Ask HN: Does anyone else lie on the internet?
I regularly lie and pretend I know about topics and areas I have zero experience in. I began noticing I received more upvotes and engagement when I pandered to views or opinions that are either the direct opposite of what the original content suggests (through cherry-picked exceptions), or I'll find a tangentially related view that's either current and popular, or supports a topic or viewpoint I'd like to know more about - often pandered with some popular topic.
Often this results in a thread about stuff that I actually want to read about, or someone actually knowledgeable on the subject will correct me - and call me out, but will receive far less approval (and often be flamed for criticizing me). On the plus side, I get to learn from someone really knowledgeable about how something works! (EDIT: Later I'll often go back and reply to the person saying they are correct, I was wrong - and thank them for their reply.)
Here's one of the worst examples (which I regret) because it perpetuates a view about a place I've never been, I've never stepped foot in the continent of Africa - it's one of the few times I wish I could go back and "correct the record": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9309170
I know nothing about IP law - >200+ upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27035901
I know nothing about, and have never been through Australia's ACCC courts - almost 200 upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26787289
I've never hosted any copyrighted media, ever: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=16955522
I know nothing about tax havens, I've never even submitted my own taxes: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=16809428
Does anyone else do this?
109 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 191 ms ] threadDo I care? Kind of, that's why I posted this.
When did two wrongs start making an alright?
Yes, they do. Other people also steal, rape, commit murder, war, genocide, so in general you can justify allmost anything with that excuse - but you could never hope to increase the standard, only lower it, by doing the same.
In other words, wouldn't you prefer a world, where you could just trust people, even online?
Spend less energy fact checking everything? Fact checking the fact checking?
We live already in a fake, photoshoped world. Where the truth is burried in garbage, clickbait and make up.
The consequence is, we spend so much energy debating about whether some crisis is real, like climate change or covid, instead of actually doing something about it.
So it is up to you, if you want to raise the bar, or lower it. You realized yourself, that the experts replys to your posts often get burried, because you were better with the words (and said what the mob wanted to hear). This is what I am talking about. Because those experts have limited energy. At some point they just give up and leave the garbage be. At some point, there will be only garbage left.
Imagine for a second it comes from people like you. Can you see why folks would feel you are the problem?
This person is commenting in forums, not writing papers and news pieces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_lying
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
I'd say it's more of a fucking weird hobby (some obscure role-playing?) than anything else.
Appreciate the links though! You're good people.
I take that to include, lying regularly on HN. You act like it's no big deal. How many people regularly lie on here, do you think? Sure, you are asking about it now, I guess that's good. I would guess, vanishingly few, besides maybe the lunatic/troll fringe who get banned.
I can't imagine lying on here or any other internet forum, or a real life forum, and it's disturbing to see the way you convince yourself it isn't wrong, and has no bad effects. "I don't think anything I've done has any real impact on people." - how would you know if it did? You assume it's fine. I don't think so. I don't know what to say besides, that sounds very wrong. I've seen documentaries about internet trolls where they evidently say to themselves "It's not illegal, so I've done nothing wrong". As if ethics, right and wrong, does not exist. I get a similar feeling from reading your comments.
Also I try not to say untrue things. Not to claim knowledge of something I'm not certain of. The truth is all we have. It's very valuable.
[after actually looking at a couple of your links] Ok, that's much worse that I thought.
Read this and see if you recognize yourself in it as much as I did (a lot), from the little I know about you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
p.s. ..Do you (like in the 10 years you've been on here) assume most people on HN are being honest, or do you consider they may be trolling and not believe a word people say? The world kind of relies on most people not being like you, doesn't it?
While we are on the topic of epistemic integrity, do you not consider it harmful to make a judgment of psychopathy "from the little I know about you," based on a few UTF-8 characters sent over the web?
Had you any actual knowledge of what it is you speak of, you would have known that:
from the author of the PCL-R [1], "gold standard" for assessing psychopathy (by your own citation [2]).Why is it that the most morally outraged are the ones most incapable of following their own principles? Doesn't HN rely on people not spreading unreliable misinformation, unlike yourself?
[1] http://www.hare.org/scales/pclr.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Diagnosis
p.s. I notice that your page on HN says only "All comments are a work of fiction.", and one of your most recent comments starts "My favorite tactic is to intentionally write down overly constrained or even "obviously" wrong tickets or issues or what have you, to provoke a disagreement".
I've also met people similar to this behaviour irl, but they're mostly in army low-commanding positions, often issuing threats and FUD narratives to unwilling conscript soldiers. and they're usually very predatory in a sense.
You say you only lie online about unimportant stuff, I assume you actually cheat on your taxes, con old grannies out of their pension, and in your spare time, go by the name of Q.
