Well there's some truth to that, but I don't agree with how you interpret it. Unfortunately the question gets so complicated so quickly that I don't know how to write about it in an internet comment. So I'll respond with some things I do know how to say.
People see X they don't like and conclude that "the community endorses X". Advanced version: "the moderators endorse X". This is not how HN works—the opposite of X is here too, it just doesn't get noticed the same way (people notice most what they dislike the most). Since X varies with the observer, this isn't specific to any political view.
You wrote your comment in the combative style that is popular on the internet. From past exchanges, I'm pretty sure you have HN's best interests at heart as well as wanting there to be more good in the world. No argument there! The trouble with the combative style is not that the community (or moderators) disagree with the content ideologically. It's that in this style one comes out swinging and assumes bad faith, and that's bad for good conversation, which is really all we're hoping for.
Ideological combat insta-sorts the world into enemies vs. fellows and goes to war against the former. Indeed that's all it does—it's always on a war footing, and we all know how it has been taking over online. We're (hopelessly?) hoping to avoid that on HN. Is that because we hold regressive views about race or are milquetoast centrists? No, it's just that we'd like to have an internet forum that isn't dumb, which is what scorched earth leads to.
HN's goal is to be interesting, which means being unpredictable, which means not saying the same things over and over. Ideological battle has a different goal and requires saying the same things over and over. That is why the two are incompatible; it's not because HN promotes ideology not-X where you favor X.
I'm sure we could do better and if you know how, I'd love to learn. But we need to agree that HN's goal is to gratify intellectual curiosity [2]. I think it's fair for there to be different forums that optimize for different goals, don't you? That's this one's.
I'd like add evidence to your point that hn has multiple viewpoints. I am pretty close to the communist/socialist side of politics and find many people here who agree with me. I also find people like 'yummyfajitas who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and while he makes posts that make my blood boil they are well reasoned enough that I've upvoted him more often than not
Perceptions of "the opinion the HN community holds" are in the eye of the beholder. If you don't believe me, take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 and plenty more at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=....
People see X they don't like and conclude that "the community endorses X". Advanced version: "the moderators endorse X". This is not how HN works—the opposite of X is here too, it just doesn't get noticed the same way (people notice most what they dislike the most). Since X varies with the observer, this isn't specific to any political view.
You wrote your comment in the combative style that is popular on the internet. From past exchanges, I'm pretty sure you have HN's best interests at heart as well as wanting there to be more good in the world. No argument there! The trouble with the combative style is not that the community (or moderators) disagree with the content ideologically. It's that in this style one comes out swinging and assumes bad faith, and that's bad for good conversation, which is really all we're hoping for.
Ideological combat insta-sorts the world into enemies vs. fellows and goes to war against the former. Indeed that's all it does—it's always on a war footing, and we all know how it has been taking over online. We're (hopelessly?) hoping to avoid that on HN. Is that because we hold regressive views about race or are milquetoast centrists? No, it's just that we'd like to have an internet forum that isn't dumb, which is what scorched earth leads to.
HN's goal is to be interesting, which means being unpredictable, which means not saying the same things over and over. Ideological battle has a different goal and requires saying the same things over and over. That is why the two are incompatible; it's not because HN promotes ideology not-X where you favor X.
I'm sure we could do better and if you know how, I'd love to learn. But we need to agree that HN's goal is to gratify intellectual curiosity [2]. I think it's fair for there to be different forums that optimize for different goals, don't you? That's this one's.
1. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&date...
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html