Hacker News

26 Jun 2022 - New York, NY

Personal observations about the community of commenters on Hacker News and their by-and-large beliefs:

Anti-alcohol/anti-drugs
Anti-hippie/pro-yuppie
Anti-hydrogen economy (pro-batteries and electric vehicles EVs)
Pro-capitalism/pro-technology/pro-engineering/pro-capitalistic job/pro-capitalistic work
Anti-work from home anti-WFH
Pro-billionaires/pro-El0n Musk (in line with the pro-libertarian bent)
Sometimes pro-libertarian; very “Silicon Valley”, i.e., pro-Si Valley tech mind (Y Combinator case in point)/pro- tech will save/preserve the world as we know it, not destroy/end it (as it already, arguably/provably, has)
Pro-life/pro-kids (or else your life is a complete, utter, waste/shameful failure) - after all, your unbridled-capitalist G0d “PG” told you so…many times over (ad nauseam)/anti-Malthus (anti- population is too high)
Pro-“Eastern” fake (non-scientific) medicine (stress kills; reduce stress via meditation, recalibrate your mind, etc.); have real physical pain? Just change your mindset, maaan! It worked for me - I guarantee it! Tell 10 people and you’ll have even less physical pain! HACKer News, indeed, SMH…
Religious (Christian)/pro-G0d/pro-Jesus; The Bible (New Testament) iseth the bestest booketh of all timeth undereth the suneth (unfortunately, no one addresses the absurd, intrinsic belief that non-believers in (wo)man-made Jesus go to (wo)man-made H3ll or the fact that G0d is not real in any objective sense; It’s (wo)man-made and thus subject to subject aka user interpretation and perpetual manipulation and influence driven by (wo)man-made power dynamics exposed by the likes of Michel Foucault not to mention overall a financial scam (pyramid scheme) and highly effective way to politically suppress The People aka The People’s discontent re the status quo’s state of profound inequity and inequality, a la Karl Marx’s opiate of the masses, or else influence them with their own political agenda ultimately for increased financial and thus power gains…oh, but I digress…)
Pro-nuclear (pro-baseload)/anti-renewables (anti-intermittent power sources)
Anti-cryptocurrency/anti-blockchain
Pro-social media (and anti-censorship), but anti- spending time on social media (despite spending time and participating on the Hacker News social media website)
Anti-government/anti-federal government regulation (wishes to dismantle the federal regulatory apparatus)
Pro-working on (engineering, software development, etc.) projects which have nothing to do with protecting everyday people or the planet (Earth - not Mars) in any meaningful or essential way (no existentially significant meaning)
Mars- and general space travel-obsessed (again, part of the Musk/Bezos/other-mega-billionaire-with-too-much-time-any-money-on-their-hands-and-who-doesn’t-care-about-people-suffering-on-Planet-Earth delusions)
Self-driving car-obsessed (see point above re delusions)/public transit-agnostic (seemingly could care less)
Pro-batteries (-battery)/pro-electric vehicles EVs/anti-hydrogen economy (again, see points above re Musk delusions), seemingly ignorant of the corresponding multitudes (multiple forms of) slavery and catastrophic (disastrous), long-lasting impacts of precious + rare-earth metal mining
Obsessed with microplastics (even beyond ubiquitous, prevalent, poisonous, toxic lead or other heavy metal poisoning/toxicity, e.g., which come with their beloved technologies, e.g., computer-related electronics and batteries)
Typical Hacker News comment thread narrative/sequence for a pro-nuclear power article: 1.) Top comment is pro-nuclear energy, 2.) Top response to #1 is anti-nuclear/pro-renewable energy (pro-solar/-wind), 3.) Top response to #2 is the intermittent power vs. base load/storage complaint. Finally, what everyone misses is the solar PV/wind/green hydrogen economy (hint: no batteries).
Pro- fancy, software “engineering”/anti- basic, necessary IT jobs. People with IT degrees failing at/refusing to do, due to sanctimoniousness, basic IT jobs which help everyday people. Non-computer-oriented (non-tech savvy) employees cannot get proper tech (IT) support. Everyday people cannot get personalized, individual technical support (without, say, going through an AI app or a ticket response system with automated, templatized, and altogether useless (non-)responses).
Majority pro-Zionist (or, the paid-for Zionist bots are particularly well-funded/hard at work, and their accounts are freely unvetted/encouraged to promote the site’s underlying agenda)

Overall, highly socially conservative, libertarian, and often ideological and hypocritical, with both sides of the arguments being factually incorrect. But, just like all social media commenters anywhere ever, the contributors still think they’re all brilliant and certainly accurate and correct about their ideas and opinions (and that their community is certainly the best…i.e., self-congratulatory). Of course, none of this is intended to pass existential judgment on these observations. After all, it’s always best (and oftentimes most accurate) to assume that most, if not all, social media commenters are, in fact, AI/ML bots (same as the entity that wrote this post).

Nonetheless, as terrible as the site and its “community” (of assumed bots) may be (bots which undoubtedly serve some purpose aka financial interest, e.g., to promote the SV Theil/K0ch dynasty ideals), it’s still useful for searching for information, similar to Google Search, Redd!t, and the far superior (and far more civil and human) Lobste.rs, provided you’re capable of interpreting that information using critical thinking and sound information literacy (skills which do not come easy and take multiple dozens of years to cultivate). So, as with most things in life, not True in any real sense, but still useful…

Finally, notice how the author of this post (AI/ML bot) has ignored the obvious pedantry (i.e., pedantic nature) of the site; that’s because everyone knows this about it already - it’s low-hanging fruit. In fact, it’s not a bug - it’s the key (core) feature of it - e.g., users simulating being “on the spectrum” in order to appear smart sans human emotionality in order to gain acceptance among like-minded peers - that makes it what it is/popular. Anyway, altogether, congr@s to the founders, maintainers, and moderator(s) of the site for achieving, well, something special!

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