The "hot topic" thing is just chatgpt creating conversation starters. Sometimes, its' leaning left, sometimes right, sometimes it's not political. We're tuning it up (mainly to just be more engaging).
The post you saw about Elon Musk ... Everyone is talking about whatever they feel like talking about. If Musk isn't your cup of tea, mute this anonymous person and you don't see each other for a week. It's only a week because maybe one of you was having a bad day. But with repeated muting, they're completely gone. Also nudges the system to group you with people you're going to like better. After enough respects and mutes, you should see the people you enjoy.
The bigger point is what happens once you bring your friends. You guys can talk about anything without getting angry at each other. If they irritate, mute 'em. If you enjoy the conversation, respect them. Enough mutual respect and you can see real names.
This divisiveness hurts across the world, but is painful when it goes local. These are people you see at the grocery store or teachers who can retaliate against your kids.
We just launched a hateless social media platform. People can speak freely on any topic, including politics. But a clever combination of aliases, real names, and respect functionality kills off the nastiness.
If any of this rings true to you, I'd love to help.
Mike Schoeffler https://hiweave.com/
I get the wariness thing. The anon functionality is pretty different from what people have seen before and it might take a little time for people to get comfortable. Especially weird when we're saying using real names protects your identity more.
I'll see if there's some wording change on the signup page that can help the next guy get over this hump.
We need to keep user identities safe from exposure. One attack we're preventing: people targeting a particular person by posing as a friend. Part of the defense is making sure people are using real names (when needed, we'll back up this policy with authentication).
Glad you said something - I really want to know where the frictions are.
A few months ago, Dalton & Michael explained how we can damage ourselves using social media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMW_33zyTK4 Michael put it this way, "We're living in a world where you need to be careful with your thoughts".Social media can be like a minefield—people hold back or get defensive, even with friends, because of fear of judgment or backlash. We wanted to create a...
Switch to something more capable, like Trello (personally have used many systems and found nothing better than Asana). If you also keep the rest of your chores ("drop off dry cleaning") in there, you'll see benefits extending to the rest of your life and find this less onerous.
Bonus points: if you ever expand past working alone, you won't go insane.
This hurts on a personal level (families, friendships). More importantly, what is the effect on society when we can't listen to each other?
Our contempt for each other has increased civil strife and violence, and we simply can't tackle large problems. Think about COVID-19, where political issues have prevented us from even agreeing on the cause of this plague - to say nothing of preventing the next one. And now imagine coordinating to prevent possible AI catastrophe.
We don't need to all think alike. But we better repair civil discourse if we're going to address any other problems.
The vcs and startups (including yc) were gambling on the taxpayer dime.
I’m ok helping on some of the uninsured deposits (say 80%). But rewarding people for gambling with taxpayer money? No thanks.
Let's find out. We have a private beta to answer this question. I'd love to see what happens for you guys (note "Hacker News" on the invite request to be placed in a group conversation).
Suppose you could speak out without cost. What then?
The rest of us pick up on this and sense the plastic shell. Worse, by never risking, they never excel in the way they could.
The only way to sharpen your ideas is to find other humans to talk about them with. The subject barely matters - you may be dead wrong or 100% correct, but you can only know once you test it with intelligent people. Plus, you build deep friendships when you're open. I can't tell you how well this has worked for me - better friends, clearer thinking.
The problem is obvious. We live in a judgmental time when it's easy to rub people wrong and lose friends - or even your job. So how do you stay safe?
Protect people (even friends) behind aliases on controversial topics - until you build up mutual respect and trust.
I want to show you what I'm talking about. I'm running a private beta for https://hiweave.com/. If you sign up for an invite, mention Hacker News (I'll put you guys in a group together).
I built a math program in Newark that worked stunningly well because it took the level assessment/lessons/testing from Khan and gamified it.
Not gamification in the electronic badge/"you did it!!!"/points sense, but contests between kids, with teams rooting each other on and parents helping run the show.
Education needs genuine praise and involvement to inspire children to put in the necessary effort. But videogaming the experience is a solution in search of a problem. We need less isolation and more coaching.