Re:Portable Ideas
by adrianhoward on Sunday May 13, 2012 @06:02AM
(#3966564)
I like using the word "genre" instead of "bubble" as a metaphor for this sort of thing.
Genre's are useful - they act as a nice shortcut in the bookshop if you're looking for a particular kind of book. But I never pop my head outside of the SF section I'm going to be missing out on a lot of good reading and some interesting outlooks on life.
Although some people complain about the fact that there are strong biases on HN, I actually think that it is not that bad, and there are plenty of topics on which the community is divided (on top of my mind: internet piracy is acceptable vs bad, windows is a good tool vs it sucks, google is evil vs it is awesome, linux will never be a good desktop environment vs it will, etc..).
I think that there is a distinction between bubbles that are created around certain opinions (windows is bad + piracy is good + linux rocks) and bubbles that are organized around values (I disagree with you but I like debating with you + I like to learn about different subjects + etc..).