Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfasi | Hacker News Reader

I hate to be that guy, but why was this posted to hacker news, the site dedicated to news for hackers?

If you hate being that guy, don't be that guy.

Sometimes we can't all be the guy we want to be.

That's fine when you want to be a guy who saves kittens and fights cancer but end up leading a more mundane life. But when it comes down to not wanting to be the guy who makes a certain kind of comment, well, just don't do that. It's easy!

I believe it was a lovely piece of irony.

From the Hacker News Guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Under "What to Submit": "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Since it's being upvoted, then I guess it's gratifying enough people's intellectual curiosity.

"then I guess it's gratifying enough people's intellectual curiosity"

Taking into account (see my comment "four guesses") the question is would this happen if:

1) Written by a Dental Hygienist at SUNY Binghamton?

2) Published under a community college domain?

3) No link to big money.

4) Place it happened was in a suburb of Cincinnati Oh?

I agree. Although the question isn't really why is it posted (anyone can post anything) but more "why is it being upvoted"?

Separately why do people when stating an opinion need to say "I hate to be that guy"?

To me that equates to "I'm not sure of my opinion and treading lightly".

(I really do want to know your thoughts on my question btw.)

Most of the articles posted here are about making money, although they are biased towards making money with technology. This is more of a "hackers who want to start companies" site than purely a hacker one. Considering how many of the people on this site expect to be ridiculously wealthy at some point, I'm not surprised that a story like this made it to the front page.

I think Hacker News also has a great deal of people with a personal interest in anthropology and human psychology, since both are very relevant to a startups success, knowing people is valuable.

This is where this story brings value, because it reveals dark and sinister sides of humans, to leech from people, exploiting their generousity. Regardless of how big the fortunes are, that is incredibly deplorable.

...only gets to the FP by upvotes. just sayin.

I didn't submit it or upvote it, but read the piece and found it interesting. For me, the value to HN isn't so much of dealing with wealth but one of being that quick distraction wondering how a problem like this might be solved to better society, and whether it can be ultimately solved.

Exactly what I was wondering.

As much as I would love to be both (or either) rich and in NYC, I don't see how this is relevant to the community.

I will take four guesses.

1) Written by Philip Greenspun: "Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology"

2) Published under harvard.edu domain.

3) Money

4) NYC

Your #1 is most of the explanation; Phil is a net.personality from way back ("Travels with Samantha", 1994), as well as a pithy writer of several perennial pieces of HN text (like: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science).

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