The feeling I often experience scrolling news / social media is not hopelessness about the state of the world as a whole, but hopelessness about the state of these platforms.
HN might have a few idiosyncrasies, but it stands as one of the last places to go with a shared front-page and a high density of interesting and intellectual content.
In contrast, the algorithmically curated and individualized feeds of other platforms feel extremely claustrophobic to me... maybe because I know there's interesting stuff out there, but it's hard to find it when you have to fight through the giant mass of superficial and engagement-optimized posts and articles within the little personalized bubble that the feed algorithms think you belong in.
HN is certainly one of the last bastions of quality discussions online.
On the other hand, having such a high density of people who are probably reasonably intelligent within their subject (which I will broadly define as [Software] Engineering) has shown me that there is a very clear tendency to overestimate ones intelligence when it comes to topics that are outside that realm of expertise. I frequently get the feeling that comments will take on positions that are arguably contraire in what seems to be an attempt to show how deeply one may have thought about a given topic and to have come to a conclusion the majority of people can't even fathom.
It's difficult for me to pinpoint exactly. It is, however, a joy to see how respectful most discussions are, which I will also credit to the tight moderation on this site.
HN might have a few idiosyncrasies, but it stands as one of the last places to go with a shared front-page and a high density of interesting and intellectual content.
In contrast, the algorithmically curated and individualized feeds of other platforms feel extremely claustrophobic to me... maybe because I know there's interesting stuff out there, but it's hard to find it when you have to fight through the giant mass of superficial and engagement-optimized posts and articles within the little personalized bubble that the feed algorithms think you belong in.