People who build stuff tend to think a lot about the flaws before they do anything. If you pitch them your wonderful, shiny, new idea you'll immediately see the gears inside their head spinning away trying to figure out how to break it, why it's a bad idea or, worst of all, who has done it better before.<p>This might be bad for your ego, but it can also be tremendously useful.<p>Why post anything to hackernews? Do you want a bunch of ego-validating fawning?<p>"WOW!!! That's the greatest idea ever!"
"Brilliant!"
"I could never come up with something so ingenious!"
"This is going to sell like hot-cakes and you are going to be rich!"<p>These are all great comments to hear, but utterly useless. If you only receive opinions like these you might spend your precious blood, sweat, and money making something that nobody wants. Slightly more useful comments can let you zero in on why your idea is good, so that no matter what else doesn't make the final cut, the good stuff will.<p>"Good idea. I particularly like how it..."<p>The negative comments that make it sound like your idea is trash? Well, sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. You'll probably find yourself wanting to grab the authors of these comments by their short-hairs so you can shout into their face why they're wrong. If you can't think of anything past the physical violence, they just might have a point.<p>Some things that pop up here spark less than useful conversations as a side-effect of how HN people approach things. Take Apple's new fingerprint scanners. They are being sold as highly secure when all they really are is highly convenient. This hits that "easy to break" nerve builders have and is then reinforced by the contrarian urge to bash the big guy. It might be annoying to read if you're an Apple fan, but it's a natural result of the kind of thinking that goes on in HN. It might even be useful if you're considering using biometrics of some sort yourself!<p>In short, HN gets it right more often than not. People should keep bashing brilliant and stupid ideas alike because that's how everybody learns. If your ego gets hurt, take a break.
"<i>The Conservative view of Protect (inherent ideology: fire prevention should be as easy and user-friendly as possible) can be characterised (or caricatured), I think, roughly as follows: [present fire alarms are good enough, nobody needs these fancy doo-dads]</i>"<p>Conservative ("Null") view: the primary objective of a smoke alarm is to (a) detect and (b) signal the presence of smoke. Nothing, hand waving or not, should compromise this.<p>Progressive ("Alternate") view: a smoke alarm must also maximise (c) the probability of the signal being heard. This objective is compromised if people, finding their smoke alarms a nuisance, turn them off.<p>In summary, Null says (a) and (b). Alternate says also (c). Null says adding (c) dilutes (b) and so is harmful. These views <i>not</i> mutually exclusive - not everyone need have the same smoke alarm. The more disciplined may be safer with a traditional smoke alarm. Those of us who just spent a minute searching the ceiling may be better served by the Nest Protect.<p>"<i>Why not think about it this way: companies like Nest, Apple and Soylent are offering us, no strings attached, brand new propositions for paths to a better future.</i>"<p>Being sceptical of a fire safety product being brought to market is a good response. While I, too, found the tone of the Nest Protect and TouchID conversations combative, I was thoroughly informed by both. Constructive does not have to mean positive.<p><i>Disclosure: I am in the Alternate/"Progressive" camp</i>
Mouhaha. Comparing Nest's HN reaction with the reaction on Soylent is just bad writing and reasoning.<p>> In every case, we’re given a choice: do we react reflexively, hunting for anything and everything that we can think of to shoot down a new and challenging idea, or do we fight our first reflex, and give the idea a chance?<p>Yeah, we should be giving a chance to use our brain and reason instead of being fooled but a nice product presentation and a beautiful "NEW!" sticker on it. As for Soylent, this product is an insult to reason and any kind of nutrition studies done before, so let's not put it as the same level as Nest. It's a different story altogether.
