Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

From what I have seen I don't think HN in its current form is the right forum for those discussions. Even scanning this sub-thread prompted by your comment I'm already starting to see that the discussion seems to be devolving. Here is a group of technologists that could in theory spin up another forum with moderation tools and integration with HN to have back and forth between the two forums based on what "flavor" (political or technical) the discussion was going in and all I see is second-guessing and critiquing with no actionable and constructive items in the mix.

(More of this and less mud slinging) on HN might actually move the needle

as opposed to

(More of this) and (less mud slinging on HN) might actually move the needle

I agree. I would like to figure out a way to encourage civil and constructive discourse on line in the interest of reaching and engaging more people. Offline is very important—probably more important—, as it reinforces the face-to-face social interaction.

I don't know about 'actionable items', but political conversation isn't any different than other conversations -- civility, the assumption of good faith, and an open mind are more common factors as to whether a discussion is good or bad versus topic.

The problem with political discussion isn't that it's political, it's that America (and possibly elsewhere that I can't speak to) has decided that "my side is good, the other side is bad". This leads to conversations that assume bad faith, and are close-minded, which makes those discussions "bad". You can't fix that with a set of rules, but you can enforce the same rules around those discussions -- people being rude, snarky or dismissive would be subject to censure, while people who are being courteous, informative and civil would not.

In short, I maintain that the problem with political discussions versus other discussions is that we treat them as different than other discussions. At their best, they can be a productive means of informing others to facts they may not have been aware, or elevating one's opinion from a basic understanding to a more nuanced understanding. But the more special we treat politics, the more the regular rules suffer, and blanket policies banning politics foster this special status in which vitriol becomes normalized, regimented and de rigueur.

So long as incivility is normal, the greater our partisan divides will grow.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, albeit in a slightly different context than pure politics.

When you say "encourage civil and constructive discourse", it implies that you wish to engage people who disagree. One conclusion I've reached is that it is best to instead engage like-minded people.

The idea of "reaching across" to form consensus or stimulate constructive debate among people who don't agree sounds really good on paper. But, at the end of the day--if you actually want to get anything done--then you don't want to spend your energy convincing people of the rightness of your beliefs. And, looking at this last U.S. election, there seem to be vanishingly few folks for whom facts matter. So much is emotionally-driven that convincing others becomes all the more difficult. It's not impossible, but the ROI just isn't there.

Even if you're not looking into doing something, but just want stimulating discussion, it's a trap at virtually any significant scale. It will inevitably devolve into something emotional and non-constructive. It's unfortunate, but it only takes a few trolls to trash an online community.

- As online discourse/experience becomes an increasing part of people's lives, the more important it will be to be able to have these types of discussions (and not just pure politics).

- People aren't as binary as the US Presidential election or right/left or whatever other labels would have us believe. There are things people disagree on, and if we're only to engage with people that we agree 100% with, we're not going to have very many people to talk to. It's not so much convincing others as it is finding the commonalities we already share and can easily forget when we see things as black and white.

Anyway, I'm not asking you to agree with those points. Just wanted to elaborate. And I agree with you on the "few trolls" point.

So, having said all that, where do you stand on Political Detox Week? Worth doing?

You discuss it the same way you discuss any other idea in good faith:

by evaluating the content on its message, not on the presuppositions you might have for its messenger;

by evaluating each topic in isolation on its own, and trying to determine whether or not any individual point has merit or not, how much merit it may have, and where it does not have merit, explaining why you consider it meritless;

by being open-minded enough to not dismiss individual points because you disagree with the central thesis;

by putting forth your best arguments, and letting the stronger argument win the day, unblemished by vitriol;

by being civil and courteous to your fellow man because as humans, they're deserving of at least a civil, open minded discussion.

For example, let's look at Google's Trusted Contacts. For obvious reasons, a lot of HN are very opposed to it. One topic that was brought up was the Google Buzz disaster and how google pre-built the community based on who we had emailed and talked to. Which was very dangerous for people who had an abusive ex.

