertaining.

My point here was that TikTok is gratifying in addition to “entertaining,” in many of the same ways that HN is. This was shocking, since I was expecting something horrible when I tried it out. It’s quite the opposite; you just have to look past the horrors for the gems.

Think of it like being trapped on https://news.ycombinator.com/newest, except sometimes you get the front page, and occasionally you get /highlights. You’d think you were alternating between something apocalyptic, something great, and something astounding.

TikTok’s algorithm achieves that, somehow. I’ve curated almost 3,000 videos. Actually, I just checked: 4,644.

As an accomplished contributor to ML and a long time community member, trust me when I say that I wouldn’t do it unless there was something valuable there. I’d lose interest, just as you would in Reddit’s /r/politics.

Again, you're focusing on entertainment and ignoring other factors. I never claimed HN is not entertaining.

Simply put: HN is not a national security threat, and TikTok is. This statement is compatible with acknowledging that both provide value (of the entertainment sort and otherwise).

But when evaluating the risk associated with each platform, one is clearly in a category that the other is not.

Guns can be very entertaining. Learning to shoot and honing one's skills can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. People do it because it makes them feel good. It's as simple and as complex as that.

But if you were to evaluate the risks of using guns as entertainment, you could not conclude that guns are no different than guitars. Both can be used to satisfy deeply human desires to learn a skill and entertain oneself. But there is an appropriate difference in policy when it comes to the requirements imposed on a gun buyers vs. guitar shoppers.

I'm not saying you're doing this intentionally, but you continue to ignore and sidestep the nuance that I and others have tried to reintroduce.

Let me ask you this: is there something that would have to happen for you to change your opinion about TikTok? If we learned tomorrow that it has actively been used to manipulate the mental health of teens and could be causally linked to suicides, does the overall entertainment value make that not matter?

Where's the line that you won't cross?