Ask HN: General Mood of the Community
Has anyone else noticed that HN feels a lot more angry all around lately? There seems to be little peace or excitement in people's comments. It feels mostly like people attacking each other or attacking something.
I know the pandemic has been hard; but, we've got to fight to keep our peace through this and not attack others during this time, where we can.
217 comments
[ 0.16 ms ] story [ 240 ms ] threadTry to go to https://news.ycombinator.com/newest and find interesting small post. I like when they have like 10 comments, but sometimes they have no comments and you can have a nice conversation with the author or someone of the community of HN that is an expert in the subject. [Note: Most of the post in "newest" are not interesting. You must check it for a while until you find one.]
I quit slashdot when basically every story started hitting 100+ comments. When 100+ comment stories were maybe once-a-day thing, slashdot was an outstanding board.
I have noticed the rule applies very widely, including on subreddits.
I'd also submit that it's far more normal now than say 5 years ago for just the bare disagreement of what I said above to be perceived, by some, as me attacking you, the author of the OP. Which would be an erroneous conclusion as far as I'm concerned.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25787916
I'm guessing people vouched for his post here, despite the fact that it's really continuing to do the same...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25787916
I'm not going to look through rose-tinted glasses and suggest "things were better in the good ol' days". Contrarian reactions to top posts are the bread-and-butter of a healthy message board.
However, to me it feels like the quality of these contrarian takes have gone down. People seem far more 'committed' to pushing their positions to incense others with overgeneralizing karma-clickbait. This causes the dialectic to become more of a debate instead of a deliberation, and to me the latter is far more useful and engaging.
With that said, I also know that my tastes change as I get older, so this could truly be my own delusion.
I too am getting older, and while I don’t feel I’m becoming galvanized per se, I think my tolerance for those not acting in good faith has rapidly approached zero. If the data speaks and the counterparty opposes facts, there is no way to have a productive discussion. An example from my own experience would be when talking to someone about climate change, which they don’t believe in because “God will make sure it all works out”. There is no value in engaging in those situations, and similar anecdotes can be found here. Belief systems and mental models can be rigid.
It’s astounding really, and these data points have helped me recalibrate my expectations of fellow humans, as well as my empathy for them.
Gonna need a link to one of those threads full of citations on this claim, because this is not at all my understanding. Even if we had a magic wand that would reduce anthropogenic CO2 (and other greenhouse gas) emissions to zero overnight, we're already far above historic atmospheric CO2 concentrations and will be paying the price.
Edit: since I'm asking for citations, here's mine[1] showing that according to climate models zero CO2 emissions from 2020 onward would have little effect on the global mean temperature through 2100.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17001-1/figures/2
Many people look at the graph in your citation and see it as a picture of success, because the baseline in their mind is RCP8.5. Note that the graph makes a comparison to RCP2.6, which is not a "do nothing" scenario, it's a pretty optimistic and aspirational future.
I have yet to see a scientific case for luxury communism where every Indian peasant gets their own suburban yard.
edit: and I do see a lot of people saying that technology right around the corner will just solve the problem without anyone having to change their lifestyle in the slightest.
"I didn't want to cut down on drinking/CO2/media pollution/etc so I killed myself instead" - which of these is a winning move?
The biggest problem I see with 'technology will solve everything' beliefs (evidence-based beliefs are still beliefs) is that these solutions are almost always in a people and political vacuum. They assume that there will be nothing stopping or slowing it down or even reversing it from happening, from people not wanting wind farms in their back yard[1], to human nature prioritizing short-term issues over long-term threats[2][3] and voting accordingly[4], the inability for a people to enforce change on a global level (even if the US behaves perfectly, how are they going to get China[5] or India[6] to go to zero emissions without going to war with them...we saw this exact problem play out with the Covid pandemic, although the US was one of those bad actors). And politicians themselves have little-to-no incentives to stop climate change[7].
You even got people like Biden, who says "climate change is the number one issue facing humanity"[8], and yet he's caught falling asleep at the COP26 climate summit[9] (which does not help the image of how seriously the US is treating climate change) as well as approving new drilling permits for oil and gas extraction, at a faster rate than even Trump[10]. And lobbyists are able to kill climate change legislation just by putting some cash in the right politician's hands (Manchin in this case)[11].
