I like HN overall. I learned a lot from wonderful people who offered their knowledge. I also try to pay back to the community. However, my problem with some HN comments is deeper that as noted in the post.
The post and comments herein talk about being correct but at the same time being unkind. By this point in my career, I can still appreciate unkind comments that are still correct on technical grounds -- at least I learn something if I set aside my ego and be patient with the other party. However, the big problem I observe is that many comments are unkind and untruthful/incorrect. These comments have no positive value to the community.
I spent some time thinking why these comments exist. I agree with other comments herein that there is a sense of superiority coming from the commenters explaining their purportedly superior view. Unfortunately, this sense of superiority spills over to other fields that the commenters are not experts in; their wrong comments would still be unkind.
The tech bull market since the 90s created an entire generation (or two) of programmers making 6 or 7 figures with brand names who feel superior across other domains ("everything is software", "physicists are idiots to be replaced by ML") Nerds revenge came true, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, the software engineering has been highly influential in our world and so are the engineers therein. But life is more than software, and other people, including experts, exist, too. And it is this hubris that makes HN less wonderful than it can be.
I agree. It's not even that we over-weight being technically correct. Correctness and kindness are not mutually exclusive at all.
I suspect you're right and it boils down to the fact that a lot of us tech types have substantial pride. Worse, we support a substantial amount of our self-worth from being knowledgeable and correct, and so of course we have to both demonstrate and defend it. I recognize that truth in most of my real-life nerd friends as well as myself even as I try to temper it.
I don't know what the solution is for a community like this that will always be filled with people of so many unique stripes and neurotypes. Other than striving to argue our disagreements from curiosity instead of superiority.
The post and comments herein talk about being correct but at the same time being unkind. By this point in my career, I can still appreciate unkind comments that are still correct on technical grounds -- at least I learn something if I set aside my ego and be patient with the other party. However, the big problem I observe is that many comments are unkind and untruthful/incorrect. These comments have no positive value to the community.
I spent some time thinking why these comments exist. I agree with other comments herein that there is a sense of superiority coming from the commenters explaining their purportedly superior view. Unfortunately, this sense of superiority spills over to other fields that the commenters are not experts in; their wrong comments would still be unkind.
The tech bull market since the 90s created an entire generation (or two) of programmers making 6 or 7 figures with brand names who feel superior across other domains ("everything is software", "physicists are idiots to be replaced by ML") Nerds revenge came true, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, the software engineering has been highly influential in our world and so are the engineers therein. But life is more than software, and other people, including experts, exist, too. And it is this hubris that makes HN less wonderful than it can be.
apropos: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1831:_Here_to_Hel...