If that were to launch today (and something similar will...), white nationalism becomes a huge problem. All of those bloggers and twitter folk who decide to NOT shove their head in the sand and actually engage and speak up are suddenly going to have their other contacts exposed. The people who have friends who speak against Breitbart are now directly exposed.

And that is a pretty big tech AND social issue. And to ignore the problem with a large movement of people who tend to be more armed than their political spectrum counterparts and who have a long history of getting their way through abuse is horrifically negligent.

And considering that white nationalist parties/candidates are gaining political office in many western nations, it becomes even more of an issue. Can we discuss political legislature that seems to specifically target tech geared toward helping inner city youths (who tend to be black)? What about a marked tendency for facial recognition and profiling software that applies a color wheel to determine threats to gain funding?

All of that is political, all of that is very heavily influenced by understanding that it is white nationalist parties pushing it, and all of that MUST be discussed.

> friends who speak against Breitbart

> people who tend to be more armed

> a long history of getting their way through abuse

> white nationalist parties/candidates

Are you talking about white nationalists, or actually about conservatives/Trump/Breitbart, tarring them as violent and abusive along the way?

You label me "toxic" and dishonest, but you want me to just accept your assumptions? My "honest" dialogue is based on verifiable facts, not speculative slander.

How many white nationalists are there? How many conservatives are there?

Which is kind of why I think this entire "detox", much like just about every detox that is about getting rid of the antioxidants or whatever the hell people go to spas for, is a load of bull. The problem isn't the topic, it is how people discuss it. And people discuss plenty of topics in overly emotional and pedantic ways. Often times while extolling their own intelligence in a way that makes you REALLY glad they aren't in the same room as you (HN may be even worse than reddit on that last point).

Respond to posts that can have a discussion. Ignore the ones that can't.

Why? If it's a valid criticism, why not. Sure, reading into things that take the thread into some tangent is bad; but otherwise, a call for clarification, even if nit-picking, is hard to judge objectively.

> The problem isn't the topic, it is how people discuss it

I agree, but only through objective and explicit guidelines can this be fixed.

> Ignore the ones that can't.

What I dislike more than a topic that is uninteresting to me, is people who also find it uninteresting, and yet comment on the fact. I don't dislike HN posts about apple, because I never read those posts, and it's usually obvious from the title what they are about.

I disagree.

Why lump an explicitly extreme group in with one that isn't so? Would you do the same with Muslims and Muslim extremists?

> sites like Breitbart who push these racially charged stories

A few examples? The daily mail, yes, but what of Breitbart in particular?

Of course. Yet there are obvious correlations to certain topics, and there might be a connection between the "how people discuss it" and the capacity to take a week off from it once in a while.

Also, are you really taking the correlation route in the pseudo-intellectual argument for why there is a ban?

Because if we are just going by correlation: Any time security or privacy is a topic, people stop reading anything and just start speaking from The Heart (just look at the Google Trusted Contacts thread where a significant chunk of the posters have no idea what the app even is...). So clearly that topic should be banned too, right? I mean, there is a clear and obvious correlation between topics about security and privacy and people having emotional discussions. So ban it

In all seriousness: It is your product and you do with it as you see fit. Just understand that people used to love Google and Facebook until they decided (rightly or wrongly) that they were just a commodity and that they were giving their personal information and opinions to an entity that had no problems doing experiments to figure out how to better target them. And with crap like this, it won't take long for people to realize that the company built around knowing what tech to invest in may have an ulterior motive for hosting a board for Cutting Edge Tech (TM) and may be using the data for less than kosher reasons. And crap like this is a good way to trigger a burst of thought from people.

Since dang sees all the user flags he probably has a better idea of which discussions get flagged -- which discussions trigger heated arguments.

Would you expand on this? What ulterior motives do you have in mind? What do you think HN is using the data for? Most of the data is available through the API, so pretty much anyone can use the data for whatever purpose they'd like.