There's other issues with the actual feasibility of the technology as well, such as we might not have enough materials for all the solar panels and wind turbine we'll need to build[12] (and the actual study they cite here[13]). But that's really a whole separate thing I don't have time to hunt down the articles for right now.
We wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if it weren't for people's actions, and now fans of the technology think everyone is going to magically do a full 180 on their behavior and fall in line for something they can't even see beyond some wildfires and stronger hurricanes, which they dismiss as freak events just as easily and keep their heads in the sand.
If anything it appears to me that we're going to wrong direction as far as the human and political element is concerned. Yes, some things are getting better, but we need massive global systemic change decades ago and that's clearly still not happening today, despite great progress on Solar and Wind affordability and EV cars (as well as other initiatives).
I'm not saying we shouldn't pursue these technological solutions as much as we can, far from it. I just think because of various reasons it's not going to get us to where we need to be, and more work needs to be done on trying to rewrite the brains and incentive-structures of people and politicians or we're almost certainly not going to meet those goals, and that's being glossed over in favor of saying "well, technically it can still be done!"
[1]: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/feature/nimby-...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=553048...
[3]: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190109-the-perils-of-sh...
[4]: nathanaldensr ↗ Exactly. You see "both sides" using the exact same rhetoric--"My side is obviously right and X people agree. This other side is hopeless." This then quickly and naturally devolves into authoritarian feelings, proposals, and anger. I think people who participate in such arguments fail to see how history is replete with examples of how this type of angry spirit leads to nothing but war, subjugation, and death. In other words, it's an egotistical expression that lacks historical wisdom. gryfft ↗ It is bad when people do bad things. It is absolutely morally reprehensible when they do those bad things knowingly in bad faith. It is terrible and exhausting to deal with those people and the people further clouding the air around the things those people do by expressing their ignorance proudly and angrily and attacking anyone whose behavior does not properly signal the same pride in the same ignorance. ethbr0 ↗ That's one of the deeper wisdoms of non-violent direct action. That the way in which one wins is as important as winning, because it shapes the people who exist after the conflict is resolved. mschuster91 ↗ > You see "both sides" using the exact same rhetoric--"My side is obviously right and X people agree. This other side is hopeless." cle ↗ > People who come to a democratic discourse without facts deserve no time of democratic people. fellowniusmonk ↗ I find people confusing arguments with mere assertions. cle ↗ The goal of democratic discussion isn't to agree on the truth, it's to reach decision-making consensus for governing. People can come to that kind of consensus while disagreeing on fundamental things. fellowniusmonk ↗ Ultimately I think we agree about consensus being fundamental, democracy is great in that people have a path for the peaceful transfer of power in the face of disagreements and cultural shift. It's great because it gives us generational paths to decrease violence. beardedetim ↗ > Democratic discourse fundamentally needs facts to debate, not lies, propaganda or un-verifiable anecdotes. People who come to a democratic discourse without facts deserve no time of democratic people. raxxorrax ↗ I am not someone that holds back criticism. I do believe many mistake that for negativity. Maybe I am too hostile to advertising that I tend to curb my enthusiasm about many new products, although I am still interested in them. User23 ↗ > Exactly. You see "both sides" using the exact same rhetoric TheOtherHobbes ↗ So how would you persuade people who don't believe in climate change for religious and/or short term economic reasons that climate change is is a very real and extremely serious medium term threat? BobbyJo ↗ We have evidence to support technology's potential to solve certain issues. Hell, I'd go so far as to say solutions for every major climate problem are on the roadmap currently. It's naive to think it'll all go as planned with some needed happy surprises along the way, but comparing that to 'God will handle it' feels a little stretched. cableshaft ↗ > Hell, I'd go so far as to say solutions for every major climate problem are on the roadmap currently. BobbyJo ↗ Don't misinterpret my statement to mean "we can undo all the damage already done". Also, don't misinterpret it to mean "we can prevent any further damage". lamontcg ↗ Except when it comes to mRNA vaccine mandates, then technology is suddenly bad.
Internet arguing follows the same logic. If I logically out-fence you by being an asshole, what have I gained? What have we gained?
Whereas if I politely and respectfully describe why eating Irish babies is a solution to overpopulation of the lower classes [0], we all feel better about ourselves, even if you decline to agree with me.
