Is it just me or has HN as a whole become... more Christian lately? A lot more defensive comments here than I would've expected, and I've seen in other threads people actually openly recommending religion/Christianity specifically as something that solved their problems. What's the deal here? I would've thought this would be a relatively atheist/agnostic community, if not one that eschews discussion of religion entirely.
I don't know about HN in particular, but I do feel like religions have significantly boosted their online proselytizing in the last 5-10 years.
My suspicions:
* The normie barrier has continued to lower, so more traditional and progress-reluctant religious people are now connected to social media.
* Some sects may be intentionally targeting online communities, just like they target IRL communities for converts. Beliefs that don't require a devotion of forcing the belief itself upon others will naturally fade into the background. Beliefs that don't claim to solve your problems will also fade into the background.
* Social media algorithms prefer religious posts. Religious posts often invoke some sort of emotional response. Religions are some of the oldest memes after all.
All of this is just a gut feeling based on the religious material I've been exposed to on the web. I think it's fairly consistent with how religions have spread throughout history. Secularism is squashed unless you specifically fight for it, which itself may require a kind of religious fervor.
This is possibly the natural result of any human community growing large enough. There will be those who ask unanswerable questions, and there will be those who have the answers to those questions. Those who need order, and those who need to order.
Capital-A atheism is a dead fad. It was a few years of people loudly dunking on something that that was safe to dunk on. The overall culture found them grating and insufferable, even to other atheists. Over time we swung to the point where you see more discussions like these.
>What's the deal here?
Without making a jab at the bay area culture bubble, I dunno what to tell you.
I don't need religion to be bad, that was Capital-A atheism's thing. I just need it to leave me alone. And it does.
Some people are religious, and a lot of those who are would recommend it. When it comes to defending religion, as an atheist I still think bad takes are bad takes even if they're against the religion I left.
Are you proposing that now is a safer time to express oneself online than any other time? The idea that my online speech could make me the target of offline violence feels realer than ever now that AI can do the legwork of correlating my identities.
Engineering (as distinct from something like math or science) is more about applying, rather than discovering, knowledge. Some folks just treat the models and equations as mantras handed down by some all-knowing being (the professor). The equation shall be recited in the homework, at length in the project, one final time in the exam, and then we shall release it to the universe and free our minds of it.
Not sure, but the less technical a story, the more brigading and gaslighting you get in the comments it seems. It is a bit like when there is something about apple, the entire comment section is people complaining about the fanboys in the comments. Who are not there. I exaggerate a bit of course, but in general it is the same with any 'divisive' topics such as AI, crypto etc. Technical discussion is minimal.
Either it's bots, or we are all just tired and frustrated. I know I am and it doesn't help to stay civil..
