I’ve made an attempt to formulate why I dislike Hacker News, a couple of years back.
All that came from my personal experience of interacting with the community, and with me being inside a society (in general) and reading people very well. Most of its readers are people I won’t like to interact in the real world, and I’d find eloquent words and names for them, if needs be. But I’d rather avoid that and just ignore them. That’s my way of treating idiots, and it’s mostly effective.
In my vocabulary some very smart and very opportunistic people are still idiots, for their lack of wisdom and emotional intelligence. Perhaps, I’d find better words upon getting older and wiser. But at this very point, I have very little motivation to actually do that.
So, my meaning is not literal: they can be (and often are) very smart people, much smarter than myself. And I admit that without much thought. I may even take some inspiration from their … I call that хитровиєбаність, and I have no idea how to translate that in English (or any other language). Cunning might be close in meaning.
But I still see them as not as smart as they think they are. Because the truly smart people are also wise, modest, kind, forgiving, content …
and all that, you know.
I prefer to not interact with people like that and never have them around. That’s a thing hard to formulate properly, and the fact they’re the most popular tech-oriented resource (if so: I actually highly doubt so), make it only worse to say ‘most folk hanging out there are idiots’—
I intentionally replace the word ‘all’ for the word ‘most,’ because some people lack self-esteem and hang out with losers that they think aren’t losers, or even the opposite. Does not necessarily makes them idiots, but I just have little motivation to seek better suited word right now. However, they are idiots indeed, if they continue to do so for a prolong time frame.
I especially love it when a smart person roasts me for some blanket statements, but I believe in some cases, the applicable blanket rules are pretty efficient at sorting people.
As, say, in my world view, pedos — and I remind you that the ruling class in the United States are literal pedophiles, paedophiles, child molesters, whatever you call them; at least the current president and his friends — are idiots. That’s a blanket statement, and I don’t care to listen to anyone arguments towards it.
I visit HN occasionally, but it’s always a taste of spending time with some intellectual garbage. My motivation is to explore what some part of society is interested in.
They’re interested mostly in AI these days.
I am super curious what length a curious reader should make to find anything meaningful and actually interesting in there.
Drew
What drew me to write this piece is the essay Drew De Vault wrote about them — Why is Hacker News like that? — and especially his analysis of their personas.
It might be a Re: to that essay, but it’s rather an ‘inspired by’ piece, I’ve been willing to formulate for long, and had no proper motivation to do so.
I was never interested in any one of them, but Paul PG Graham. Whom I learned by reading a (very poorly written, ew) biography of Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte (a Facebook copycat of Russia) and then Telegram. He was interested in Paul Graham, and I was interested in Pavel Durov, and so I went exploring.
Didn’t take me long to find his essays, Paul Graham’s I mean. I’ve read a couple of them, and fuck me, I’m having an incredible talent for seeing people clearly, I see bullshit immediately. His essays… I didn’t even think of formulating my thoughts about them, and find some word to characterise them… Frankly, I see no point in doing it now either. I found the essays a waste of time.
That would be my characteristics for the read. Go read them yourself, if you will, and make your own conclusions. Perhaps you’re smarter than me and you’d find some inspiration and food for thought there. Don’t trust some internet rando!
Like me! Or him! Or yourself! Or that other guy! Or that one! No, another one! Yep, the one with the hat! On the right! The fedora one!
I’ve been following him on Twitter for a while, and while I’ve been enjoying his stories of his then seven years old son, I was baffled by his political views and his world views. That enforced my persception of his essays being far from a pure collection of thoughts. But rather some manipulation attempt to bullshit the readers into believing what’s beneficiary for him. Not some higher things like society, humanity, all that beautiful shit with which you can sell many actually harmful things to naive folks.
I guess you can become pretty successful by buying the bullshit like that. And you can make these story tellers even more successful along the way.
But what I have is the inability to actually buy the obvious crap. Bug or feature?
Life is short and very unpredictable, so why waste it on a thing like that?
So, that was my first major disappointment in someone I treated with some intellectual respect, Pavel Durov. I still treat him with some intellectual respect, and I would be very disappointed to learn he’s still buying the shit the YCombinator ilk produces. I hope he’s smarter than that.
I mean, c’mon man, have some self-respect, why won’t you?!
An interview with the Karlson talking head is what makes me believe Mr Paul (DuRove, not Graham; however … maybe both) either not as smart as I think he is, or he is smart, but sincerely plays for the team Russia, which … makes him not smart at all, not in the slightest.
That’s what drew me to that resource. There was even a time frame when I was reading it daily. That’s a different story, I used the resource as a convenient alternative to highly-addictive socials, like Instagram. It wouldn’t take long for me to get furious at myself to waste my time like that, reading HN.
My point of no return was Dang banning me for calling a Russian Russian. Literally. The fucker told me I cannot use slurs there. Ridiculous. I don’t invent that story. My brief interactions with Dang showed me he is an idiot.
In my lexicon, meaning he’s not worthy of my attention, he’d win in any argument with the experience, if I’m to fight him. If so, I’d be the idiot to begin with.
If being reformulated more correctly, he’s obviously a smart person pushing some very obvious agenda, with the moderation that only pretends to be objective. I wonder if the real person is often behind that moderation, and if so… what a miserable pathetic life you must have to enjoy a job like that.
Book
Drew recommended a book, named ‘The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy,’ by Gil Durán, which sounds like something I may be interested in, one day later.
Not having much energy these days, and apart from my natural curiosity towards the world and its ruling class, these people are just a waste of time in my book. On the other hand, a proper literature asks for an intellectual commitment I may not be able to make without the restoration capsule Boba Fett has.
Here’s the final P.S. quote from that article:
I’ve been trying to figure these people out for a long time. A book that helped me put a lot of the pieces together was “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy”, by Gil Durán. It’s a great read, you should check it out too!
I’m hoping I’d never be linked to hacker news, would be unpleasant to have so much attention from the community I have very little respect to. And get me right, I despise myself too for every time I dare to visit that intellectual cloaca.
If you’re a frequent News YCombinator visitor (don’t mistake for their blog), consider rethinking your priorities and life. You’d certainly can spend your free time more wisely. You are worthy more than you think you are then. Respect yourself, why won’t you?
There’s no point in participating in that community, not even visiting.
Many protest that they are disadvantaged while continuing to participate.
The fuck you expect from the people making money? That’s not a non-profit organization to follow some balanced rules and shape a balanced community, even if they pretend they are. Especially as they pretend they are. They owe you nothing, and you ’otta understand it.
Respect yourself.