>It's a really unfair stereotype to apply to those you're disagreeing with, and I see you do it repeatedly here; characterizing those you disagree with, or the HN community in general, with terms like anti-humanity and anti-human.

I searched my comments, because that doesn't seem like something I would do. It seems I've only used the term "anti-human" twice since I've been here, two years ago in reference to utopianism (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41561281) and three years ago in reference to LLMs and copyright (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36195596) and I've never used the term "anti-humanity" at all.

>Yes I know there's a transhumanist element and an elitist element in Silicon Valley and among AI zealots. But it's not true of everyone or even many people who have big hopes for AI, and it's not a dominant sentiment on HN, or within YC.

I was answering a specific person about their specific attitude and their specific comments.

Fair game if you want to mod me over that comment, I'll admit I might have gone overboard but It doesn't seem as if you bothered to understand the context of what's actually being said at all here. I'm going to be charitable and assume there wasn't an AI moderator involved, I know you're working on that, if so it might need a bit more debugging.

>Most people I see being hopeful about AI are hopeful that it can make things better for humans – better jobs (more pleasant and better paying in real terms), better health/medicine that's more accessible to all, etc.

Again, I wasn't talking to or about most people.

>But, continuing to name or characterize your debating opponents, or the HN/YC/tech community in general as "anti-human" is unfair, inaccurate and only serves to poison discussions here.

I have. Literally. Never. Used. That. Term. About. A. Person. If you're going to criticize me, do it for things I've actually done. I show my ass all the time here, you don't need to make shit up.

But comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48946901 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928607 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48924340 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48337858 are no better. Reducing music to nothing more than a means to stimulate endorphines (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48722569) and declaring AI better than 99% of human effort (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302356) and wishing all critics could be branded with a scarlet letter and eliminated from the timeline (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48340190), the sheer glee with which they describe the future in which AI puts everyone out of work and the contempt towards anyone who values human effort does read as at least a bit "anti-human" to me.

There. I actually said the thing. Now you can be honest.

But fine. I shouldn't have added fuel to the fire. I'm clearly experiencing the same frustration echelon is, just from a different direction. HN has been incredibly frustrating of late.

@echelon - that comment of mine that you posted was absolutely tame and reasoned compared to some of the stuff you've been posting lately. And it was correct. And I didn't call anyone names. And you clearly agree with my sentiment where AI is concerned. And HN is never going to be what you (or I) want it to be. And I will apologize for my tone and I will dial it back but I think you need do do the same. You need to recognize that people can and do have legitimate criticisms about AI and that the reason you get flagged isn't because of "witchhunts" but because you go on a tilt reading the slightest bit of anti-AI sentiment. If I deserve to be flagged then you do too.

I clearly need to take a break from this place, touch some grass, something.

Sure, I incorrectly used the word ”terms” in my comment above when I meant “sentiments”. The pattern I'm referring to is best exemplified by these comments:

Go build and never speak to a human again, if that's what you want. Reject the humanity you despise.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48947427

The culture here is so deeply self-sabotaging because it's so deeply afraid to be human. It really gets depressing sometimes.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48167992

And yes many people in tech are on the spectrum. I suspect that much of what's dysfunctional with SV and tech culture is the result of raising a generation of socially awkward neurodivergent kids on 4chan and making them millionaires before their frontal lobes have even fully developed. That necessarily bleeds into HN and becomes normalized within the culture as performative cynicism, misanthropy and toxicity.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47165924

The fact is the ethos of this forum has become antithetical to what hacker culture and tech have become, which is incurious, misanthropic and aggressively pro AI.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47621066

I grin a bit whenever someone gets that infantile on what's supposed to be a board of high-minded intellectual sophisticates. But I'm serious. This forum is meant for human beings to satisfy their intellectual curiosity discussing topics of interest which are usually but don't need to be related to tech or programming. The humanity matters, even if it's damned hard to find sometimes because expressing humanity is a negative social signal here.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46973059

And yet if someone so much as cracks a joke they get rapped across the knuckles and lectured about a rule that doesn't actually exist (no humor allowed)? Yes, that's negative. That's a culture of performative misanthropy.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459037

That's the pattern I mean. It was particularly the second one – containing the line “The culture here is so deeply self-sabotaging because it's so deeply afraid to be human” – that has stuck with me, because it was so jarring, and indeed so insulting.

