And as somebody that was born in Eastern Europe in a (now) ex-communist country, I must say that censorship (as used in your comment) is not incompatible with free speech. In fact it is required for people to have ways to filter out noise - you're still free to speak your mind regardless, therefore using that term doesn't win you any favors from my point of view ;-)
Also, the comment being down-voted above is really noise. It doesn't add anything interesting to the conversation. If it would have been an interesting point of view, then I would have agreed that downvoting is bad, but noise is precisely what downvoting is for.
I'm shutting people out of discussing with me like all the time.
Also, the comment being down-voted above is really noise.
The downvoted comment was this:
I can't say I see him as a villain, but definitely not a hero. I hold back my judgement, because we are just too far away to know what's going on. He did expose some pretty bad practices to the general public, but asylum in Russia afterwards? Are you kidding me? That just looks super fishy to anyone with at least an ounce of critical thought in his brain. Especially in the context of the Crimea debacle.
Now back to the point, the opinion that Snowmen is guilty of treason is held by a majority. And to me that doesn't make sense, because I personally want to live under the rule of law and in such a nation nobody should be above that law, not a secret service, not the president, nobody. That the US government is capable of illegally spying on their own citizens, using the taxes of those citizens to do it, well I want to know about it. That Germany is spying on their own citizens in cooperation with the US, I want to know that as well. I also happen to believe that my right to privacy should be above your right for security and if that ain't gonna happen, then at the very least I want to know where my taxes are going. And last but not least, we happen to live in a society in which the mass-media is constantly failing us and our rights are being constantly eroded. Therefore I consider Snowden to be a hero, because regardless of his motivations, his actions were the right thing to do.
And I could go on with lots of reasons for why I believe the above, but I'm tired of doing that for everybody that regurgitates a mainstream opinion without at least making an effort to explain why. Hence I believe that the comment in question is noise.
Downvotes are nothing more than another kind of participation in the discussion and should be treated as such.
I have to do that enough that I'm thinking I might just write a bookmarklet to automate the process.
Downvotes are nothing more than another kind of participation in the discussion and should be treated as such.
I may be misunderstanding you, or missing something obvious, but I just highlight faded comments with my mouse (or finger if on mobile), works well.
It's similar to the reason text posts are faded by default - to make those posts more annoying to read the longer they are, in order to discourage using them as personal blog posts.
If you don't particularly want your hand held like that and are capable of reading more than a paragraph at a time without suffering mental exhaustion or ennui, you may well find these practices to be condescending and passive-aggressive.
I have a userscript that I use to unfade everything[0] and have showdead on and I find that neither has negatively affected my experience much. Although of course everyone's mileage may vary.
PS. Nice, ad hominem. You want to be taken seriously? I can't tell.
That said, I did downvote blumkvist, firstly because he stated his opinion without really providing any reason for having it other than "oh we don't really know what's going on" (this is annoying, but everyone does it sometimes and it isn't such a big deal). But secondly and much more importantly, even after being asked to follow up on his assertion and have a discussion, he chose to continue on his anti-HN rant.
(And seriously, why is going to Russia "super fishy" when you've got US Congressmen suggesting on national fucking television that the CIA ought to assassinate you? And why do those Congressmen get a pass for saying it? They disgraced their office in doing so. Still like an answer for this, blumkvist.)
Well... I don't care what you say, downvoting based on opinion is perfectly valid and I will continue to do so as I see fit. Especially when the opinion is based on assumptions that I believe has been proven false many times in the past and rehashing the debate on HN turns into a multi-page endless arguing.... kind like this is turning into.
So your opinion on downvoting is different from mine, where does that leave us?
Maybe PG and co. need to add an option in the settings to switch off the censorship for those who don't want it.
How would you feel if people shut you out of a discussion because they disagreed with you?
If someone says something you disagree with, debate them. If they say something factually incorrect, correct them. They may even thank you for it. And guess what, they may end up changing your mind, or correcting a mistake on your part.
Actively seeking to censor somebody for having a different perspective on something is frankly abhorant.
I find it ironic that this kind of behaviour is being encouraged in this thread of all. Snowden's actions will prove to be a giant waste of effort if your kind get their way.