Another lie :) You know that impersonating brands and using names likely to be confused with a trademarked name is largely illegal. Just because one is not a lawyer does not mean one is entirely ignorant of the law.
The culture has shifted. Now we expect the internet to be a faithful representation of reality, the truth - whatever terms you want to use.
There are those of the first order, and those of the second. Before those of the second criticize those of the first, observe that:
"You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want. You don't have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much. They don't look at your body and make assumptions. They don't hear your accent and make assumptions. All they see are your words." [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
In case what you're saying is true, props to you for realizing yourself that you're doing something wrong. People stretch the truth sometimes and exaggerate to sound smarter, but in your case it seems to be more than that. You are making up facts (like living in South Africa) that are outright lies. I believe you may need help and should talk to a therapist about this. I may be a sign of something bigger that should be addressed.
I tend to remain fairly skeptical of claims by users whose names I don't recognise, if they don't provide them.
None of the linked comments did so.
just go on the internet and tell lies?
The answer you are seeking:
Nobody in /r/programming actually knows anything about programming languages or compiler design, there's just a survivor's bias of people using C++, thinking they're better at programming because of it.
Nobody in /r/linux actually knows about kernel or system design, and it's just a bunch of sysadmins circle jerking around that have not a single clue. Everyone that says linux is better will get upvotes, and everyone claiming the opposite (even with founded arguments like the ReactOS guys) get downvotes.
Nobody on qanon/4/8/endchan actually knows anything, because nothing is verifiable that's being trolled in those boards. They are the hyperbole of a self censoring emotional mob that is just aligned through common hate.
Here we are. The internet of deception, where people knowing less are infiltrated to a belief through hate, with opposition and doxxing, and in the beginning through "experts" knowing the "actual truth".
On the internet, nobody can be held accountable. Which also implies that nobody is who they say they are and have to be treated as such.
If you want more details on how Russia operates: "troll factories ghana" will give you some nice documentaries on it. Just don't make the concious bias thinking they're the only ones operating like this.
After being on reddit and 4chan for a long time, I have come to the conclusion that everybody is "Fake and Gay".(expression that is commonly used as a stock comment in response to stories of highly dubious nature or questionable authenticity) on the internet.
I do not understand how this makes you a troll. When you post these comments are you willing to accept defeat when you are wrong? If your answer is yes, you are not a troll.
Commenting on something you have no idea about is not bad per se. In fact, it brings a perspective of an outsider in the discussion.
Unless you're commenting knowing that your answer is completely wrong but pretending that you don't.
If you don't know about a topic, instead of lying maybe you could just ask, like a regular person.
Poisoning a conversation with lies fits perfectly the definition of trolling.
My self esteem is at an all time low. Love the armchair psychologists.
Sometimes you just wanna talk shit.
Well, you've told everybody that you are lying to them intentionally. What did you expect? A party banner and a lot of pats on the back?
Instead of feeling offended, you should at least give a thought to why so many people feel pissed off about it.
Have you tried looking for communities for creative writing? There are places (including reddit) that post/accept writing prompts which spawn some discussion. You can do what you do, write fiction, get some engagement about the topic and be upfront about making it all up.
Or just go so far people know it's not truth. For example this is a masterpiece: https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status/1275679845431808001
But if you do the magic trick well, even revealing everything is a lot of fun. There are some magic shows like that.
Places like Reddit and Facebook are filled with this. What generally happens is the individual succeeds, but the community becomes boring, because people who can’t support each other never achieve much.
I wish you luck in finding your way to bigger and better things.
How do you know they are knowledgeable?
> I've never stepped foot in the continent of Africa
Wow, you have a problem.
And meanwhile, dang has rate-limited me when I try to only post things I am willing to say in person.
Maybe LinkedIn (where everyone knows who everyone is) is the only place for honest discussion. HN clone with "sign up with LinkedIn" exclusively anyone? But then, maybe some people will hold back their true opinions or lie about things to appease their employers/employees/governments/public etc. Having to change jobs over one of these comments would be no fun.
Maybe like ClubHouse (where you have to be invited by someone else on your real phone number) but where you don't necessarily reveal your full identity to the public... but since some people would know, you can't blatantly lie either... i.e. gives you plausable deniability when you need it but some people still know who you are to prevent you from lying... and then it works kinda like twitter where you can write posts or share links, which has a feed based on upvotes like HN... And you can write arbitarily long posts. Elon Musk should make that maybe?
I can tell you that although South Africa has huge problems, it is also one of the most pleasant places to live. And no, we don't all live behind barbed wire fences or in gated communities.
How honest do the too-good-to-be-true LinkedIN broetry stories look to you?