We have countless stories where the primary topic, or much of the discussion, is something profoundly human and warm. People building things with or for their kids, partners or other family members. People telling their stories of overcoming or succumbing to severe illness, with comment threads full of profound expressions of compassion. Individuals being victims of bad fortune or corporate dysfunction, and the community rallying to their aid and in many cases, getting their problem solved. And plenty of cases where stories about wars and other atrocities are given front page time here and the community given extensive opportunity to discuss the topic, with Dan and I spending entire work days plus many hours in the evenings and overnights managing the threads, but with the overwhelming sentiment from HN commenters being in favour of civilians and in opposition to the military aggressors.

The Alt-Right and Dark Enlightenment types have never had any foothold here, and I remember vividly when they tried, just how swiftly and efficiently the HN immune system swarmed to keep them out. It's never been a place where hustle-culture or 996 workdays have any support, and stories about corporations demanding more from their employees are always met with resistance and derision in the comments. Corporate excess and abuse is always derided here. In a site that gets over 10,000 comments on most days I can think of fewer than five regular commenters who are staunch economic conservatives, and even then they hold their views because they sincerely believe they are better for humans.

When I read these characterizations you make about HN, I really just shake my head. The community you're describing is not one I recognize. Yes, sure, in a site that gets 300,000 comments per month, you will always be able to find something that fits the narrative you want to perpetuate. Normally, I just put it down to “I guess this is just what he needs to believe” and get on with my day. But your comments above to echelon crossed the line and meant I could no longer just let it slide.

The question of whether your comments are worse than his or not is moot. Your interaction is the perfect example of two people succumbing to the Negativity Bias or the Notice-Dislike Bias and attacking each other as avatars for the forces they so worry about. Neither of you is right and neither of you is better or worse than the other; it doesn't matter if one of you made a specific comment that happens to be a more egregious guidelines breach than the other; both of you are engaging in the same harmful behaviour and it's equally important for both of you to stop the behaviour and let go of these caricature models of HN, because you're both poisoning the place by perpetuating them.

HN is not ”supposed to be a board of high-minded intellectual sophisticates”; HN is a community of reasonably-educated people discussing the pros and cons of things. The deranged techno-utopian dark-enlightenment zealots may lurk in some corners of the tech world, but they’re not on HN or at YC. Anything promoting race science, genetic supremacy or even most mentions of IQ are flagged and killed here, and serial commenters promoting such ideologies are banned.

I understand you're distressed about the dysfunction and injustice in the world. I am too, as is Dan, and most of the people whose comments I read on HN. I can see signs that echelon is too, even though you – and I – may disagree with the way he expresses that.

The worst of this is that by trying to seem like you're the one who cares about humanity, you end up demonising and “othering” many of the people here, most of whom care about the same things you care about and broadly want the same things you want. Most people here have partners and kids and nieces and nephews and friends and communities they care about and want the best for. It's such a mean-spirited mentality to portray such a large community of people as “misanthropic” or “deeply afraid to be human”, when so much of what we see here is the very opposite of that.

So, sure, go and touch grass, if you need to. And of course you're welcome back. I meant it when I said we appreciate you and what you contribute. But no more of that vicious commentary about this community, please.

(And as a final aside: we don't rap people over the knuckles or lecture anyone about cracking a joke! I can hardly think of any instance at all when I or Dan has chided anyone just for an attempted joke. And we wouldn't, geez; when Dan and I are in a room together, much of what we talk about is old comedy sketches. The guidelines ask us to avoid internet tropes and we always discourage anything lame, and sadly, many attempts at humour, everywhere online, are lame tropes (or worse, meanness masquerading as humor). When a good joke lands on HN it’s a great day. I hope that’s not a surprise to anyone.)