[przeor]

Because it discourage discussion against the "crowd wisdom" of HN.

Had a lot of karma collected, then a comment with different opinion against point of view of HN wasted it.

It may be a feature, not a bug because it reinforcing the network of same minded people here, and dicourages different opinions.

As Peter Thiel tells: "Tell me something that's true, that almost nobody agrees with you on."

You won't find this on HN because signal to noise ratio is low in such discussions and you will get downvoted.

Maybe there should be option to sort from most downvoted on the top to fix in some part this issue?

[tomhoward]

> "Tell me something that's true, that almost nobody agrees with you on."

> You won't find this on HN because signal to noise ratio is low in such discussions and you will get downvoted.

Over the years I've had several comments that I consider "something that's true, that almost nobody agrees with [me] on" that attracted many upvotes, good replies, and emails from people interested to know more.

It took quite a bit of practice to learn how to phrase things in a way that could meet people where they're at and take them on the same kind of journey of realisation that I'd been through. The requirement to do that applies to any topic that almost nobody agrees with you on; that is not a particular aspect of HN's culture, it is inherent to the way broader society functions.

If you want to change people's minds about something on a topic where almost everyone holds a particular belief or assumption, it's going to take some effort and care.

The OP's comment that they’re complaining about isn't about something that "almost nobody agrees with [them] on", it's a pretty standard talking point right now and throughout the history of technologies that displace human labor.

It's fine to post comments like that, and I agree with them that the discussion it initiated is worthwhile, but if people downvote that kind of comment, it's probably because they find the point repetitive and would prefer to see comments that introduce new ideas.

That said, if anyone ever sees a comment that's really solid but that they think has been unfairly downvoted, they can always email [e-mail] and ask for it to be reviewed.

[latexr]

> Had a lot of karma collected, then a comment with different opinion against point of view of HN wasted it.

I was under the impression a comment couldn’t get you more than four negative points. Apparently that’s true for the comment itself but further downvotes keep subtracting from the user’s karma¹. I’m curious for the rationale.

If you’re willing to share I’d be interested on a ballpark figure of how much karma you had and what the comment was². Your case is the first I’ve heard of such a situation and seems quite extreme. I’m wondering why the comment wasn’t flagged, for example, which would have stopped downvotes.

I frequently see differing opinions on HN (one need only look at the AI discussions, with top comments both pro and against) so I’ve never been convinced by this idea of the HN hive mind / groupthink.

¹ https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo...

² Presumably we’re well past the point where it could get further downvotes.

[atomicnature]

I'd generalise this to other forums, or even society in general, to a large extent. Ultimately, we must accept that these systems are made up of people, and no matter how enlightened, humans will be humans :)

In particular, I do agree with your larger sentiment here, I myself have felt like the spectrum of views tolerated here is quite limited.

[supergram]

re P.Thiel: I experienced the same thing on HN.

I would welcome HN providing visibility into the nature of the downvotes (how many up total, how many down total, when).

I also want to know why something dissenting/controversial/unpopular is downvoted.