I'm interested in the last bit. That sentiment towards anything on HN has become steadily more negative over time. Would be interested to see if this trend exists on other websites and the internet as a whole. It could be a way to measure the optimism/vibe of all of humanity. Is the entire internet becoming more cynical/skeptical/mean?
My private hypothesis here is that we're doing a better job as a society of encouraging "disconnection" from being "always online," which is documented to aggravate mental health issues[0].
It stands to reason therefore that the people who remain online to comment may have lower levels of mental hygiene by virtue of their ongoing exposure to the internet and social media, thus resulting in a gradual decrease in sentiment over time.
Interesting take. I think it's even bigger than that. After social media hiatus (think Cabridge Analytica and Instagram for teen mental health) and then Crypto imploding people became a lot more sceptical towards digital technology automatically make the world a better place.
We have some experience now how technology created a lot more problems where we rushed into solutions without thinking of the consequences. It's experience based technoscepticism.
If social media could can polarize countries, imagine what a readily available reasoning engine can do.
Blaming social media for polarizing countries is like blaming Elvis's hips for making teenagers want sex.
The negativity in tech is largely scapegoating driven in my opinion. The slanderers behind the non-existent 'Techlash' haven't stopped any more than the idiots trying to ban actual non-backdoored cryptography. It is all so incredibly stupid to me yet people keep on falling for the crap often enough that I disengage with them entirely. And people basically look at me like I'm the crazy one for pointing it out.
