Fair point, and perhaps poorly worded on my behalf.
You may disagree with me, but I think there is some political, social-economical, geo-political or even local-government topics that effect everyone. Or rather, there is at least one topic that effects every single person, whether they think it or not.
The same type of argument can be made about any specific issue. For instance, labor rights is incredibly broad. I don't think it's a realistic requirement for someone to care about every possible labor-rights issue. It's fine if people want to be selective.
Please correct me if I have completely misread your statement. It sounds as if you believe there are topics that are so important that they must always be discussed in any forum dedicated to any topic?
I fail to see why it's ever appropriate to suggest we only discuss one issue at once. Neither society nor government are monolithic entities. If you're genuinely concerned about a topic and think it should be a higher priority, solicit attention for it on its own rather than derailing discussions of other topics.
This is a pretty well-constructed argument, despite the unnecessary invective at the end. It took me a while to figure out how to rebut it. (Therefore I upvoted you to counter expected downvotes.)
But I think it goes like this: there's a difference between not caring about something for a week and not talking about it. If, as you assume, for most of HN politics is "things that affect other people", then the primary objective of political discussions on HN should be to convince those people - not, say, to make the minority which is affected feel validated. My impression is that when people who are affected by something go and read a ton of Very Strong Opinions put forward by people who aren't, the result is usually more invalidating than validating; validation is important but is a purpose better served by more focused communities. Now, when it comes to convincing people, a constant barrage of discussions on the same topic is probably more unhelpful than helpful; at worst, pausing discussions for a week (which gives them time to reflect) is unlikely to be very harmful.
Notwithstanding that, some people may perceive the idea of taking a break as invalidating, because it reminds them of a generalization about the community (not affected) which does not apply to them. However, so far as it's an accurate generalization, this seems like it can't be helped. I suppose you could argue that it seems more accurate than it really is, since marginalized people are present but silenced…
Anyway, I think "things that affect other people" is an oversimplification to start with. A lot of the specific political topics people like to discuss on this site, like encryption/surveillance, have fairly little direct impact on pretty much any of us; others, like the economy, affect all of us to some extent, albeit some more than others.
I think that's a fair point, but there's inevitably a ton of randomness in how large groups react, and also inevitably differences in how people see individual cases. So that probably would be true no matter what.
It's mostly a moot point, though, because for most users there's bound to be at least one story that is (a) clearly on-topic and (b) clearly not apolitical.
I think a distinction can be drawn between bringing up on HN the ability of an issue to become not just divisive but divisive along political lines, and the issue actually becoming divisive in society at large. Here we can discuss if it could be a political issue, what that would mean, what could be done about it, etc. That seems quite different that a discussion (on HN or elsewhere) wherein it has become a political issue.
Pretty much this. There are so many places to talk about these things. It doesn't mean that people here don't consider the topic important, I've seen discussions on twitter, facebook, reddit, and elsewhere that explore many of the same points that the news media is exploring.
My family and I were having a chaotic political argument about the policies of a school district 2,000 miles away when I realized we need to focus. We either need to talk about a specific event or general ideas about what should happen. It's very easy to alternate back and forth. If we're talking about specifics, let's look up and read the actual policy of the school district. If we're talking in general, then stop referring to one school district 2,000 miles away as evidence that it's a wide spread trend, and let's see if we can agree, in general, on the way things should be in the abstract.
Which brings me to my point, and my advice. Focus on feelings and abstract beliefs first. Don't talk about (e.g.) the specific spending bill, talk about whether military defense or caring for the poor is more important from a personal and moral perspective. Make it a small conversation, leave the paid-for "facts" out of it. What do you and I believe? Can we find common ground? After we find some common ground on a small scale, maybe we can talk about a larger scale. Maybe then we can look at the facts.
I'm not sure that's entirely true, although I've seen certain topics frowned upon in a general sense (I'm thinking of politics). What do you have in mind?
It's better to steer clear of political issues which are covered more than adequately elsewhere.
They are by their nature divisive and tend to make people upset and/or angry. This coarsens the atmosphere and makes reasoned and intelligent discussion far less feasible.
I get that, but what I would like to know is how these topics end up end up selected, and not something else. What were the magic combinations of factors led everyone to project onto these topics specifically.
There is lasting resentment over Brexit (in the US), but nobody cared about Croatian ascension. Ukraine is a US political battleground, but the loss of Crimea was greeted with indifference.
I think there must be something about the political and cultural moments that cause these issues to gain traction over other topics, or none at all.
Yeah there's a wide range of currently contentious topics - pick either one of them.
It really is about whether people can tolerate hearing things - or even knowing they speak about them - that they don't agree with, without turning into (in the worst cases) a savage frenzy of bullies. The ability to discern nuance seems to be getting lost.
Yes, but there are issues (mainly relating to surveillance, economic inequality, climate change, and racial justice) that intersect with what we discuss here on HN in ways that will affect millions of people's lives. We need to talk it out.
Not at all. Actually, observing how it works for realities or the gossipverse, you can spot the same patterns in politics: multiple (in USA "both") sides on some topic cluster their statements around some event, like passing of some act or relevant news.
Setting the conversation agenda is specially useful to hide inconvenient topics from public scrutiny. Sex regulation, religion and other "social" controversial discussions are very effective to create noise and put in the background the economic problems, that have often more direct and severe consequences for most people.
What's not important for you might be important for me. Who should decide? You or me?
Just let everyone be able to say something and to be heard. If it's silly, then it's up to discussion - everything other is suppressing opinions. Which is forbidden by law.
Just because it isn't against the rules, doesn't mean it's on-topic. Also, it's not the topic itself that makes me upset, it's the quality of discussion that usually follows. Most of the people lose their minds when they start to talk about politics. On HN this happens with social justice issues instead.
You may disagree with me, but I think there is some political, social-economical, geo-political or even local-government topics that effect everyone. Or rather, there is at least one topic that effects every single person, whether they think it or not.
That was more what I was getting at.
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