Yeah, ignoring the problem does a lot to make it go away for you.

It doesn't help to make it stop being a problem though. This is basically the definition of privilege.

Ooh yes, the problem of comments on the internet. You've got it real tough in this world. You've almost got it as bad as someone who lives on the streets.

Comments on the internet reflect public attitudes and public attitudes shape policy.

For people who maybe affected by the resulting policy, it's a lot more than just "comments on the internet".

The problem is that these reality-deficient narratives spill out into the real world where they have real consequences.

For example, the pitchforks came out to recall the "soft on crime" DA and replace him with a "tough on crime" one. Why didn't that fix anything? And why was the DA ever the problem when crime was actually down during his tenure, but had simply shifted neighborhoods as a result of covid emptying out the previous high-property-crime areas (downtown and fisherman's wharf)? People in other neighborhoods had every right to be upset that crime shifted to their area, but alleged city-wide policy changes never made any sense as an explanation for that.

Every time there's a crime panic, a bunch of "no more mr. nice guy" politicians throw a few thousand more people in prison for minor crimes in this country, which already imprisons more people per capita than any other country except this very short list of places: El Salvador, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, Cuba. Think we can beat them?

You're not solving anything by reading comments you dislike either, what's your point.

The value of discussing things publicly like here is to change minds, to challenge consciousness. That is the value of the discussion.

It was obvious that commenters on HN were wilding out about this specific case—but even though the outpouring of rage about homelessness/Chesa Boudin/race/etc was clearly out of proportion with this single incident, it was useful to read people's thoughts. Just because people think differently than I do, doesn't make me less inclined to want to hear them or understand them. In this case, it was illuminating to see that there were so many people who were primed to perpetuate that narrative.