[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm
The thing is, from a neutral external perspective, when one side claims "there is no climate change, only God's will" and the other side claims "Climate change is man-made and will escalate to the point of irreversibility if nothing is done", then only one side can back up their argument with verifiable facts. And yet, "listen to both sides!!!"-style arguments result in complete bullshit given the attention of millions of people.
Democratic discourse fundamentally needs facts to debate, not lies, propaganda or un-verifiable anecdotes. People who come to a democratic discourse without facts deserve no time of democratic people. Democracy itself is at war with disinformation from all kind of sources, both foreign (Russian and Chinese propaganda) and domestic (corporate or otherwise financially motivated shills, authoritarian politicians willing to grab power).
I disagree. If 95% of the people come to a discourse with no facts, and we follow this guideline, what kind of democracy is that?
IMO it is our responsibility in a democracy to listen and empathize with others, no matter how wrong they are. It is equally my responsibility to convince others, as it is for others to be convinced by reasonable arguments.
This is all notwithstanding the reality that what constitutes "fact" is not at all clear. In this kind of discourse, I place that word into the "thought-terminating cliche" category. Typically what is heralded as "fact" and "100% true" is much more nuanced with caveats, probabilities, normative assumptions, inferences, etc.
If there's no train of logic, no explanation, no underlying data, why are we pretending the individual is trying to engage in a honest discussion?
There is no arguing the authority of papal edicts with a devout papist, modern civilization long ago learned it was fruitless to try.
If someone trades in ungrounded declarations instead of propositions that one can attempt to "ground", there is no argument made and thus no "sides" to discuss.
Many people like to argue for the sake of arguing and it's a waste of time.
How fundamental? Where would you draw distinction (if at all)? So my brother is an anarchist, he is also a drug abuser that has spent time in jail and is a dangerous person to be around physically.
I have yet to ever see him argue in good faith.
He does not tell 99% of people that this is a what he believes, he just argues in person and online whatever can cause the most turmoil and/or positions that point to everyone being selfish and fundamentally evil, or the situation hopeless and that cruelty and power dynamics are not something that often "is", but something we "ought" to embrace.
In a democratic republic people "can" do a lot of things, just like the individual "can" do all kinds of things without dying or being jailed right away.
That doesn't mean they are healthy or good, that doesn't mean every ungrounded belief that exists needs to be engaged or given equal billing in public discourse. It's noise, not signal and if we are intelligent we will reject it as noise instead of rebroadcasting it. It also doesn't mean we ought to abandoned working towards a "grounded" consensus because rejecting factual evidence is somehow "virtuous" or cynically sophisticated.
Increasingly I see that people seem to argue as if rejecting a pragmatic, propositionally grounded and arguable discourse is something to give up on, or to stop advocating for, and I do question the intent behind that as it seems unsustainable and counter to past, evidentially productive, consensus building.
Seeing these arguments in the wild is to be expected when an increasing percentage of the population express a rejection of democracy itself in polls. On pluralistic open forums people/anarchists/my brother will argue orthogonally about how to "do democracy" while advocating positions that epistemologically undercut attempts at consensus, and they'll do this instead of saying "I reject democracy" because in many circles it's not in vogue _yet_ to say you've rejected democratic governance.
The idea that a majority of people in any country can fundamentally disagree that we live in a shared pragmatic reality, one that can be scrutinized, investigated, argued/communicated about and we will somehow still end up with sustainable democratic outcomes seems improbable, and I question anyone saying grounded arguments aren't that important.
I agree. Wholeheartedly. What falsehoods do you hold that keep you from participating in democracy then? Or are you saying that you, above everyone else, uses facts and logic only?
What have you voted for based on emotion?
Sometimes it feels pretty lonely in the group of people that don't expect the near end of the world. Especially annoying in times when policy is often put forward in times of crisis. I don't mean Covid, the last decade was full of that.
You would think religious people and climate scientists could come together to proclaim that the end is nigh, sometimes you have to start at common positions...
Problem is that the both-sides perspective is more often correct than not. People will identify different facts and different instances of propaganda. Especially if said fact rely on nothing more than perfectly compiled statistics. Good ideas must prevail against opposition.
There is also an argument that states have problems to project power against multi billion $ companies, but the answer should certainly not be propaganda.
How much of this is due not so much to some kind of fundamental similarity between their positions but rather to the virtually complete removal of rhetoric from the typical curriculum? Perhaps people argue like children because their thoughts are childlike, but perhaps they’re merely incompetent rhetoricians.
