Item — HN Reader

Ha, Ha, Very true though we don't like to admit it to ourselves.

HN is full of these types (myself included when something really triggers me). The amount of trivialities/nitpicking/arguing-for-the-sake-of-arguing going on here is enough to try anybody's patience. I think if i were to discuss things face-to-face with some of the people here it may most probably end in screaming/yelling and fisticuffs ;-)

It is a fundamental Human behavioural trait (i.e. the need to assert dominance through any means) that needs careful regulation in our communications.

I try to deal with these people the Sherlock Holmes way ;-)

"It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it ...

When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.".

1 comments

> I think if i were to discuss things face-to-face with some of the people here it may most probably end in screaming/yelling and fisticuffs

I had the same feeling, until some years ago I met up with some local HNers and lo and behold; they're nothing like what's going on here typically, just regular people who can have regular (but interesting) conversations :)

I'm guessing for many it's really hard to "read the vibe" when it's just text, and people take everything very literally here, while in real life, even people who write and behave like that here, don't actually act the same.

Maybe facial expressions, body language and more basically solves all those trivialities/nitpicking/arguing-for-the-sake-of-arguing issue, at the very least because those who perpetrate those things, actually can see the "what the fuck is this guy on about" expressions in real-time as they speak to people. That's my guess at least.

They are one side of the equation; the other side is us i.e. our ego/character/personality. This factors into how we react to non-verbal cues and how we trigger the other side so now we are caught in a vicious negative cycle.

From that pov, eliminating everything other than pure text (like on HN) is actually a positive. Here we just need to agree to abide by some common rules for the pursuit of curiosity/knowledge and not mere socializing. Don't post everything that comes to your mind, slowdown and think before you post, know your audience, be succinct and to-the-point but with links to further details/study etc.

As an example, 19th century scientists wrote to each other sharing/discussing/refining their ideas/theories. See Explore 19th Century Scientific Correspondence - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47389055 for the actual and interesting correspondences.

IMO, the following quote very well expresses the power of mediocrity and how it can drag us all down;

“Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. ... The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down.”

― Trevanian, Shibumi

This is what we need to guard against i.e. "not become mediocre" (and add to the inanity on the Internet) in our own communications/behaviour on HN and elsewhere. We need to focus on the s/n ratio always in our communications.