I have had 3 accounts hell banned. Each time was slightly mysterious to me, but let me relate the context and maybe someone can enlighten me.
- The first ban was after I posted a comment that suggested that some venture capitalists that fund start ups may be exploiting young naive technologists. My guess was that saying anything bad about VCs or the startup culture merits a ban.
- The second ban was after a post where I said that Flouride is rat poison. I understand this is controversial, but it is also an indisputable fact. Flouride is used in rat poison. I assumed that mentioning any inconvenient/controversial fact merits a ban.
- The third ban was after I disagreed with someone on how the brain learns. There was nothing particularly controversial about it at all. I assumed that I had angered someone with moderation powers and was rewarded with a ban.
My conclusion is that developing a moderation system that rewards people who agree with your world view tends to be self-selecting towards that world view. Down voting or banning anyone who disagrees with you rapidly develops group think, regardless of how 'intelligent' that particular world view is. I assume that any criticism of HN or the moderation system also merits a ban, so I expect this post will not be visible for very long.
"The second ban was after a post where I said that Flouride is rat poison. I understand this is controversial, but it is also an indisputable fact. Flouride is used in rat poison."
Maybe you were just being banned for expressing stupid reasoning, to the point where it's probably not just a slip of the brain but something fundamentally wrong with your capability to reason. Take this analogy: "Water is an atomic bomb. It's an indisputable fact, water is used in atomic bombs". See?
I didn't express that reasoning in the original post, but thank you for clarifying that inferred stupid reasoning and spelling errors are sufficient to have your account banned.
Water is not used in atomic bombs either. Hydrogen is used in thermonuclear weapons. The term 'atomic bomb' most commonly refers to fission weapons whereas thermonuclear is the term used for fusion weapons.
I honestly don't know. The first ban, my comments disappeared, but another person was kind enough to let me know it had happened. I could still see my comments, but nobody else could. The person who let me know was in the middle of a thread/conversation with me, had very high karma, took a look at my account and couldn't find any reason for the ban.
I looked for somewhere to ask for clarification on how or why, but there is nowhere to do so. The whole thing happens in secret, with no explanation and no recourse, which is about as antithetical to open and transparent discourse as is possible.
The intent, I believe, is for every person to develop a 'silent policeman' that asks them before every post 'Is this controversial? Is this an unpopular position on this forum? Does this position agree with the position of the owners/moderators of this forum.' In other words, the intent is discourage dissent from the predominant world view.
Well, that's how I see it. When this account gets banned, this comment will disappear as if it never existed, into the 'memory hole', and no one will ever know that someone disagrees. How that encourages rational debate is beyond my comprehension, perhaps I'm just not smart enough to be here.
I think a lot of people find it comforting. Internet forums admittedly attract bullies in the form of trolls, astroturfers and people who are just plain mean. I agree in principle with a moderation system, but to have a secret moderation system, with no transparency and no recourse is susceptible to corruption and abuse, like any secret system is.
At any rate, those who find it comforting that 'big brother' is keeping the comments safe for them will stay around, and those with dissenting views will be banned to oblivion and eventually leave, making the community a small selection of people who both agree with the philosophy, and find it uncomfortable to deal with views that challenge their philosophy.
This is very similar to what happened in Academia in the past 30 years, and succeeded in pushing out all of the interesting, eccentric and creative people, leaving only those who knew the party line, and moderated their speech accordingly. I think this is not healthy for creativity, but then, that's just my opinion, and obviously the forum owner/moderators disagree.
I don't think the HN community ever intended to promote out-of-the-box thinking. When I read Paul Graham's essays (and I've read most of them), I get the sense that HN is an attempt to create a community of 'bright lights' i.e. smart people, and provide a supportive environment of other 'smart people' without all the dog-eat-dog, macho,take-no-prisoners, slash and burn nonsense that makes up a good deal of human behavior.
And that's a fine and noble pursuit, however, the market place is not delicate academic utopia, and so one has to wonder how these very bright, but often impractical people, whose genius has been nurtured, pampered and flattered are going to deal with the realities of the market place and the end consumers of their 'product'.
Enter the Y-combinator business model, where for a mere 51% of your company, the harsh realities of business will be taken care of by our team of take-no-prisoners business warriors, leaving you, delicate genius, to be nurtured and cultivated to your fullest potential.
And again, I have no problem with that, I just have a problem with undemocratic secret societies that wield power from the shadows. They are prone to corruption and calcification.
My conclusion is that developing a moderation system that rewards people who agree with your world view tends to be self-selecting towards that world view. Down voting or banning anyone who disagrees with you rapidly develops group think, regardless of how 'intelligent' that particular world view is. I assume that any criticism of HN or the moderation system also merits a ban, so I expect this post will not be visible for very long.