That's what the facts strongly suggest. Implying that people who use facts in argument are being rhetorical is - rhetorical itself.
"Even if the world manages to limit warming to 1.5C, some long-term impacts of warming already in train are likely to be inevitable and irreversible. These include sea level rises, the melting of Arctic ice, and the warming and acidification of the oceans. Drastic reductions in emissions can stave off worse climate change, according to IPCC scientists, but will not return the world to the more moderate weather patterns of the past."
"Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, and a lead author for the IPCC, said: “We are already experiencing climate change, including more frequent and extreme weather events, and for many of these impacts there is no going back.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-...
And actually, here's this direct from the headline statements in the IPCC report itself:
"Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level."
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...
When I say solutions are on the roadmap, I mean somewhere down the road we'll be able to stop doing the bad things and save ourselves.
That may be the difference. A few years ago, more of the contrarian takes were in good faith, with real thought behind them. You could learn something new from them, even if you didn't completely agree with them. That also meant that, when you were confronted with a contrarian take, you were more likely to expect that it was made in good faith. This led to a different feel for the whole site.
Now it seems that more of the contrarian (and even mainstream) takes are just repeating talking points. They are, in CapitalistCartr's words, "a set of recordings", so they're no point trying to have a discussion.
I don't know how to get back to where HN was five years ago. I can feel the difference, and I prefer the old version.
#OldManYellsAtClouds, I guess...
This is the main thing to me. If someone disagreed with me here 15 years ago (I wish I still remembered the account, but oh well), I would have assumed that they personally saw something wrong in what I was saying and were reacting to it. Even if somebody wanted to pick a fight with me, it was because they, personally, wanted to pick a fight. (Whether with me or just the first person they disagreed with).
Now, someone disagreeing is likely to be knee-jerk reacting to what I said because it tripped across some red or blue team media shibboleth and I didn't say the right things so I must be one of the 'bad people', which is then how people proceed to talk to me. There are certain words, phrases, and topics that the media have turned so completely into litmus tests that they act as triggers to bypass people's critical thinking.
If you want to disagree with me, I want people disagreeing with ME, not the strawman communist or facist they've constructed in their heads.
I had some downvoted comments but I think it never happened when I was politely disagreeing before making my point.
I think people (and I include myself) are more easily "triggerable" nowadays.
I also think we can fix this by taking the habit to write like we are attacking the point and not the person.
One easy way to do this is to overuse the "I" subject, even if it is to write and not just throw your facts. There is no real difference between « you are wrong because » and « I think you missed [that point] because » but the later is, automatically, more respectful.
There is little point in peaking out from whatever novel thing you're interested in and discussing it when there are people who get their fun out of ruining lives.
This selects for people who post boring but inflammatory takes, and encourages heterodox thinkers who are trying to gain followings to meld their views to their audience.
If you want to see some real aggressive behavior, look at HN during its first year. I was shocked. My rose tinted glasses made year one look a lot nicer than it was.
Perhaps everyone is always combative and I'm just sensitive to it lately.
Now, I think we're closer than ever to a real split. Covid has exacerbated it all. People are self-sorting in terms of migrations from blue states to red states, and from cities to suburbs and rural areas.
This summer, and the elections in November, could be flashpoints of something larger and worse -- I hope we can hold it together.
As for HN toxicity -- beware items whose number of comments exceeds the votes for the article itself; it's a rough metric for how big the flames are.
But what happens when half of everyone wears a mask and the other half does not?
I feel like people on Reddit, and to a lesser extent on HN, are trying now, more than ever before, to label and sort themselves into "us" and "them".
Commenting on a post didn't used to require as a compulsory first step announcing which "us" you belong to.
In a nutshell:
us = rational and fact-based
them = irrational and emotion-based
All sides think they're "us" and that other sides are "them".
A lot of it seems to be formerly excited about startups people screwed over by bad management in one way or another who now are happy to hang out at FAANG and focus on money.
I get it. My last employer made a lot of their employees want to join large companies and focus on stuffing their pockets rather than caring about any higher goal.
Examples? Sometimes interest in particular types of "new" ideas is just naivete, and seeing those "new" ideas fail or not live up to the hype can lead to a new appreciation of certain aspects of the status quo.
