That isn't what I meant, but I know that's the only way it can be interpreted.
The culture here is so deeply self-sabotaging because it's so deeply afraid to be human. It really gets depressing sometimes.
Good day.
The culture here is so deeply self-sabotaging because it's so deeply afraid to be human. It really gets depressing sometimes.
Good day.
That's actually kind of important to the tech community, considering we are wildly complicit in this.
So, maybe consider that more than "politics junkies" might be interested in this, and that the tech billionaires might have a vested interest in making sure stories like this get flagged (very easily done).
Interestingly, this "anyone with an opinion different from mine must be a paid shill" argument doesn't pop quite as often in the discussions about Clovis Culture tools, Roman Empire letters, or pre-Linotype typesetting -- the fact that makes me think that maybe keeping politics out of HN is actually a good thing.
Not remotely what I said. One of the better HN guidelines here is to try and interpret comments you read in the best possible light. I recommend it.
What I actually said is simply correct - there are tech billionaires who do have strong reasons to flag certain topics on HN.
And there's no way to stop them from doing so. We rely solely on 100% opaque moderation to unflag stories.
There's no shortage of people who have complained about how often threads concerning Musk, DOGE, the Lawnmower guy, Thiel, certain genocidal countries etc get wiped from here...
Do you see those threads? Unless you have [showdead] on, and browse /active, almost certainly not... Because they get flagged, and they're not put back. Discussion of how HN's flagging system works - or doesn't - is explicitly banned at the post level. You can only talk about it in comments.
So, no, that isn't just my opinion, or paranoia. And the fact that you don't know how often those stories are unfairly flagged and never put back is actually evidence of the tightness of the blinkers here. It's been crazy this past year - just try looking at my favorites.
But we are, and I don't. Ignoring those stories as deliberate policy so HNers like yourself can remain impervious to the consequences of our actions is dangerously short sighted.
This should be why modern fascism is of interest to the HN community.
Pretending tools exist in a vacuum is shirking ones ethical responsibility for employing ones skills.
Code is politics by other means.
It's disgusting that we have people who avoid taking ethical ownership of their work on adtech, surveillance capitalism, etc.
"If not me then someone else?"
Then let it be someone else, or admit you're making the world worst in exchange for a bigger paycheck.