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Comment by minimalist | Hacker News Reader

> Not to make everything political... [proceeds to make a political statement]

For what it's worth, this type of Lidar scanner was possible to make well over a decade ago with ROS1, a Phidgets IMU, a webcam, and a lidar pulled out of a Neato vacuum (the cheapest option at the time). This would be around the difficulty of a course project for an undergraduate robotics class and could be done with less than 200 USD of salvaged parts (not including the computer). Hugin was also around over a decade ago.

It's still a nice little project!

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I would not consider asking a question about the impact of current events on a market segment relevant to the discussion topic to be political. The disclaimer is presumably to encourage respondents not to drag things in an off topic direction. Ironic, considering the outcome.

This seems to be using classic formula -> get trivial, ready made component, design 3D printed enclosure and hook it up to Raspberry Pi. Instant Hacker News homepage.

So, where's your hardware project? Have you ever made one? I think you're underestimating the amount of time and effort that went into the linked project.

Not to make everything political... [proceeds to make a political statement]

Being all polite and non-political and shit is what brought us to this pass.

Never lose an opportunity to make the people who voted for the current state of affairs feel isolated, rejected, guilty, and generally bad. Being nice to them doesn't work.

Please, I don't want to come on to HN to see politics injected into everything. Stay on reddit for that.

I logged in to make a comment regarding something within my area of expertise: the technology present in the parent link and how this technology has been accessible to hobbyists for over 10 years.

>I don't want to come on to HN to see politics injected into everything

If it's political to wonder how tariffs impact the cost of the project we're discussing, then everything is political, and it's pointless to complain about politics being "injected into everything."

lobsters might your place if you would like to insulate yourself to that degree

You’re not making me feel isolated, rejected, guilty, or generally bad.

You’re feeding into the confirmation bias I already have about how the opposition thinks, which only serves to affirm the choice I made.

>You’re feeding into the confirmation bias I already have about how the opposition thinks

It's wild that you acknowledge your cognitive bias and then blame others for it instead of working on it. If I wrote something like that, I hope I would have the wherewithal to notice that something is seriously wrong with my thinking.

We all exhibit cognitive bias.

I’m illustrating how the original behavior feeds confirmation bias instead of establishing a basis for constructive dialog.

Yes the opposition thinks evil is evil. The opposition also thinks water is wet. Check back here tomorrow for more obvious things rational people think.

The opposition reductively believes this is an existential battle between “good and evil”, they’re the “good”, and that’s a position from which one can justify almost anything to eradicate “evil”.

Well, Trump is the one that almost always frames things in very binary way. If someone contradicts him, it is "fake news". His opposition is typically much less so, and much more rational and thoughtful.

Even many in the opposition agrees with many of his goals (control immigration, protect American industries, shrink the government).

How many Supreme Court rulings does it take for a Trump supporter to admit the Trump administration is unjust? The world may never know.

You can always know, if you want to, by actually engaging in constructive dialog. Which probably isn’t going to happen in this thread because it’s ostensibly about a raspberry pi LiDAR scanner, and thus neither really the time nor place.

The MAGA crowd is not even remotely interested in 'constructive dialog' and is so far down the hole of drinking the kool-aide, constructive dialog with them will likely never be possible.

You cannot have constructive dialog about astronomy with someone who thinks the sky is made of green and purple polkadots because that's what someone told them, and dismiss all evidence to the contrary as a massive conspiracy.

They don't even believe in democracy or constitutional rights - at least, for anyone but them.

I’m interested in constructive dialog, and I believe in democracy and constitutional rights. However, this is a thread about a neat LiDAR scanner.

It's funny - first you call me reductive but now it's all "I'm staying out of this one". Interesting how that goes.

Which many people could have afforded to build a few weeks ago, but now can't.

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