What I like most about HN is that it's an incredibly efficient filter for reading.
For instance, if I come across a fairly controversial article, or a fascinating new data set, I no longer spend as much time pausing to critically think about it - I instead open the HN comment thread and read all the intelligent for/against arguments that arise, naturally, in the comments.
In simple terms, HN becomes a secondary brain for me. And that saves me time.
Of course - this doesn't happen in a vacuum. The beauty of HN is that if you've read an interesting article, and there aren't many comments at that point in time, it's your duty to add your thoughts to HN, because sometimes you can see things that nobody else can and that's valuable.
And the mutual thinking, the group powered fact-checking and the argumentation - all this is contributed to by all, and enjoyed by all.
For instance, if I come across a fairly controversial article, or a fascinating new data set, I no longer spend as much time pausing to critically think about it
Only in the same sense that calculators are a tragedy, when the simple takes less effort, there is more effort left for the complex. The analogy of an externalised group brain is actually a pretty good one, and one may contribute to said brain as much as one benefits from it, to boot.
Maybe this is my own prejudice, but I think there's a big difference between practicing basic math skills constantly, and exercising critical thinking constantly.
Sure there's quite a big difference, but it's the same basic idea, a concept which through independent enquiry may only occur to you after period of time x has elapsed instead is presented to you in a shorter period of time than period x.
That doesn't necessarily mean you don't critically analyse the presented concept, or that you don't analyse other aspects of the problem space merely because you have neatly parcelled answer handed to you, it's just a single aspect which you did not independently need to construct.
> I no longer spend as much time pausing to critically think about it
And why wouldn't you? HN is perfectly capable of making arguments with incredible force in a very eloquent and hard to refute way. And be dead wrong anyway.
You can never abolish critical thinking, either about the original article (especially when criticism is based on un-sourced data) or about the comments themselves.
That doesn't save you time, it adds to the amount of data you have to do your critical thinking about.
Apart from the liberal use of noprocras, I apply a few simple guidelines to everything I read on HN:
1) If the title contains 'X ways/steps/secrets to Y' I skip.
2) If the article is longer than 1500 words and appears interesting, I mark both article and comment thread as toread in my del.icio.us for reading at the end of the day.
3) If the article is linkbait, or is about a fad, I skip.
4) If the article is derivative and/or adds nothing new to the discussion (e.g.: Why you should have a co-founder), I (usually) skip.
I used to do the delicious toread thing as well, until (via a link on HN, natch) I discovered the wonders of InstaPaper - it's a wee bookmarklet that creates a to-read list for you, strips out a lot of the ugly formatting, can send you batches of stuff to read when you're bored, exports to e-reader formats...
And for bonus points, they'll take either a username or email for signup - and that's it.
For instance, if I come across a fairly controversial article, or a fascinating new data set, I no longer spend as much time pausing to critically think about it - I instead open the HN comment thread and read all the intelligent for/against arguments that arise, naturally, in the comments.
In simple terms, HN becomes a secondary brain for me. And that saves me time.
Of course - this doesn't happen in a vacuum. The beauty of HN is that if you've read an interesting article, and there aren't many comments at that point in time, it's your duty to add your thoughts to HN, because sometimes you can see things that nobody else can and that's valuable.
And the mutual thinking, the group powered fact-checking and the argumentation - all this is contributed to by all, and enjoyed by all.