Maybe a bit of it is just me getting older, but I think most of it is observing that a lot of things are actively getting worse, and thus prioritizing "stopping the bleeding". A concrete example of this would be Biden as a politician, 5 years ago I would have hated him as useless (not improving things) and mildly corrupt, now I don't mind him as useless (not making things worse) and only mildly corrupt - with the unfortunate reality that that is the best option the US had.
PS. Let's try and keep this thread from becoming a debate about Biden and politicians, he's a useful example but not the point, I don't expect everyone to agree with my assessment.
When you're young, you don't know anything, so you look at every new idea in its purest form.
When you're old, you can't not make comparisons to known history, and so look at every new idea with a shadow gallery of similar ideas. Which probably ultimately skews favor towards conservative approaches (things that look like things that have previously worked) than novel one (things that look like nothing else, or like other things that have failed).
Which is to say, to react to new ideas as though you were young, once you're old, takes effort and self-reflection. It's a valuable skill to cultivate, but it also doesn't happen naturally.
This got me thinking about what exactly I mean by status quo, I don't think it's quite as obvious as it seems at first glance.
One important distinction is status-quo as a goal, vs status-quo as a solution. Status quo as a goal often makes sense - when the current state of affairs isn't that bad and it would be easy for things to get worse, keeping things the same is a good thing. Solutions however rarely make sense, because solutions operate in a changing environment, and keeping doing the same thing is basically pretending you're maintaining the status quo, when you're actually yielding different results.
To use atmospheric CO2 as an example, status quo atmospheric CO2 would be a remarkable achievement. Status quo energy generation obviously fails to achieve that, because the baseline amount of atmospheric CO2 keeps going up.
Another thing to ask is status quo of "what", status quo of atmospheric CO2 would be remarkable, status quo of change in atmospheric CO2 over time wouldn't solve the crisis, though it would be a great improvement over what we have right now. IIRC status quo of the second derivative of atmospheric CO2 over time (i.e. how fast the rate at which we output it changes over time) is about what we currently maintain. It follows that status quo of the third derivative would be a major step backwards.
I think the conclusion I've been coming to over the last few years, is that "status quo of quantities that aren't rates is usually a good default for a goal". For atmospheric CO2 it would be a remarkable achievement. For geopolitical tensions is europe, it's not quite ideal, but we don't actually have a war and I'd be pretty happy if it stayed that way. For diseases, I mean, we aren't all dying, and so on and so forth. That doesn't mean it's always the right goal. If we're in the middle of a major war, we should be seeking a new status quo where we aren't in a war. Given that the new mRNA HIV vaccine actually works the goal should change to "reduce HIV" rather than "maintain the status quo" since that's now possible. It's just that status quo is a starting point for a goal and deviations from it should probably be supported by a solid argument for "we can do better" or "we can't even do that well".
Getting hired by a FAANG is the antithesis of doing a startup, or doing some original research, or even working on a clever hack just for the joy of it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065
This is just one example of how this type reacts to particular issues, the full impact is pervasive throughout the whole site.
Yes, I know there is an irony in me generalizing about this type of person, but I'm unsure how else to talk about it.
Some people have the patience and curiosity to develop a more nuanced understanding of a topic and refuse to generalize in discussion, which has the effect of excluding those with a less nuanced understanding of the topic; others generalize faster, possibly for rhetorical purposes and to align with people lacking a more nuanced understanding of the topic. This leads to an amplification of the least nuanced position that the majority of people support. You see this effect in almost any community.
To avoid this, you'd have to devise a way to exclude people who refuse to develop a more nuanced understanding of any given topic (i.e. lack curiosity).
>> Examples?
> If we are continuing with the generalization about this 'type' of person, you can point to just about any controversial topic posted here. The mental gymnastics these people use is as old as history...
> This is just one example of how this type reacts to particular issues, the full impact is pervasive throughout the whole site.
Your reply doesn't actually contain any examples. It's, as you said, just "[you] generalizing about this type of person."
I think I have become more rigid with experience although I don't feel inclined to be sorry for reacting differently to a new version of Blender than to a new NFT scheme. Random example, but I think the idea is clear.
Also I can fully understand and am certainly guilty of being prejudiced against certain ideas depending on the source. An example is Google here. The ad industry is so hostile to user privacy that I cannot really laugh that away if Google proposes something helpful, which they still often do. But ultimately that is a price they have to pay.
