I had the same thing happen to me when I posted about how unbridled capitalism requires external costs in the form of pollution and what not. I didn't make it clear that I thought it was a terrible truth.
Once the hive decides you're being serious without checking, they turn the down vote button into an I disagree with you button.
This is actually one of the reasons I left Reddit. I hate to see it here.
It likely helps to take in the cultural moment or context around the statements or the nature of the statements you're making. It's fine to state a fact but it's also helpful to make it clear whether you are saying "it is what it is " or "I wish things were different" or "I am doing X, Y, and Z to try and help and I recommend others do so". Jokes are an exception and I think misunderstandings are fine there. But it's unreasonable to think that on the Internet, people will "check to see if you are serious".
The comment was serious. It didn't feel the need to take a side.
The DoD declaration reflects a certain context, we had the patriotic act, a whistleblower exiled in Russia for defending the constitution, etc etc. We didn't need to wait a MAGA movement to be expecting such comment from the DoD.
If hackernews threads turn into mouthpieces for opinions then we have no use posting anything in here.
The comments are naively claiming commercial agreements make Anthropic right, as if contracts had more weight than the constitution.
I would rather call out a "virtuous signalling" entity in the valley simply standing for something aligned with civil liberties, and using it as a political stance in what nobody would deny is an unfortunate polarized political climate.
What to make of OpenAI then. Should I give my opinion that they took a falsely constitutional stance, or simply made for-profit move to land a juicy government contract, while making the public think they kept the same red lines as their main competitor?
Or just stick to the fact: The DoD will, as always, get away with its liberticide demands to get what it wants, because other big tech will fall inline.
I really don’t like how people cannot express themselves without a mob dogpiling.
I may not agree with what people say and it seems like he may have just been kidding or was being sarcastic, but he should be allowed to say it without being bullied and abused by downvotes.
I fully acknowledge that it doesn't take much courage to bully people anonymously on HN. I don't claim to have any deep well of courage in real life either - many of my friends were already radicalized against OpenAI for other reasons, I don't expect to face professional consequences for being angry about this, and I might not be so willing to go scorched earth if either of those weren't true. Just wanted to explain where the world is at and why people should expect to see further incivility about this.
