I'm going to defend the HN "no politics" rule here.
The reason "no politics" zones exist is because there are enough people going out of their way to shout at everybody, everywhere, in every corner of the internet and enough people are tired of it that they flock to...no politics zones. In real life, a person like that confronts you...you remove yourself from the situation, because that person who can't stop shouting at everybody comes across as nuts.
Trying to decide how to categorize those giant first page threads from 2022 where Brian Armstrong would complain about activist employees or Google employees would stage walkouts about their employer doing contracts with the Department of Defense, the comments would be chock full of "yeah, actually a company should fire those employees, because business isn't about politics" then a few years later Coinbase drops $150M on the elections and Google is happily working with Palantir to build dragnet surveillance of US citizens.
And besides, what does discussing technology itself have anything to do with it? If you work at big tech you're not allowed to particpate in tech forum as a hobby?
We already discuss politics here as it has to do with tech (privacy is a pretty common topic here for example).
Right, but we should be able to shame, ostracize, and criticize the people that do work at those places because if we don't then it's a tacit approval of what they do.
You know that saying about how if you have three people sharing a bench with a Nazi, you actually have four Nazis? Tech has social and political ramifications, the discussion of which is artificially suppressed on HN.
Most of the time you can't do that here. Try saying something negative about Sam Altman, for example. dang has certain topics he just won't permit and then hides behind the excuse of "if everyone is upset with you, you must be doing something right".
>If you work at big tech you're not allowed to particpate in tech forum as a hobby?
I don't understand what you mean, can you please clarify?
I just disagree. I don't think you're entitled to shame people because you don't agree with the place they work at all. And I don't agree working at Google or whatever means you're not allowed to privately have a forum where you can talk about tech as a hobby.
>And I don't agree working at Google or whatever means you're not allowed to privately have a forum where you can talk about tech as a hobby.
As far as I can tell nobody's advocating this. Anyone is free to spin up a private instance of a hackernews clone (e.g. [0]) or a phpbb instance, or a discord.
But working at DOGE or Palantir or whatever doesn't mean you're entitled to the freedom from consequences of your actions.
I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil. So banning political discussion is political in and of itself.
I'd agree with your no politics preference if we were in a functioning society that wasn't actively spiralling towards fascism. I recognize that this line is blurry, and that's exactly the reason why no politics zones exist, there is always someone yelling about fascism. He might be a crazy guy on the corner who yells about everything.
I think the difference here is that there is a big critical mass of people who have recognized that the pillars on which our country sit are being actively sabotaged. It's not that everyone wants to be talking about politics all of a sudden, it's that the frog is finally boiling.
> I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil.
But this simply isn't the case. The fact that "no politics" zones exist is a response to the fact that politics is everywhere else.
People here aren't blissfully unaware, they're just tired of it and many realize that arguing about it on the internet won't accomplish anything other than wasting time. As I sit here writing this, I'm thinking that I'm probably wasting my time.
We all have this idea in our head that if people are confronted with enough evidence, they'll change their minds. But that doesn't happen. People rationalize.
My goodness, people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier. Every point he's made, every plan he's had and every policy he has advocated for have been totally logically sound. There's been nothing extreme in any of it. Every young parent I know is so relieved with what he's doing and frustrated that it took so long to do what seemed obvious.
But it's not that. It's inflammatory headline after inflammatory headline. It's putting words in his mouth, saying things he didn't say, making statements he didn't make, berating him in front of Congress for click bait video nonsense reading from a script.
It's exhausting. We're all tired of it. If you show me something that you think will convince me of something, I will look at it. And then I will look deeper. I will look to see if any information has been left out. I will look to see if editing has happened.
Because almost every time I invest the time to look into something, I find that it's exaggerated internet nonsense that only plays well in echo chambers. When you do that enough times, your skepticism meter goes to 11.
>people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier.
My man, the dude is a former heroin addict that has admitted to eating roadkill. He's pushed the vaccines cause Autism narrative.
Trying to make the country healthier while taking huge gifts from lobbyists who work for industrial scale meat producers? Come on.
>We all have this idea in our head that if people are confronted with enough evidence, they'll change their minds. But that doesn't happen. People rationalize.
It's not about changing minds. It's about changing behaviours.
Right now, HN is a place where you can come to talk about the neat technical problems you solved while building software that does the digital equivalent of going to the corner store to buy Hitler a pack of cigarettes, while ignoring the fact that your work is harmful to society.
And nobody is allowed to talk about how maybe we shouldn't do the digital equivalent of going to the corner store and buying Hitler a pack of cigarettes, because it's not cUrIoUs CoNvErSaTiOn.
There's a vast difference between tribal partisan politics and discussing policy as a system of governance (hacking society). I do my best to avoid the former and embrace the latter.
That said, there's a disappointingly significant number of HN members who hew to the latter and embrace the current regime. I consider this to be a forum of intellectual engagement, and that those people walk amongst us is quite distressing.
The “those people” comment is kinda the issue though isn’t it?
I generally try to assume that everyone has good intentions, but we’re all being fed massive amounts of different information. I learned years ago that it wasn’t an issue of people reporting things that were factually inaccurate, it was an issue of people leaving out details to frame the story in the context that supports your readers/viewers belief system.
And then there are the Stanford studies like this:
That's why I prefaced it with "That said" as an acknowledgement of calling out a different tribe.
There's a nuance to this -- the current political environment is not normal and cannot be emphasized enough. The GOP is now a cult of personality and there is no allegiance to country by its members. Its all to one man, who many believe is wholly unqualified for the job.
Its a well-documented phenomenon that millions of people have joined this cult -- many coming from the other side of the aisle. There is no possible reasoning, dialog, or engagement that can make them reconsider.
I would be classified as a "Lefty" if evaluated on my values, but I actually believe in the value of old school conservatism as of "limited government", the value of families, and the ability to have their own personal relationship with God (I am an atheist but I get it).
One of the things that makes America great is the Constitution -- that we are ostensibly a nation governed by law. The current regime does not share those values and is actively hostile to all who do not worship or pay tribute to their leader.
I've been following US politics for half a century and what's happening now would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.
I live in the southeast so I'm friends with a lot of the people you describe and nothing could be further from the truth of your description.
Most people I know who voted for Trump this time around did it specifically because of what a train wreck the Biden administration was, the terrible candidate that the Democrats tried to put up to replace him and that Trump ran on essentially fixing all of it. Cult of personality and/or hero worship had nothing to do with it.
The man is absolutely abrasive, there's no question about that. But the stock market is at all time highs, the trade deficit is the lowest it's been since 2009, GDP is up 5.5%, inflation has leveled off, gas prices are the lowest I've seen in many years (I just filled up for $2.39 / gallon), the border was closed on day 1 despite years long calls that it couldn't be helped without legislation and today I saw that drug overdose deaths have been cut in half nationally in a single year.
People voted for him to clean up a mess. The cult of personality stuff has been the algorithm at work from everything I've observed to this point.
The reason "no politics" zones exist is because there are enough people going out of their way to shout at everybody, everywhere, in every corner of the internet and enough people are tired of it that they flock to...no politics zones. In real life, a person like that confronts you...you remove yourself from the situation, because that person who can't stop shouting at everybody comes across as nuts.