Why would discussions about those topics go any other way? The options are well known, and have well-understood pros and cons. It's not surprising that most people have made up their minds.
I mean, do you think it's realistic that thread about, say, Soviet-style central planning to proceed with "discussion or curiosity," like it was some new, fresh idea?
My theory is that, as a site grows, the quality of comments goes down. Perhaps it's because the site is harder to moderate when more people are on it? Perhaps it's because the attention drives in the loonies?
Personally, I really like how Hacker News is moderated. (Thanks Dang!)
Downvoting and flagging is good; but unless you're downvoting something that's just a vacuous quip, then I think the downvoter should usually make a comment.
That said, I think the tone on HN is fairly good, people are not sugarcoating things, they're not veiling their views with courtesy, and they're generally presenting arguments for consideration, and if insults are made, they're usually insults of ideas, not people.
So maybe I'm just in the "negative asshole camp" but I think it's very refreshing to have conversations on HN, because my views are often challenged, and I am forced to reconsider and adjust, while at the same time, I feel that my own points are being considered, rather than automatically discarded as is often the case in mainstream social media, where discussions are not had to find understanding or truth, but to "win".
I agree.
I've been visiting HN for years, but I'm pretty new as a commenter. AFAICS the tone is rather nicely controlled by the mods (hi, dang!) and the community. I'm glad it's a place where people can say what they think, in fairly direct terms; I'm also glad that people are expected to think before they say.
Whether conversations here are more polarized than in the past, I can't say. But societies have become more polarized lately; people are angrier, there's a lot more othering going on.
It helps a lot that HN generally disapproves of political debates.
Generally, HN trends towards the former, and that's one of the things I love about it! You can make a good point and I can disagree with you!
One of the most counter-intuitive tenets of forum community management is the only winning move is not to engage with bad behavior.
A downvote + not replying to a poorly behaving commenter is orders of magnitude more powerful and instructive than any reply.
(And also, the distinction between "downvote because I disagree" & "downvote because you're breaking forum norms." We're at our best when we promote healthy debate, and disincentivize bad behavior, instead of "bad thoughts.")
Largely agreed. If the idea that the pandemic and the greater isolation that tends to come from remote work are contributing to more negativity in the things people write (which is a reasonable supposition), then you'd probably also expect a more negative take from the things people read. What was once innocuous might now read as not-so-innocuous. In other words, is whatever issue there is just a perception issue?
Overall, I don't think HN's tone or content quality has changed much. dang & Co. are steering this ship just as well as ever in my opinion (thanks dang!)
As an aside, I also stop reading after "I think it's funny..." or "Interesting that..." because it's usually something very passive-aggressive
1. People, consciously or not, start forming their comments with upvotes in mind.
2. People realize that positive comments don't generate as much discussion as neutral or negative comments. Less discussion, less upvotes.
Things used to be hopeful and encouraging around here. It's not that way anymore.
I think as remote work has become more common, many engineers are reaching to social media sites like HN to fill the void left by previous in-person office banter. The good comments are still there, but it feels like more work than ever to find them among the noise. I've also noticed an increase in the number of familiar HN screen names that pop up with the same angry perspectives on every thread of certain hot topics (Facebook, economics, cloud hosting).
This effect isn't exclusive to HN. The signal-to-noise ratio of the public forums and Slacks/Discords I frequent has also taken a dive since the start of COVID.
I don't think most people on HN are angry. You're just affected more by angry comments than rational, calm ones. It's an emotional bias. This is why it's important to not use social media for the vast majority of one's time; angry people have a way of creating more angry people around them.
So you are possibly more angry when interacting with HN lately, or are interpreting more things that aren't angry as angry.
Take a few weeks away from HN entirely. It can become addicting, it's often good to seek time apart from any source of anger in your life.
same with the "I remade a frontend for HN" someone always posts one. hell, i even made one a long time ago haha
In general anonymous commenting was cool for a while but seems to be leading to negative results most places. I’m ready to engage with forums limited to verified real people ex specific situations where personal safety might be at risk (and I’m not in any of those myself now or in the past).
My impression is that the young generations are growing up in an environment where the lines between their "digital life" and "real life" are almost completely blurred. Whether it is socializing with their peers, dating, going to school, or getting a job - so much of "being online" nowadays involves people being groomed as both the consumer and the product. It did not feel that way to me in the 90's and early 2000's, although that might not quite fit the definition of "older folks."