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Comment by colins_pride | Hacker News Reader

6 pointscolins_pride27 comments

This poll question is bogus. How is an Ann Coulter interview like a Noam Chomsky interview?

Can I vote no if I think they are completely unrelated yet want to see neither of them?

I agree. Noam Chomsky tries to hide his politics in the trappings of science while Ann Coulter doesn't hide anything.

I get enough politics else where. I see no reason to infect HN with it.

I thought the interview in question was perfectly acceptable material for this site, and if it makes it to the top of the page, so be it.

As far as a general formula for interviews with Chomsky or Coulter, it really ought to depend on the content of interview, not the person being interviewed.

That's how I felt as well. There's a flag/ vote-up mechanism already in place. It was used and the result stands, making this poll irrelevant.

Second, Chomsky is an MIT professor and a venerated intellectual who has opinions that some find controversial. The article includes questions on John Dewey and Bertrand Russell regarding education. Ann Coulter has built a career on simply being controversial and has never added anything to discourse, let alone being able to enunciate Russel and Dewey on education. Yes, they are both controversial, but to mix them is so disingenuous that it immediately undermines any point you want to make.

There's a flag/ vote-up mechanism already in place

That's right; the point of this poll is to challenge that mechanism. Check out the results above; it's currently running more than 3-to-1 against the idea that the existing system is adequate.

Your results are skewed because the people coming here are coming here in protest. I didn't vote -- I flagged it. I can imagine a lot of others who feel like I do did the same, given that the post is now dead.

Currently 87 people have up-voted the Chomsky article; there's clearly a lot of interest in what this venerated intellectual has to say on the subject of education. No one is forcing you to read it.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600968 is the Chomsky link that prompted this poll. In case there are anybody besides me who would want to see the link before blessing or damning it.

Here is an Ann Coulter link for comparison: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301216,00.html

I think this question is absurd.

That is not her average interview. You should post a representative comparison link. And the host kept yelling at her and being offended which didn't help.

I'm tempted to flag this. Perhaps you meant to ask:

1. Do Michael Moore / Ann Coulter interviews belong on the top of HN?

2. Do Noam Chomsky / Steven Pinker interviews belong on the top of HN?

3. Do Noam Chomsky / Samuel Huntington interviews belong on the top of HN?

Personally I say yes to #2 and no to the others.

EDIT. I gave in to temptation. My first flag ever!

I still cling to the notion that flags are for spam, rather than for even aggressive cases of the false dilemma, otherwise I would join you.

If the Chomsky posts were limited to his scientific ideas then I don't mind. I get enough politics every where else.

Please do not compare Noam Chomsky to Ann Coulter. Coulter is an unabashed demagogue, Chomsky is an intellectual and academic who happens to have strong political opinions.

Please do not post Chomsky advocacy in a thread about whether such things should be even allowed on HN at all. It is off topic here of all places!

Insofar as the chomsky interview could have actually been the jumping off point for conversations about alternatives to current/past education norms and the technology/start ups which could facilitate that - yes I think it definitely could be hackernews material. But if it is going to digress into political nonsense and knee jerk commentary - then no.

I'm so confused why this poll exists. HackerNews already has a system built in to ask this question. You can hit the little triangle next to "No" on this page as many times as you like, but as long as people keep hitting their triangle on the frontpage it's all moot.

HN also has a policy of sometimes overruling mass upvotes. Haven't you ever seen a high scoring story killed?

I've only seen it happen on more clearly cut cases.

You have trouble imagining that some people find Noam Chomsky to be a clearly cut case?

Yes. I thought that Hacker News was better than that. I'd expect this kind of "Stifle Things I Disagree With" to be more a reddit phenomena.

But I am not as active on HN these days (very busy post-acquisition), so maybe I've lost touch with the pulse of the community.

It's a "stifle radical political activists here because they are off topic and annoying" attitude, not stifling stuff due to disagreeing.

Do you want Ann Coulter links here, too? This isn't a politics site!

I think politics and startups are intrinsically intertwined.

This may be irrelevant, but maybe not. In addition to being the most significant linguist of the 20th century, Chomsky made many key contributions to mathematical linguistics, a field that is important to Computer Science. So in some sense, he is "one of us".

If it's being gamed to the top, then no. Otherwise, why not?

Why not ask yourself if it is intellectually stimulating rather than trying to decide whether N.C. or A.C. are categorically "worthy" of Hacker News front page?

Do controversial statements that Noam Chomsky and Ann Coulter are roughly equivalent in some way belong on the top of HN?

Mu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)

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