I'm gradually tuning out Hacker News, because it persistently tries to ignore the politics that are destroying the United States and freedom of enquiry.
There is a dead comment below that tries to raise an argument but was killed instead. This is no longer a place to go to discuss ideas.
Given sufficient historical context, this should not be surprising; Paul Graham's influence on Hacker News is foundational, as he created the platform to foster an intellectual community, personally shaping its culture, design, and moderation policies.
"I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan."
You’re right, and I agree wholeheartedly: academics absolutely do have fruitful arguments about religion and politics.
I read Graham’s point as narrower than “there’s nothing to learn.” He explicitly says: “There are certainly some political questions that have definite answers.”
The warning label is about identity capture. Once a view becomes part of who you are, the odds of real updating drop: “people can never have a fruitful argument about something that’s part of their identity.” Or, put positively: “you can have a fruitful discussion … so long as you exclude people who respond from identity.”
So the issue isn’t the topic. It’s what happens when belief turns into a kind of badge.
Once big tech, and VC and investment firms behind them, went from “don’t be evil” to jumping in feet first into manipulating politics, that argument became at best pointless and at worst a cover to fuck around in politics and then kill discussion around it.
Billionaires are frightened by politics because it can generate revolutionary thought that threatens their mountains of gold. They think "why can't you shut up and be a good source of labor for me to extract."
I hate this kind of politicizing... it was wrong when the left was doing it to force mandatory "diversity statements" and it's wrong now when the right is forcing removal of specific course content.
Professors should be free to teach whatever they want that's relevant to their courses. Students are adults and can make up their own minds.
> I'm gradually tuning out Hacker News, because it persistently tries to ignore the politics that are destroying the United States and freedom of enquiry.
There are many places that focus on, allow, or encourage political content. Hackernews is not one of them, as by express design, it deems politics as off topic:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Professors being told they can't teach some parts of Plato in philosophy class because the ideas are too dangerous is indeed an interesting new phenomenon.
We have always discussed politics here. I agree with your point that HN shouldn't just be a forum for political content, I regularly flag posts about 'President posts insane thing on Truth Social' or 'Congressperson votes in ways people don't like,' but the intersection of economic, technological, intellectual, and political power is always going to throw up challenging ethical issues.
I think people's definition of "politics" aren't universal. And a lot of people just take all the things they don't like and say "well they're 'politicial' therefore they aren't allowed here." Using the site guidelines as their own personal eraser.
I finally realized today why politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.
...
Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too. Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.
Do religion and politics have something in common that explains this similarity? One possible explanation is that they deal with questions that have no definite answers, so there's no back pressure on people's opinions. Since no one can be proven wrong, every opinion is equally valid, and sensing this, everyone lets fly with theirs.
> Do religion and politics have something in common that explains this similarity? One possible explanation is that they deal with questions that have no definite answers, so there's no back pressure on people's opinions. Since no one can be proven wrong, every opinion is equally valid, and sensing this, everyone lets fly with theirs.
Well, even Republicans accepted that an insurrection was a bad thing:
> There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill. This is 3rd world style anti-American anarchy.
Typical paulg overgeneralization from his bubble. Just because many political opinions are legitimately debatable doesn’t mean that every opinion about every topic you call political is equally valid. That’s just silly.
I don’t see Paul acting like every opinion is equally valid when it directly affects something he cares about. He seems to happily participate in “useless” political discussions when he has a strong opinion.
My read of it isn't about if it's legitimately debatable, but if it's productively discussable (in an online setting).
Topics about someone's identity aren't things that one can easily change - and certainly not from text on a screen from some stranger on the internet.
Discussions about things that are core to someone's identity (in that setting) aren't useful.
Religion and politics in that context extend beyond one's claims about a soul or which end of the political spectrum is more soulless. Asking about how to maintain an F150 in /r/fuckcars is similarly not going to be a useful discussion since the identity of the people in that subreddit is in conflict about something that is quite legitimately discussable.
Keeping one's identity small (and topical to the subject matter at hand) given that it isn't in conflict with one's identity makes for a place that is much easier to moderate and keep a civil discussion.
One can discuss the impact of Section 174 or ZIRP without invoking politics. However, once politics (or religion) is involved in a comment everything downthread of it becomes more difficult to moderate.
So it's not the "ignoring politics" that's at issue - many topics in today's world are intimately intermingled with politics. However, discussing that politics directly makes this an environment that people tend to not want to participate in.
Turn on showdead and look at the comments in this post to see the types of things people don't want to participate in... and how much worse the site would be if those were acceptable topics.
There are many places where one can discuss those topics. Not every site has to be all things for all people. This one is thankfully one of the places where discussion on politics and the related identities doesn't happen.
I don't know what site you're thinking of that avoids politics...maybe lobste.rs? Here are some of today's top HN stories that I would certainly categorize as "discussion on politics".
There is a difference between discussing politics and political discussions. Things done by political bodies that have impact can be reasonably discussed.
Yes, DanG has written a lengthy, nuanced piece on the subject, because he has to deal with the reality that there is in fact no bright line between discussing politics and political discussion.
PaulG simply asserted that "no one can be proven wrong, every opinion is equally valid". Which is neither true, nor useful.
Also, some of us are amenable to changing our opinions when presented with strong evidence/arguments. I suppose the larger questions ("what do we want society to be like", "which values are most important to us") tend to be baked into ourselves so there's a limit to how much someone will change. However, there's examples of people leaving cults etc. and dramatically changing their opinions and personality.
> There are many places that focus on, allow, or encourage political content. Hackernews is not one of them, as by express design, it deems politics as off topic:
That's all very fine and well in theory, but it's like saying the topic of the ship taking on water is not allowed to be discussed when you're on a Star Trek cruise:
Sure: a gash in the haul doesn't cover things like Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or Janeway, but it's kind of a prerequisite that nothing is happening to hull integrity before the others topics can be entertained.
You cannot isolate technology from forces that shape and harness it. It is fine to restrict political discussion lest it overwhelm other more fruitful discussions, however burying one's head in sand while the society is being "engineered" is not the mark of a curious person.
I'm gradually tuning out Hacker News, because it persistently tries to ignore the politics that are destroying the United States and freedom of enquiry.
There is a dead comment below that tries to raise an argument but was killed instead. This is no longer a place to go to discuss ideas.