Why Being on HackerNews is a Superpower
When I first logged onto IRC circa 2001, the internet was a curious place, instantly connecting me to other nerd kids. Over the years, it has turned exceedingly bitter, and HackerNews is no exception.
I’ve been an “active lurker” since 2008, occasionally submitting my own writing (had my earliest “first-pager” in 2012). For me, the most important part of HackerNews is the comments section.
If you open the comments section of almost any first-page link, you’ll usually find trolling, trashing, and other pessimistic behavior that clouds everything good. Over all these years, my instinct tells me that only a small percentage of people post most of the negativity. And I’m not talking about proper constructive criticism, but the usual internet rage that was so common during the early forum flame wars.
That can make one think that the place is not worth visiting. But when I looked closely, I found that although the amount of unhelpful comments had gone up, there were still the same quantity of gems to be found as I did over a decade ago.
