As a testament to this, I usually check the comments before clicking through to an article. As a result I virtually never click through to the article -- I just end up reading all the reasons it's wrong.
Also reminds me of an anecdote. Talking with a tech VP from a telco recently, I offer an opinion to advance the discussion and his response was simply “No, that’s wrong, you’re so wrong.” Period, full stop. End of discussion, no explanation, no offer of what direction he might agree with. All that mattered was that I was wrong and that he had the right answer. Great talk.
At its best HN is critical and discerning, which are necessary qualities for raising the discourse to a higher intellectual plane (otherwise this would just be Reddit). At its worst it is cynical and contrarian. Those are flip sides of the same coin.
HN is like UChicago. Cerebral, academic, rigorous and always ready to shoot down sloppy thinking.
Quora is more like Northwestern. Intelligent, emotionally savvy, and projects a sense of polish.
HN does not have a strict, unbiased critical thinking. If it did it might be more acceptable. The worst of HN is when it tries to bear critcism on a topic or subject that it inherently disagrees with and wants to be untrue (even when it probably is true).
Which is a genuinely useful stance in the case of products—pointing out why someone’s startup won’t work does them the service of laying out potential failure modes.
Comments
This has been a HackerNews phenomenon for years. The default stance of HackerNews is contrarian.
No it's not. (j/k, sorry)
As a testament to this, I usually check the comments before clicking through to an article. As a result I virtually never click through to the article -- I just end up reading all the reasons it's wrong.
Tend to follow that pattern too.
Also reminds me of an anecdote. Talking with a tech VP from a telco recently, I offer an opinion to advance the discussion and his response was simply “No, that’s wrong, you’re so wrong.” Period, full stop. End of discussion, no explanation, no offer of what direction he might agree with. All that mattered was that I was wrong and that he had the right answer. Great talk.
That suggests it’s a cultural meme in self service.
At its best HN is critical and discerning, which are necessary qualities for raising the discourse to a higher intellectual plane (otherwise this would just be Reddit). At its worst it is cynical and contrarian. Those are flip sides of the same coin.
HN is like UChicago. Cerebral, academic, rigorous and always ready to shoot down sloppy thinking.
Quora is more like Northwestern. Intelligent, emotionally savvy, and projects a sense of polish.
HN does not have a strict, unbiased critical thinking. If it did it might be more acceptable. The worst of HN is when it tries to bear critcism on a topic or subject that it inherently disagrees with and wants to be untrue (even when it probably is true).
You may have missed the first sentence I wrote. HN has two modes.
There is a thin line between critical and contrarian, and HN has good days and bad days.
Which is a genuinely useful stance in the case of products—pointing out why someone’s startup won’t work does them the service of laying out potential failure modes.