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Comment by dunekid | Hacker News Reader

Another flagging to silence, as it was with many other news. Why not this one too? It was not looking like the community was particularly concerned about those. Now the jobs these people did might be similar to what this community does, but if you are not willing to see the despair of children with no family, or of people who are starving while food rots across border, how could we expect us to understand this; because one person was using vim as much you were using? I hope none of us are targeted by our resume. Meanwhile we can just ignore this, just as we were ignoring it in the past.

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39728343

So the development that the IDF is targeting non-combatant tech workers is flagged because, per your link, "The issue is how often to have a thread about it". Tech workers being targeted is not considered a new topic because there was already enough talk about Gaza before this news. The news that civilian tech workers (including YC members) are now targeted is not distinct - it's all "Israel attacks Gaza" and that's already been covered to exhaustion, is how I interpret your link.

I don't think that's a sensible reading of the (voluminous) moderator explanations on how such stories are handled. You can make an argument for the importance of any story - some people would like to read a story on HN about some other important conflict or the gut biome or async Rust every single day but clearly a messageboard with 30 front page slots can't accommodate all those needs at once nor would it be an interesting place. So there has to be some sort of way to balance these things.

The link explains (again, at about as much length as you have patience for - these discussions have been going on for years) how this works on HN - you have to take at least some of that stuff in and engage with it, if you want to advocate for some sort of change. Being offhandedly reductive about it or explaining how this one thing is actually really important is not that.

I don’t think you are wrong, but I think it is both sad and pathetic. This genocide is currently on month 6, the situation gets more and more dire every day. There is an imminent famine—if not already started. We get news that Israel is using AI to conduct this genocide, that tech is flowing to Israel to conduct this genocide, that some of our industrial comrades are complicit, that some of our industrial comrades that speak up get fired[1], and now some of our industrial comrades are being targeted and becoming martyrs in this genocide.

We get all this news, but we cannot talk about it because there was a thread a couple of weeks ago which talked about journalists being targeted[2].

This is an ongoing catastrophe, and we need to have an ongoing conversation about it. When new information is reviled we need to have a conversation. As a forum popular in our industry HN needs to own up its societal responsibility. There is a lot of tech being used in this genocide, and as workers in tech, we should know our part. As long as this genocide continues, we cannot stop talking about Gaza

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39644379

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39603299

I don't think that's particularly responsive, to be honest - it's an argument the story is important but I doubt any reasonable person disagrees with that.

This is an ongoing catastrophe, and we need to have an ongoing conversation about it. When new information is reviled we need to have a conversation.

Little of what has happened in the... I think 3? gigantic threads that have been on HN about this qualifies as 'conversation' so there's that enourmous problem, given the remit of the site. And just as importantly, 'we need to have a conversation' is not a meaningful practical approach for obvious reasons, about any topic in a limited space. The case needs to be made more specifically and probably addressed at someone who can take it into consideration which would be hn@ycombinator.com

The reality is that while this site has come to be a major "town square" for tech folks, it exists for its own specific purposes that are not aligned with tech workers organizing toward ensuring our mutual safety and well-being. Of course we're free to use this site as we like rather than embrace its self-described purpose, which is often enough compatible with its moderation standards, but that conflict grows.

As dang once said early in ChatGPT's hype, if AI were good enough to generate the insights brought from conversation here, at as good or better a level than humans are able to, he'd consider replacing the open forum with AI generated content. Because it would serve the purpose of the site, which is not community.

Perhaps you could link the comment where dang wrote that, I'd be curious to read it.

Too hard to find

Maybe you remember a timeframe? A keyword? It sounds so unlike any of his other comments it seems like it should be possible to hunt down.

I tried. I remember it strikingly for the impression it left on me but no distinct keywords and way too many results

He didn't say the bit about this not being a community, that's what I inferred

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