Item — HN Reader

There are no useful discussion to be had on such topics as war in Isreal, Donald Trump (be it "stolen elections", or foreign politics), or Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Nobody will ever think "That was a well-reasoned argument I now believe war crimes were, or were not, committed".

The best thing to do on posts like this is avoid reading them, or flag them.

It feels like there's an obviously correct side to most of these issues, the problem is half the audience here believes their side is correct and yours is wrong.

2 comments

> There are no useful discussion to be had on such topics

I think there are useful discussions to be had on these topics, and in fact, we must have those discussions. The issue is that, if we want to do so productively and a comment section is the only venue for us to speak to each other, then we must be extremely patient with others and ourselves and reflect on what they say and what we say (i.e., discuss in good faith).

That burden may be too high for most people, but collectively, we don't have a better forum anymore, and we need to have these discussions and come to consensus before the world is engulfed in authoritarianism or war (which is not hyperbole).

Comment sections are not the only venue for us to speak to each other and we must be able to consider that they might actually make the problem worse.

Other venues - real life, talking to people in person - telephones, audio & video calling, talking to people - writing op-eds, blog posts, sub-stack newsletters - podcasts

None of these of course produce the dopamine hit of seeing your likes/retweets/karma go up and that of your opponents going down though, so we would have to give that up. I think that's a good deal.

We can call internet comment infrastructure "community" but that doesn't mean it actually is one or functions to enhance community.

You might believe there are useful discussions to be had, but when a faction of readers like the GP flag or downvote every thread they don’t like, then it’s impossible to have any conversation, no matter how much good faith is brought to bear.

Manually appealing to dang for unflagging is not a workable solution either.

This really is an entirely unsuitable forum for this discussion.

It shouldn't be the case that people acting in bad faith can disrupt meaningful discussion between people acting in good faith. I am at a loss to suggest a better forum. Town halls, protests, talking to people on the street, Congress, etc, are not able to have these discussions either.

Maybe this is not the forum, but then what is? A philosophy class you took ten years ago?

> Maybe this is not the forum, but then what is? A philosophy class you took ten years ago?

Funny that you mention it, but Israel/Palestine was also a banned topic in the “Ethics and International Law” course I took circa twenty years ago.

I advocate concerning yourself with the things you can control, which does not include this forum’s idiosyncratic moderation style.

> I advocate concerning yourself with the things you can control, which do not include this forum’s idiosyncratic moderation style.

I can control my comments, which are a part of this forum's moderation style, and I can advocate in those comments for people to act in good faith, and appeal for help in figuring out how to make it more common.

If we can't discuss important topics in good faith on a nerd website, what hope do we have of discussing them elsewhere? It's not hyperbole anymore to say that if we don't come to some consensus we are going to end up in authoritarianism or war.

> It feels like there's an obviously correct side to most of these issues, the problem is half the audience here believes their side is correct and yours is wrong.

You think half the audience here or anywhere is on the side of israel and genocide? The only reason no discussion can be had is because of the influence of israel in tech, media, government and the bot farms they are allowed to employ all over social media.

I don't know what the numbers are, nor is it possible to determine this from the data we have, but I am reasonably sure that most of the commenters who post about this to HN are doing so in good faith. That doesn't make it any less tough to discuss (or to moderate the discussion). If anything, it makes it tougher.