If it were a question of letting "passionate, smart people have it out", then sure. Unfortunately that's not what you get in practice on the open internet. What you get are (a) people who want to vent their personal issues for whatever reason, and (b) windbags who think themselves smarter than they are.

These can quickly dominate the threads. That repels the smarter people. This is how we could fall into a death spiral. Worse, the risk grows as the site grows, because then more people are attracted to it for wrong reasons. (Right reason: curiosity. Wrong reason: hearing the sound of one's own voice, or making others do so.)

To sustainably have a forum of the kind you describe, you'd need to close it off from the public internet. We're not going to do that with Hacker News, so we have guidelines to prevent it. This does come at the cost of leaving the site "a little flat", as you say—I've made the same point in the past using the word bland instead of flat. But better flat than dead.

> "Maybe we need to let passionate, smart people have it out from time to time so everyone can be reminded which positions can stand up to the flames just fine."

While it may be enticing to think of a flamewar as a crucible for good discussion, I think that it's far from the case. Fierce, passionate criticism is not the same thing as people talking past each other to attack straw men. There's little time or incentive to sift through the ashes looking for some purified argument that's withstood the flames when you can rush into the next thread in the forum where the a new fire is just getting started. This is pretty clear to see when the same ideological discussions are rewarmed again and again.

I really like Jonathan Haidt's ideas about encouraging people from 2 different sides of an issue but who are both genuinely committed to the truth to battle each other with the intent of letting the truth emerge from the argument. This is extremely beneficial because we are all blinded by our own biases and it is very helpful when the other side helps us to see past them. This is admittedly difficult to achieve in a forum like hacker news but IMHO it would be amazing if someone could make this happen. The biggest improvements to my own predictive model of the world have always come when arguing with someone who held a contrary view and I'd like to believe that I have returned that favor from time to time as well.

In my experience, battling it out us part of the problem. HN already allows people with divergent views to discuss them. Discussion of that sort is enriching, with no winner and no loser. Sometimes views are changed, but it helps to assume the world is not black or white, not even shades of grey, but is a rich technicolor universe and sometimes we run across people who know things we do not who thereby have the capacity to broaden our views.

And battle is not how you get there.

Yes. I can see how that term might have a negative connotation for some people. We do indeed live in a world where most people more highly value their current beliefs and their ego than they do the truth. Those people, unfortunately, battle with the intent to defend their beliefs and ego and that kind of battle is admittedly unproductive. But there are other people, like myself, who genuinely value truth more highly than those things. For us, there is a hunger to get to the truth AFAP, to solve problems AFAP, to accelerate innovation AFAP by leveraging collective intelligence more efficiently because it could mean saving lives or solving really important problems. Currently I know of no forum which meets this need but hacker news does seem to attract a lot of really smart people who do indeed value truth more highly than beliefs and ego.

I quite enjoy a lively debate. Most argument on the internet is not debate. It us ugly and personal and fighty.

I think HN has been a place for lively debate at times. Perhaps it shall be again.

I strongly agree (though I'd lose the antagonistic term "battle"). See my profile :)

Nice reads.

I have this hypothesis that thinking is layered on top of our two primal emotional strategies for stress: connection and aggression become diffuse mode (how is it similar?) and focused mode (how is it different?). When i use the word “battle” I am suggesting repurposing aggression so that instead of directing it at each other in defense of our positions and ego (system 1 thinking) we are working together synergistically in a battle for the truth which will enable us to solve the problem (system 2 thinking).

i.e. Turning a zero sum game into a positive sum game.

I couldn't agree more. Contrarian posts and comments which challenge the dominant beliefs are often the most interesting because that's where the innovation is. It would be interesting to see, say a contrarian view of a post where down-voted comments actually rose to the top. Because of the way down-voting lowers rank, I tend to view hacker news as "the view of the establishment". It's a shame because there are a lot of smart contrarian people on here, and it would be great if it were easier to zero in on their contributions.