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Comment by dataflow | Hacker News Reader

Why in the world is this flagged?

Just guessing, but I assume because it’s arguably off-topic as defined by the HN guidelines. I don’t think it should be flagged, though.

“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 being evidence of an interesting new phenomenon is literally the entire premise of the blog post though. And it sure as hell didn't look like it was covered on the main news headlines; I know I only heard about it because of HN. The author is pretty clearly claiming this is a new phenomenon literally in the title itself!

It's new, but is it "interesting?" Does it "satisfy intellectual curiosity?"

Many people here will consider this categorically off topic and flag accordingly because politics doesn't satisfy theirs. Even if it's a good article, and even if the discussion is on-topic and civil.

What is "intellectual curiosity" that doesn't include curiosity about whether, when, and how often the world superpower commits a war crime? For reference just the other day we had [1] on the front page. Was knowing the consumer price index for the month really all that much more satisfying of "intellectual curiosity" than this?

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

>What is "intellectual curiosity" that doesn't include curiosity about whether, when, and how often the world superpower commits a war crime?

It means "anything good hackers find interesting" and anything that "sparks curious conversation."

What does that mean? I don't exactly know. Certainly nothing objective. In practice it means whatever the people flagging the thread decide it does.

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