HN is one of the most informative and least toxic communities and I’d appreciate if it would stay this way.
I don't think that's an accurate framing of the situation. It's a single post that enough people decided was worthy of being upvoted to the front page. I think allowing the community to decide is far more inline with the spirit of hacker news than the outright banning a category of posts.
It's a large part of the idea behind countries having constitutions for example.
(The 10x coverage number is from algolia hn search, the 10x worse number is from reported killings in the past year)
If Microsoft, Meta, Palantir, OpenAI, etc, were complicit in genocide in Sudan, Sudan would have much more attention.
I have no idea why. I have recently started to grow a bit paranoid and wonder whether I am being manipulated by the media I consume. That would not be a huge surprise, I'm willing to bet most people are influenced by some of the things they read online.
Anyway this is an interesting question that has to be answered: why only Gaza, and not the other genocides?
Super easy answer: because only on Gaza your government openly sides with the perpetrators, arms and finances them, the media justify them, laws are passed to curb criticism and punish boycotts, and people in online discussion forums bring up always the same debunked arguments and rhetorical devices to divert the attention [1], blame the victims and justify the perpetrators. It's the disagreement that fuels the discussion, the obvious contrast between the right position and the official statements and public propaganda.
1- of which yours is a classic example: "why talk about this and not about something else?"
The aggressor in the Gaza genocide is also pulling the rest of the west into new wars in the region. The war is also deeply connected with our defense and tech industries.
There is plenty of reason to discuss this war.
Generally, I think it's reasonable to pay more attention to conflicts where the own side is in the wrong. I don't need to demonstrate or raise awareness if my government is already acting like I'd want it to.
Sure. Let's spin the story on developments in laser-guided sniper rifle accuracy:
> Suddenly, the boys said, they saw laser pointers shining on their family from every direction, heard their mother scream, heard their father say “God is great” — and then heard a deafening fusillade of gunfire.
Toxic is saying politics needs to be kept separate. If we can't discuss how tech is literally fueling genocide, enslavement, and exploitation of people, then all other discussions tacitly serve those functions.
Your comment sounds toxic to me. It endorses silence in face of a genocide.
We discussed a lot other wars here without immediate technological or economic consequences: Ukraine, Iraq, etc.
Why not the genocide in Gaza & West Bank?
Nobody is "raising awareness" here (saw this mentioned above in this thread). Trust me people will still hear about these things if HN doesn't post them. We're just sharing a BBC article for heaven's sake. Its not like we have some new information source like say a former-IDF tech founder whistleblowing. Its all so performative.
There is zero new information any HN reader gains from this post. Its a BBC article, the comments are the same as what you see on instagram twitter or reddit, and the responses from the "defenders" are the same as what you see on instagram twitter or reddit as well.
I've commented before[1] about the weird lack of moderation/enforcement of this guideline:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This one is politics or crime depending on which side you're on.
Never seen it enforced. Not for gaza,iran,venezuela,pakistan,ukraine. The US elections, random nonsense trump does, US govt shutdowns, greenland too.
All of those have been covered here extensively with zero net benefit/net information transacted.
I'm not saying we should only talk about Flash Attention version 6546272. Like if you see the health insurance thread on the front page today, you can see a CFO, a tech worker in the space, etc, commenting and contributing net new information. This simply doesn't (and I don't see how it can ever) happen on these gaza threads.