New Yorker on Hacker News

The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

I love this. Something that I love, talking about something that I loathe to love (or love to loathe?). So many gems here, such as:

The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition—hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—often masks a deeper recklessness. Ill-advised citations proliferate; thought experiments abound; humane arguments are dismissed as emotional or irrational. Logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify broad moral positions.

and:

Recently, an essay in the New Atlantis titled “Do Elephants Have Souls?,” from 2013, hit the front page. The piece generated immediate resistance. Commenters responded literally to the question posed in the title and bickered about the word “soul.” Conversation spiralled, with users making arguments about Cartesian metaphysics and quoting Socrates. “Why is such an unscientific question so high on HN?” one commenter asked. “Or to rephrase, if we don’t know what a soul is, how can we hope to answer it WRT elephants? So how and why should a reasoning person rate an article like this?”

Beyond the beautifully written disparagement of traits and mindsets common in the industry, there is a thoughtful look into what moderation on Hacker News looks like and the challenges involved. Admittedly, this is supposed to be the whole point of the article, which was a little lost on me as I read through trying to find aspects of tech culture I dislike and descriptors I could co-opt into my own language. But bringing a more human side to moderating an online forum is difficult and not something commonly seen, and to see how well-received and appreciated the moderators’ work is was neat.

I may identify more with The New Yorker than with Hacker News, but in many ways I am closer to the latter than the former; I did find this article on Hacker News, after all. To read this, then, feels like both an acknowledgement of these differences and a closing of the gap of sorts. And that, I am content in.

When in California, Rent a Car

Was the Automotive Era a Terrible Mistake?

I’ve never really wanted to own a car—it has always seemed to be quite the hassle, whether driving or parking, maintenance and insurance, or being both responsible for and at the whims of those around you. I probably could have saved dozens of hours of my life if I had a car back when I was in California; hopefully I’ve made up for it by the number of interesting and insightful (and inconsequential to anything save the sating of my curiousity) articles I’ve read in all those rideshares and Caltrain journeys. There is a freedom, though, in being able to drive. To be able to be somewhere on your own terms, at, more or less, your own time, to be able to go further than you would have on your own legs; to be alone on the road at night, within a kingdom that stretches as far as you can go, and safe from the elements, from the wild and the unknown. That’s why biking to me feels like a break from what we are conditioned to desire: personal liberty, efficiency, control. It’s even sweeter, of course, when you are faster on two wheels than someone on four.

The question itself is never answered outright, but I suppose solutions are more important than answers.

SNAKISMS

SNAKISMS

Okay, it’s not an article. Whatever.

The word ‘snakisms’ looks like it should be the anagram of something.