> HN is filled with toxicity, especially if you have a thought that runs counter to the normal accepted way.

Compared to the real world, HN is still a bowl of cherries.

HN is filled with toxicity, but most of it is projected forth by people who lack the ability to take constructive criticisms, and misconstrue them as hostility. Same problem as all other social medias, except at not nearly the same scale.

> HN is filled with toxicity, especially if you have a thought that runs counter to the normal accepted way.

So what. The world shouldn't be gentle padded walls and protective headgear. That's part of what's wrong with US and Western European culture: extraordinary, pathetic intellectual weakness and cowardice rather than mental fortitude and strength. The West is soft and weak mentally - constantly crying like a spoiled brat to be protected from ideas, arguments, debates, anything disliked or disagreed with - and it's only getting worse.

This isn't that; discussion and debate is promoted here. What's not is exactly what you've just demonstrated - vitriolic language that only serves to provoke hostility and muddy the waters of real conversation.

You could have gotten across the same message by saying something like "Sure, being rude is bad, but you shouldn't let politeness descend into agreeableness to the point where people are shying away from real conversations in order to avoid upsetting people". Same message, much better tone.

I generally find HN to have a level of civil discourse that is unheard of on most other platforms online, to the point that I sometimes find myself behaving a little better here than I would elsewhere because it's just how it's done around here. I'm curious what community you'd point to that is not toxic if HN is considered toxic.

Well, for one, the corvette racer dudes I know aren't at all like what you see here with people telling you you're straight out wrong, dumb, etc. And they actively help each other when things happen. I've cut my track time short to help a dude I didnt know fix his car when it broke (we're friends now). Dude last year crashed his car and caught fire - was massively burnt to a crisp and almost died. People came together and almost $60k to help him. Then, another one of our crew had a stroke. The first guy donated to him (along with the rest of us), despite dealing with his own medical issues.

so yeah, by comparison HN is rude as hell