But even if it was, what's wrong with that? I get politics news and stories from multiple competing points of view in *all* *other* *aspects* of my life. My job, my family, my phone, my Twitter, my Facebook, my trip to the DMV. Aren't I allowed some sort of respite?

@srol I've found that Hacker News comments make a lot more sense if you imagine that the commenter only read the title and not the article. Which they probably did.

@nolan There were a lot of good responses to that, but it was at the top every time I went there today, and I just felt like addressing it.

@srol Yeah, there's also a sick pattern in HN where the first comment to get some upvotes ends up sticking to the very top, so everybody just responds to that comment because otherwise their own comment would be too far down the page.

Honestly I really wouldn't read too much into that comment. I was kind of baffled when I first read it because it had basically nothing to do with your article.

@srol
People who speak in abstract terms about an echo chamber probably don't really understand how divided the groups they have stereotyped actually are. I mean, I get into arguments quite a lot because i'm opinionated :P

I think the salient criticism of that point was the distinction between an 'echo chamber' you build and one that is built for you. Biases/Ideologies are natural, but the /awareness/ of them is essential to self-development.

@srol I think people on HN and all over the internet view conversation almost exclusively through the lens of some weird zero sum game style debate. Their idea of community is a Thunderdome where they can spar with the rest of the kids who always had to have the last word in philosophy class. The real irony is that competition is the safest space of all. There's literally a rulebook and people dedicated to enforcing it to prevent triggering.

I put "safe space' in quotes, but reviewing it I see the author actually said "safe echo chamber." I personally find the same connotation in that, but I want to make sure I'm attributing accurately.

@srol Oh, they know what they meant. It's an insult -- this person is probably a person who pissed people off a lot, and doens't like the idea of that power being taken away.

@srol I spend a lot of time -- at work, at school, &c. -- among people with "conservative" or right-leaning values, coexisting with them. I don't see anything wrong with choosing to spare my meager free time among people who share my compassion-based, left-leaving values

@Documentally @srol hacker news back at it again