I kissed comment culture goodbye

I know this sounds maybe a bit insane, or even self-aggrandizing but I don't comment on public websites for some benefit to myself. I write with the vague hope that some unique expression of myself makes some tiny difference to this universe.

Every once in a while I have some experience or some a point of view that I don't see reflected anywhere else. One of the benefits of the pseudo-anonymization of sites like Hacker News is that I feel a bit more comfortable stating things that don't really have a place to say anywhere else.

The only thing I regret is when I get into pointless arguments, usually when I feel that my comment was misunderstood or misinterpreted. But even those arguments sometimes force me to consider how to express myself more clearly or to challenge how deeply I hold the belief (or how well I know the subject) that lead me to the comment in the first place.

I think that the culture of a given forum plays a huge role.

There are some places where commenting is meaningful because you're a part of some closely-knit, stable community, and you can actually make a dent - actually influence people who matter to you. I know that we geeks are supposed to hate Facebook, but local neighborhood / hobby groups on FB are actually a good example of that.

There are places where it can be meaningful because you're helping others, even if they're complete strangers. This is Stack Exchange, small hobby subreddits, etc - although these communities sometimes devolve into hazing and gatekeeping, at which point, it's just putting others down to feel better about oneself.

But then, there are communities where you comment... just to comment. To scream into the void about politics or whatever. And it's easy to get totally hooked on that, but it accomplishes nothing in the long haul.

HN is an interesting mix of all this. A local group to some, a nerd interest forum for others, and a gatekeeping / venting venue for a minority.

"The only thing I regret is when I get into pointless arguments, usually when I feel that my comment was misunderstood or misinterpreted."

I like that you try to learn from bad arguments, but don't forget, that many misunderstand on purpose, to "win" an argument. Or at least to score cheap karma points or virtual karma points from the audience. So there one can only learn to make arguments in a way that they are harder to be intentionally missunderstood, but those ain't truthfinding skills, they are debate technics.

> I write with the vague hope that some unique expression of myself makes some tiny difference to this universe.

I used to have to talk more on Internet privacy.

Now I feel like enough people are talking about that one, that I usually don't have to.

In more recent years, it's been pointing out the latest wave of thievery in the techbro field -- sneaky lock-in and abuse, surveillance capitalism, growth investment scams, regulatory avoidance "it's an app, judge" scams, blockchain "it's not finance or currency or utterly obvious criminal scheme, judge" scams, and now "it's AI, judge" mass copyright violation.

There's not enough people -- who aren't on the exploitation bandwagon or coattails-riding -- who have the will to notice a problem, and speak up.

Though more speak up on that particular problem, after the window of opportunity closes, and the damage is done, and finally widely recognized. But then there's a new scam, and gotta get onboard the money train while you can.

That ticks me off, and I can type fast.

I make comments and read them for substantially the same reason. Although THIS comment I am making now is done primarily to reward the commenter for saying something that made me feel less alone.

A second goal of this comment is to add a point: That I also comment because sometimes saying something makes me feel like I am more than nothing and nobody. I want to feel more than nothing and nobody.

Simple rule:

If I'm still in the argument, it's not pointless.

If it's pointless, I am not arguing.

My FUTURE self might think it was pointless. But it can get stuffed...

Yeah, man misunderstand comments, that is true.

But many people of the Internet are also unable to make a logic argument and explaining the conflict they just said leads nowhere. One of them often gets down voted to hell and half the time it's not the person who said the stupid thing.

I left reddit exactly because of this, but I also find that somewhat on HN. Most comments I start typing I actually discard and move on because I can smell it already.

We all do, isn't that the point of public expression, everywhere?

On the other hand many people post wrong things, are corrected, and then get defensive telling they were misunderstood and use gymnastics to say they were actually correct and the other is a troll