It is moderate, but it's not some exclusionary, niche thing like a "far-right social platform" is. HN is generally a broadly-welcoming community that attempts to elicit good-faith, well-reasoned discussion. Its actual purpose is one of openness and community rather than, simply put, "us vs. them" worldviews.

HN would have continued its slide from idealistic libertarianism to extreme right with the rest of US politics without dang occasionally swatting people down for using it for ideological battle. It's only moderate because of active effort on the part of the mod and people who bring things out of sync with the guidelines to his attention.

It's interesting that it's only moderate because it's a benevolent but absolute autocracy.

HN is extremely pro-text (excellent, in my book), and pro-tech (not too bad, in limited doses). And pro-Science, which a depressing fraction of Americans might regard as extremely bad.

...and saying that HN is "our own" - vs. "one modest Province in our Benevolent Overlord Paul's Empire" - is a bit of an issue.

This comment inadvertantly encapsulates nearly all that is wrong with the world today, and from which much evil flows.

"Pro-science" is not a position, and being anti-science means being anti-humanity.

* i’m fully aware that my comment is about to tread into the all-too-common insufferable pedantic trope that forums have devolved into. soooo, apologies for the obnoxious pedantry ahead of time. *

pro-science also very often veers into anti-humanity as well. we like to pride ourselves that we’re keenly aware of how many unanswered questions we have and the current limits of science and technology — yet it seems increasingly common that when we’re chasing our love for science and technology, more and more we forget how these very topics can strip humanity from a given situation or conversation.

do i think religion is the answer when society’s pro-science stance leads to anti-human situations? absofuckinlutely not. (particularly organized religions. i’d be more open to religions if people could practice it as a personal thing. but sadly the religious always seem to want to inflict their personal beliefs on others.) the answer probably lies more in the region where the science minded get a firmer understanding that the human condition requires us to understand humanity more, not solely science. understanding other humans is a subject in which many of us are kinda lacking. i truly believe they were wise to require a certain number of humanities courses in university. honestly, seeing how terribly many of us in science fields struggle with understanding other humans, we could probably use a few more in the requirements.

in an attempt to tie this rant onto the topic: i’ve maintained for years that even in the best of our current iterations, algorithms are just plain terrible when compared to human curation. billions and billions spent and years and years later, still terrible.

i’m sure some will argue but i strongly believe this is true for just about everything, from news algorithms, music, movies, literature, art, shopping etc… etc… the best recommendations are still coming from other humans, by a significant amount.

You can say that here, because we're all in a space where science is unquestioned, but try and say that to my mom over the Christmas table and you won't get very far in that conversation.

I have a lot of concerns and issues with science as it's often practiced today, but I'd still consider myself pro-science. I certainty wouldn't say I accept science without question and the very idea of that seems absurd. Science isn't some religion that doesn't allow for questioning. Science is all about questioning.

It's not that the individuals don't question science. I, just like you, also question science both in form and substance. It's that this particular venue doesn't. Hackernews is not the space for discussing if science is even really helpful or good. It's not the space to have lengthy debates about the meaning of science and the price of progress. Hackernews is an optimistic entrepreneur/technology forum, we assume (by and large) that entrepreneurship and technological advancement is good.

What I'm trying to say is that all spaces are "echo chambers" in that they all implicitly have their own tone and angle that all the participants agree to uphold as they join. You don't discuss politics at the dinner table after all.

That's fair, although I will say I have seen some good discussions here at HN on the negative impacts of certain technologies which is encouraging. Those are the kinds of issues you'd hope tech people were giving some thought to.

I'll agree though that it's still very much encouraging of new technologies even those that will be certain to cause problems. For example, people here are far more interested in the cool things they can do using WebAssembly than they are worried about how it will be used to deliver malware and violate people's privacy.

> we're all in a space where science is unquestioned

Please consider the contradiction in this quote

That was intentional.

From the other comment I figured I should probably point that out clearly.

I'd argue that "pro-science" is absolutely a position. People holding this position might argue that science isn't the best way to learn information about the world (e.g. divine revelation or intuitionism might be preferred), or that the application of science to find solutions to our problems leads to bad outcomes (e.g. Luddites or Mennonite/Amish communities).

Whether we agree with that position or not is a whole different beast, but it absolutely is a real and tenable position that people can and do hold.

> I'd argue that "pro-science" is absolutely a position. People holding this position might argue that science isn't the best way to learn information about the world (e.g. divine revelation or intuitionism might be preferred), or that the application of science to find solutions to our problems leads to bad outcomes (e.g. Luddites or Mennonite/Amish communities).

Wait, this is worded incorrectly right? The pro-science position would be the one claiming that science is the best (or at least one good) way to learn information about the world right? I'd agree in that case that a person can be pro-science.

Whoops, yeah, that was an example of anti science as a position (the pro-science person would hold the opposite beliefs across the board).