There are a lot of things I disagree with the majority on here. But it's more like in a real life convo, most disagreements don't need to turn into huge debates in the first place, let alone result in name-calling and group-shaming.

> There are a lot of things I disagree with the majority on here

Such as? Are any of those disagreements ideological?

I don't like any tech gadgets, don't care a lot about digital privacy, prefer imperial measurements, think dynamic types are the best for high-level code, am opposed to ipv6, think Golang is pointless, want an official Linux desktop OS (not just kernel) to exist, think adults shouldn't be playing video games. And have said all those things repeatedly here.

If that all sounds too non-spicy, well, even mentioning the smaller things like JS vs TS on a mainstream Reddit page got people calling me a moron and my comment hidden because the score got too low. If I said it on a different page, maybe it would've been +100 score and everyone disagreeing with me booted instead, but that's not any better. Learned quickly not to bother with there.

HN isn't really a place for plain political discussions, so I don't participate in those. They do exist though, and end up getting locked. I'd probably be more right-wing than most.

Right, try participating in one of those political discussions here and see what happens.

Also using reddit as a baseline is like using a cesspool tank as a baseline of sanitation.

I've read through them here, they're not bad at all. There's a majority opinion, and people are disagreeing, but there's real content there instead of campaign slogans and insults. But HN rules say it's not for politics, so I avoid participating.

So what is your non-cesspool forum example that isn't Reddit? Twitter seemingly got taken over by bots early on, Facebook pages were a disaster at least when I was in college, and those are the big ones.

I think its worth saying that its a gradation, some places are better than others with HN tending to the better. But fundamentally, I don't think large non-toxic forums exist.

X optimizes for engagement and as studies have shown, that means optimizing for rage bait.

Reddit optimizes for rage bait too but includes a voting system that hides unpopular opinions, so any person that conflicts with the majority is marginalized. So on top of being full of rage bait, its an echo-chamber and that is before even talking about the powermod problem.

HN is much like reddit in style, so fundamentally HN also tends towards an echo chamber.

And by echo chamber, I mean a cringe circle jerk: a New Yorker article called it "performative erudition".

HN doesn't feel like Reddit, yes there are votes but it's one page and a totally different algo, and different user base. Guess we have different levels of satisfaction with that.

Gotta say though, it's rich hearing this from New Yorker.

You said its rich not wrong.