By "ideological boilerplate" I mean repetitive ideological points, the kind that people repeat over and over again to bludgeon their enemies with in internet battles. That's the opposite of the discussion we want here. What we want is people listening to each other, taking in the specifics of what they have to say, and then responding with something that they haven't thought or said before—let alone a thousand times before. Conversation should be a co-creation between mutually respecting equals. When done well, it is always new. This follows from the core principle of HN, namely curiosity [1], because curiosity withers under repetition [2].

Snark is also a clear indicator of repetitive bludgeoning because people only resort to that when they have, let's call it, surplus creative energy left over—no real thought being needed to repeat the underlying points—which they use to try to add force to the smiting [3].

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Thank you for taking the time to write that out dang.