> Every time we have this choice, and every time the conversation is dominated by a fight between Conservatives and Progressives, it’s a shame, because fundamentally, both sides agree on the same things. Nobody thinks it’s awesome when houses burn down. Nobody thinks it would be better if computer security on the whole got worse. Nobody thinks correct nutrition should be harder. Nobody, if you get down to it, thinks anything should be harder to use, that life should be less pleasant.<p>Blanket statements, out of context. Perfect writing again.<p>I can make blanket statements the same way too. We all want to be loved. We all want to be healthy. We all want to be rich. We all like things to be easy. So, fundamentally, we agree on the same things, right ?<p>WRONG!<p>> Nobody, if you get down to it, thinks anything should be harder to use, that life should be less pleasant.<p>There is pleasure in doing HARD things. There is pleasure in learning from scratch and mastering something difficult. There is pleasure in exploration and understanding instead of digesting something pre-made for you.<p>Not for everyone, maybe, but in the hacker crowd you will find lots of people who are precisely like that.
Brudgers comment is at top because community thought it was worthy. Brudgers comment garnered 120 posts, meaning it sparked interest and posters contributed to that discussion. This is the underlying message of HN. Discussing.<p>"But why not focus on the underlying idea – if we could make eating and nutrition easier, how? If we could make phones more customisable and modular, how? Where could this lead? The possibilities, once you start thinking along these lines, are endless."<p>To me, that brudgers discussion does directly and tangentially hint at making things better and benefits of existing solutions. And moreover, some people are good at fine combing ideas and not propose some new. Criticising people because they are being "negative" amounts to living in a bubble.<p>Btw ironic, considering OP's comments on this article: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6464120" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6464120</a>
<p><pre><code> it ought to be remembered that there is nothing
more difficult to take in hand, more perilous
to conduct, or more uncertain in its success,
than to take the lead in the introduction of a
new order of things. Because the innovator has
for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in
those who may do well under the new.
(Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter VI)</code></pre>
For me, the problem with many of these new "world improving" products is that the founders/creators are often very young and inexperienced in their fields and frankly a bit naive.<p>This applies more to things like Soylent which i find is dangerous in the way its marketed now as opposed to the experiment it was in the beginning but its also true for Nest.<p>There are companies in this business producing smoke alarms for decades and they most certainly know more about its challenges than the NEST guys and given the fact that their thermostats are by no means flawless, one should atleast be cautious and not drink the whole can of marketing induced and VC funded cool-aid without thinking. This is not a touch enabled music player after all.<p>Being naive and fresh in a decade old market is usually great, but there are certain areas, for example those that can affect peoples health in negative ways, where experience is simply invaluable.
Feels like there's a fine line between having a negative attitude about a new product and exposing real weaknesses - whether those are weaknesses in the product itself, or the market within which it falls. Probably nothing wrong with exposing weaknesses, as long as its done in the context of "here's what's wrong, and my idea of how it could be fixed or improved."<p>I agree with your assessment though, the Nest post this morning really was quite 'over the top' so to say, as far as negativity goes.
I'm in the same boat as you.<p>This is exactly what was going through my mind as I traversed what could be aptly described as a flamewar over the product announcement of the Next Protect alarm this morning and after being unable to find any under all of the people claiming to be experts are cooking without setting off their alarm and teaching people how to use existing alarms instead of talking about the device that the comments were supposed to be about.<p>I'm not saying these comments were off-topic, but they were very distracting to me.
I think a lot of the negativity and naysaying might also be spawned by jealousy of the attention the product is getting. You can critique and point out flaws without being negative.
I think large sections of the community think emotively and large sections thing logically.<p>Emotive thinking I think goes without saying is worse since it's not logical.<p>But emotive people can still be quite good at their specialities and if the topic is not pushed by emotions.<p>No idea on the solution, have a Vulcan filter on emotive threads?<p>Is HN about learning from other people or about other people or both?<p>[edit] And will say emotive people also have other great skill sets like motivating others. Just are not good when you what to find the right decision.
This post is lazy and probably dangerous and I know how to use a browser add-on to collapse comments and so should everyone else, so there’s no need for this and no real problem beyond how incompetent people are, and if they can’t read past the first negative comment it’s their fault.