In a way, HN is still a reflection of society, although more civil due to pg (then) or dang (now) moderation, plus the fact that a lot of users knew each other back then.
Nowadays, I'm constantly amazed at how the right is able to turn ANYTHING into someone else's fault. The right divides the country ("let's own the libtards", "the election is a sham", etc) but no, it was the left! The right does a coup, but no, it is the left that cannot let bygones be bygones.
Do they think we are dumb? are they dumb? what is going on?? Black is white is black, war is peace, etc. etc. and no one even blinks at this.
Civil discussion is still possible if you refuse to feel ashamed for rejecting falsehoods, which may be the weakness we have taken on in trying to remain compassionate to other voices on HN, which emboldens evil.
And of course, this is just the beginning. Right-wing extremists now this; the sooner we realize that we are against an enemy that wants to overthrow democracy, the sooner we put a better fight against it.
It's a very old trick.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister (possibly apocryphal)
And btw you’ve hit the nail on the head. that’s the thing, I firmly believe the poster I replied to is wrong and a lot of other uncharitable descriptions. It’s hard to let such bad claims just stand unanswered.
This type of article and that type of post I replied to is just asking for contention.
I don’t come to hacker news for that sort of asinine online argument. If I feel like that, there’s a hundred subreddits I could visit.
Lately, it’s been just as bad. This comment is completely pushing a political narrative that relies on selective interpretation.