The "Acid King," Serving Life Without Parole | Hacker News Reader

The "Acid King," Serving Life Without Parole

theinfluence.org

49 pointsSchool-Cotton25 comments

https://web.archive.org/web/20160803200553/http://theinfluen...

This article barely scratches the surface of this story. It says nothing about Krystle Coles, Todd Skinner or the torture of Brandon Green. If you are interested I recommended watching the VICE video on Krystle Coles (even though it is highly biased) and reading http://thislandpress.com/2013/07/28/subterranean-psychonaut/ as a start.

Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KxXSpHj...

Vice produced a documentary about one person's experience living in the missile silo/drug factory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0

Isn't that the girl who kidnapped and tortured Brandon Green?

http://thislandpress.com/2013/07/28/subterranean-psychonaut/

Krystle claims she was also tortured but Brandon said she was involved in his torture. They were all extremely high on a cocktail of hallucinogens so it's hard to tell what really happened.

Hamilton Morris, Vice science editor and son of documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, has a 20-minute episode about this missile silo LSD factory: Getting High on Krystle

https://youtu.be/r7qliVpGEk0

It's a 20 minute video about how he's in love with Krystle. Still it's interesting.

I'm not complaining because I know that's forbidden, but how loosely is "anything that good hackers would find interesting" being interpreted these days?

As best as I can tell, nothing is off topic... (?)

Totally agree.

Not to mention the article is incredibly biased.

How does "Many early hackers hackers did LSD" sound like?

Many present day hackers, too.

Many early hackers also ate food, wore clothes, and spoke different languages. While interesting and thought provoking it doesn't necessary make it HN worthy.

You are exactly correct. Nothing is off-topic on Hacker News; the rule is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", so that's a pretty wide mandate.

I know you're saying you're not complaining, but you clearly are. Complaining things are off-topic isn't really helpful.

I don't think the article is very good, but the problem isn't that LSD usage is somehow off-topic.

Since the community votes on the stories, it's being interpreted exactly as loosely as the community desires, moment to moment. For instance, in my opinion you nailed it exactly. Nothing is off topic.

"I'm not complaining oh wait yes I am see what I did there."

More seriously: the many connections between computing and the psychedelic counterculture are well documented. (Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said" is an excellent read in this vein.)

Discussions of disproportionate sentencing also strike a chord with "good hackers" who are aware of the history of CFAA sentencing, the Aaron Swartz debacle, and other terrible misadventures in our modern legal framework.

If anything, this remark shows your deep ignorance of the broader cultural / political context of computing far more than it points to any inadequacy of the article in question.

Bullshit, it was a legitimate question. I don't make a habit of complaining about stories being off-topic and generally I could care less. But if there's a notion of on-vs-off-topic, I don't see the harm in clarifying it or discussing it within the community once in a while.

You comment raised some interesting points -- I don't see why you had to throw in the insulting tone and phrasing.

Don't be rude.

A response I got to more or less the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11967634

But I would argue drugs are way more on topic than politics. (See: other replies.) Plus it has far less chance of creating a toxic (even if civil by mod standards) discussion.

As best I can tell, anything that's submitted and voted up and not flagged to hell (but sometimes mods override that) is on topic.

Edit: and I just finished the article, it's not even bad. (Biased? I guess if you're expecting some drugs-are-bad-mkay disclaimer... it's just a short q&a.) This 70 year old seems incredibly up to date with technology and future implications.

Flag, hide, move on.

Interesting how quickly this article was censored once it hit the front page.

Censored because VC image(?) or flagged when people hit the DB error or flagged for being about drugs/off-topic or artificially lowered to lessen the hug of death on the server?

Probably due to flagging but censored none the less. HN has a strong conservative element.

Early hackers were very counter-culture. Modern ones still have an element of that.

No drug ruins lives like LSD riteguise? /s

Reply on news.ycombinator.com