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Well, then, "hi!". Sometimes I'm at the top of the threads too, because they aren't appropriate:-)

I certainly sympathize, but it isn't always black and white. Even the ultimate arbitrator of appropriateness here jumps into politics from time to time [1]. And hackers are interested in the law for at least a handful of reasons particular to our culture: 1) many hackers are outside of the social mainstream, which puts them at increased risk of majority-oriented persecution, 2) many hackers are reclusive by nature and value their ability to "be left alone," which is at odds with collectivist governments that want everyone to jump on for their latest scheme, and 3) the law is a codified set of rules and procedures, about which hackers can reason, finding incongruencies more readily than the mainstream population.

Perhaps we should pick our battles, and call out more egregious violations such as name calling and thoughtless recitals of canned talking points, rather than engaging in the sort of constant nagging that will just blend into the background noise.

[1] e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=664314

I've never said that these topics aren't interesting - my point is that they are poisonous: they are more likely to set off flame wars, because people are pretty set in their opinions, and that they're likely to attract people who are not hackers yet who are interested in politics/economics/etc... This last point is especially important.

Also, in this case, I was really just making a direct observation of the conversation... it's pretty much all off on a tangent, and is very much 'politics'.

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