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

I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then politics do interact with science, as one can conduct scientific experiments on government decisions, or politics can attack scientific community positions (e.g. climate change).

The way this sounds is that you are more concerned about politics as in people who take party positions and may feel excluded as a group when the majority of the community takes a different position. This is a slightly different issue i.e. party politics, and I think it is fine/a good thing, but it is also important to distinguish the two. This should essentially be under the same umbrella as personal attacks, as they are essentially the same thing.

I fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it or face the onslaught of downvotes if we express a dissenting opinion.

I'd rather see HN go politics-free forever. Political discussions do not enjoy the same level of objectivity that technical and business discussions do. Frankly, it may be impossible to expect objectivity within political discussion because our political feelings are so deeply-held and tied to our individual upbringings, culture, and locale.

Unless HN can figure out how to give fair treatment to minority opinions, it's best to exclude these discussions entirely.

> It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it or face the onslaught of downvotes if we express a dissenting opinion.

Are there any online communities where their political opinions match more with yours? Why don't you hang out there instead? I realize that's reinforcing an echo chamber, but it sounds like you're looking for more of an echo chamber, right?

> even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way

Maybe an example of a time you made a point in an informed and respectful way only to be downvoted and derided would help clarify?

> Unless HN can figure out how to give fair treatment to minority opinions, it's best to exclude these discussions entirely.

I strongly disagree. I don't know what "fair treatment" means, but if enough people on the site feel a topic is worth talking about, we should talk about it. Specific incidences of abuse should be flagged, but again, it's hard for me to say one way or another without examples showing what you mean.

As to the overall question of whether politics should be allowed on HN, HN started as "Startup News". It's always been a site about entrepreneurship, mostly in the tech industry. Entrepreurship is intimately linked to politics in obvious and non-obvious ways. Politics has to do with taxes, healthcare, immigration, legality of certain types of research, market size and access, shifting demographic trends, financing sources, and much more.

Edit: I removed a final sentence because it's moot and doesn't add to my actual argument.

> To take this blanket approach of "No talking about politics!" is...

For one week.

> "Forbidden topics" because some people's feelings are getting hurt?

It's about a lot more than that, as I tried to explain in the text above. There are two different kinds of site—intellectually curious and politically combative—and we cannot be both of them.

> There are two different kinds of site—intellectually curious and politically combative—and we cannot be both of them.

I disagree. You cannot support intellectual curiosity without healthy, relatively unrestrained (in subject matter) debate.

Now, simply tribal displays that aren't debate where people engage with each other, are a problem and need to be corralled effectively to avoid becoming.the dominant form of activity.

But not only is "politically combative" not opposed to "intellectually curious" in a site, the former is essentially a necessitate to accept if you are going to have the latter.

From your profile, you've been around the block more than a few times here on HN. Your disagreement here has me puzzled, as it seems to be disagreement for its own sake rather than understanding the intent of the detox week and attempting to refine the language explaining it. I understand dang's "politically combative" to describe what you state as "tribal displays that aren't debate". Or am I completely misreading your comment? If that's the case, would you elaborate? Also, how would you handle behavior such as that displayed in

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13095475

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041886

What actually constructive on balance came out of these discussions? How can we improve the signal-to-noise ratio/reduce the tribal displays? This is a topic I'm genuinely interested in, so your take on it given your experience here on HN is of particular interest to me. I think it's not putting words in dang's mouth to say reducing the tribal displays (as opposed to stifle intellectual curiosity) is exactly what detox week is attempting to accomplish.

> Your disagreement here has me puzzled, as it seems to be disagreement for its own sake rather than understanding the intent of the detox week and attempting to refine the language explaining it.

I'd love to understand the intent of detox week. I don't (either in terms of the intended scope of the policy or the motivation and intended goal state.)

And the issue I'm taking with elements of the description of either by dang (in a couple places in this thread) are both because I disagree with them phrased, and hope that pointing that out will lead to responses that better elucidate the whole picture.

But I suspect that the whole thing is trying to deal with a change in the political climate outside HN by modifying what is already a near-optimal policy in HN to one that is far worse.