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Why I’m quitting Hacker News

61 points edgefield | 1 comments | 04 Jun 23 18:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

I just shared a post about the world’s oceans setting record temperatures for 80 continuous days. After the post achieved 130+ upvotes and the top spot within several hours, it was nuked. My experience is that every post on Hacker News addressing climate change is removed or downvoted to oblivion. I don’t want to be part of a community that turns away from probably the most important threat facing humanity in the 21st century. Goodbye and farewell!
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matthewdgreen ◴[04 Jun 23 18:57 UTC] No.36188402[source]▶
I noticed how highly voted the post was, so I went in to read the comments for a couple of minutes. When I hit "back" to return to the main page the post had mysteriously disappeared. I found it fleeing down the second page, past many stories which had lower scores and had been lingering for much longer periods. It was very surprising.

These current-events climate stories are the most important pieces of news on the site. If the moderators are deliberately nerfing them (ETA: or exploitable algorithmic policy is allowing them to be nerfed), I find that extremely terrifying. I hope it is not the case.

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joecool1029 ◴[04 Jun 23 19:02 UTC] No.36188441[source]▶
> These current-events climate stories are the most important pieces of news on the site.

In your opinion. Many other HN users don't feel that way and get tired of seeing the same topic over and over again. If it's not intellectually interesting and seems overly political it's getting that flag button clicked.

EDIT: Before downvoting/flagging me consider that maybe I don't hold the views you dislike. I'm making commentary in the comment section and only pointing out that perhaps it's not dang killing submissions but actually other HN users that don't agree with you.

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matthewdgreen ◴[04 Jun 23 19:05 UTC] No.36188477[source]▶
The world's anomalous current ocean temperatures are not a political matter. And if your brain is telling you that they are, I would beg you to spend some time recalibrating. Or go read something else, there's lots of room on the front page.
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1. joecool1029 ◴[04 Jun 23 19:22 UTC] No.36188626[source]▶
> The world's anomalous current ocean temperatures are not a political matter.

Sure it is, if you believe that everyone considers this the biggest issue or that everyone comes to HN to read about climate news then I am sorry to deliver this shock to you that they don't.

>And if your brain is telling you that they are, I would beg you to spend some time recalibrating. Or go read something else, there's lots of room on the front page.

Are you just going to resort to ad hominem attacks or acknowledge that bringing up this topic will resort in discussion that's political in nature? That's all I'm asking, I haven't expressed my personal opinion only pointed out that not all people think or value things the same way, not even in the HN commenter bubble.