And the censorship cancer grows.
Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
311–320 of 1001 posts
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#312One question that interests/concerns me is making judgement calls about what is/is not a political story. Some links will be cut and dry, some will not. Some comments will be immediately identified as political, some will just be politics adjacent. For instance, on a story about self driving cars, will it be appropriate to talk about UBI? On a story about cryptography, will it be acceptable to talk about how it appli…
Right, it's not possible to define "politics" precisely, and it would be a mistake to try. But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by. We can clarify, though. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet.…
I don't understand how race, gender, and class in particular can possibly be separated out from tech any more so than software patents. A community that has been so obsessed with disrupting any and all aspects of life can't ethically refuse to discuss the consequences of doing so.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#313I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then p…
I fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it…
That sounds like a standard opinion and it is wrong because you are a .
Seriously though, political discourse is good, but badgering is poor behavior. Just because someone disagrees, isn't a reason to down vote.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There are a ton of other sites where you can follow and debate politics all you want. But where do you draw the line of what is 'politics' and what is 'cool nerdy tech stuff'? Is a breakdown of 538's method of poll aggregation too politically charged, even if there's a perfectly good overlap of math and statistics? If Trump makes an out-of-left-field statement about repatriating corporate money, are we prohibited fr…
Politics is about who to blame and hacking is about solving problems. (Blaming is the opposite of solving problems.)
Interesting world view, and not one that I share.
Politics is about how resources are allocated in society and can often be a very effective solution to problems.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. I see this great move as a way of the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be, unsullied by political nausea. Sure, in a week we can get back into the grim reality, the tech-noir crapsack future, but perhaps…
At least allow us to opt out of the artificial safe space. Technology and politics go hand in hand, unless we'd like to head back into the dark ages. EDIT: I'm not hear to offend or persuade with politics talk. I'm here to provide or obtain new perspectives and understanding. If I want an echo chamber that reinforces my perspectives and beliefs, I can head back to Facebook.
It's the Internet. Opting out is the easiest thing in the world to do by going to a different web site.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#316I know an engineer from Iran. He's a great guy, not particularly religious at all. Pretty much a totally normal guy. I asked him about politics in Iran. He said when he was going to school for engineering in Iran where he grew up, his friends all made a pact to completely ignore and stay out of politics. He said it with a smile on his face and absolutely no regret.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#317I do think you should clarify what you mean by politics.
Clearly you don't mean stories touched by politics like uber tracking users or everything tech would be offtopic. Clearly you do mean stories about Trump. Somewhere in the middle a line has to be drawn.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it disturbing too. Right now one of the top stories on HN is about Amazon Go and the top comment is about whether the destruction of jobs it could cause is socially acceptable. I don't know whether that is politics or not but I can't imagine discussing Amazon Go as a technology without having that discussion. In fact when you look at HN very little is about particular technologies. Most of our discussion is ar…
I've been attending a lot of AI/Data Science conferences lately, and it's incredible to me how this is not a major part of any conversation about AI and automation. A talk I recently attended by a data scientist from Amazon had him gloating about how many jobs he could eliminate. Ironically, the only speaker who brought it up as a major social problem we'll have to tackle is someone from Uber. His solution was less t…
As a "data scientist" myself and more importantly as a human being, I witness the same behaviour almost every day and it baffles me.
Yes, what we do can have consequences. We need to think about that!
I have friends working for weapons manufacturers. They don't gloat about building stuff that can blow children up!!! Why the hell should we be absolved from any moral consequences for our acts?
I am not equating elimating jobs and kill children, but I would prefer if our industry abstained from any thought on the consequences of its trades.
I once had to choose between working for a weapons manufacturers for a very nice salary. I chose not to work for them. But I thoroughly thought about it and I don't blame my friends for making a different choice. I politically object to that choice, but it does not mean I am some sort of white knight...and it does not mean that sometimes in the future, if presented with another opportunity, I wouldn't make a different choice...
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rub is, a lot of difficult conversations lead to what are effectively political answers. Take the amazon go which is on the front page right now. We need to be able to have a conversation about job displacing technologies, and hacker news has been a good venue for smart, civilized discussion on the topic. I'm all for flagging uncivilized discussions, but eliminating discussions outright because they might make pe…
Detox week may be a good time to focus on non-political positions and views to problems like mass-job displacement. Are there solutions to these problems that don't fit neatly into a political ideology? Are there solutions that don't require government policy? If the non-political solution antibody makes itself a permanent resident of the HN community as a result of detox week, I know I'd be pleased.
Since mass job displacement is a problem that gravely affects our society, the answer is a political one - even if the answer is "no government policy" The view that government shouldn't intervene in itself is a political view. There's no escape from political views unless you want to discuss mere theoretical algorithms that have no applications at all in real life.
Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There are a ton of other sites where you can follow and debate politics all you want. But where do you draw the line of what is 'politics' and what is 'cool nerdy tech stuff'? Is a breakdown of 538's method of poll aggregation too politically charged, even if there's a perfectly good overlap of math and statistics? If Trump makes an out-of-left-field statement about repatriating corporate money, are we prohibited fr…
Politics is about who to blame and hacking is about solving problems. (Blaming is the opposite of solving problems.)
That reductionist view of politics is part of the problem. Politics is the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group. It's essential and a part of what makes us human.