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> I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. I see this great move as a way of the

> I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. I see this great move as a way of the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be, unsullied by political nausea. Sure, in a week we can get back into the grim reality, the tech-noir crapsack future, but perhaps for one week we can focus on a positive future and its soaring aspirations. Go Dang!

mememachine 10y ago
Not all of us view political topics as nausea inducing. I don't think politics have overtaken the site or even become a significant part of it, so I wonder why politics-averse individuals cant just avoid political threads?
- dang 10y ago
  It's in HN's DNA to have a single community. The path you're talking about leads to subreddits, which would make for a different kind of site, one that was broken into silos rather than being in the same world. This is an important point, because it touches on the what-HN-is-and-isn't thing. HN is a community for the the intellectually curious, who come here for a wide range of interests (some of which have political aspects, of course--there's no getting away from that). But there's a different kind of users, ideologically committed ones, who use HN primarily for political battle. That's not something that sits well with the purpose of this site, as I tried to explain above. Those users really want a different kind of site than HN, and need to find another, or maybe start a new one. Plenty of new sites have spawned from HN; that's partly a function of our not trying to be all things. HN has always been in the lucky position of not needing to grow for growth's sake, so we're happy when people who want a different kind of community find it, or create it.
  - duncanawoods 10y ago
    Can you carve out an exception for economic / startup relevant legislation please? As a UK based startup, I would really value HN support navigating Brexit and VATMOSS changes.
    - dang 10y ago
      If one comes up this week, sure. Otherwise I doubt you need to worry. (It's interesting how the "this is just for a week" thing hasn't seemed to enter the conversation.)
      - mattnewton 10y ago
        Of course, News doesn't stop rolling in, and people love their hacker news :) I know I'm personally guilty of being really sensitive and reactive to anything that looks like censorship right now.
      - aaachilless 10y ago
        I think one of the reasons the time limit hasn't come up much in discussion is that it's hard to envision the data/information/knowledge that we might have in a week that we don't have today. I don't mean to imply one way or the other whether this experiment will have meaningful results, just that it's hard for me to picture myself, in a week, reviewing the situation and saying "wow, now I know X, Y, Z." I mean I'm not sure what those X, Y, and Z might be. On the other hand, the idea of an interminable ban on political discussion has many obviously salient implications, emotions, and such. A sort of half-baked analogy is that it's like lighting a tiny, contained trashcan fire in the middle of a nuclear reactor--it's not really a big deal but it's easy to see how it could trigger high-magnitude reactions from onlookers.
        dang 10y ago
        I see what you mean, but we've already learned a lot just today. That's a creative analogy though.
      - matheweis 10y ago
- Cafey 10y ago
  > so I wonder why politics-averse individuals cant just avoid political threads It is indeed possible to avoid clicking on a specific kind of topic. From what I understand, the issue here is more that it just isn't a fit for the purpose of this community/website.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
At least allow us to opt out of the artificial safe space. Technology and politics go hand in hand, unless we'd like to head back into the dark ages. EDIT: I'm not hear to offend or persuade with politics talk. I'm here to provide or obtain new perspectives and understanding. If I want an echo chamber that reinforces my perspectives and beliefs, I can head back to Facebook.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  Technology and politics go hand in hand This just reads like a cop-out to me, in the same way that large media orgs have been parroting the "it's impossible to be truly unbiased" line as if it were an excuse to throw up their hands and stop trying altogether. Not that I'm saying you're being disingenuous here, mind, it just reads like defeatism. "All tech is politics so it's pointless to try delineating them". This mentality gets worse and worse as you go down the main thread... Not all, or even most tech talk is political related. I'm just looking down the front page right now.. a new Golang web framework, Elixir and Ruby IPC, OpenAI, new SSDs.. Those topics aren't even tangentially political in nature.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > Not all, or even most tech talk is political related. I'm just looking dowen the front page right now.. a new Golang web framework, Elixir and Ruby IPC, OpenAI, new SSDs.. And these are the articles that matter the least to me. I come here to discuss applied technology, not theory. How can technology improve quality of life? How are we going to deal with automation replacing the need for jobs? How are startups and their culture effecting both their employees and society as a whole (I'm looking at you AirBnB and Uber). To each their own. I don't believe it's a cop out, but that's my opinion. You can have your threads and I can have mine without any interference. That's my problem. There's no need to censor politics threads if you simply skip them because you have no interest.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    OpenAI is one of the tools that might be used to replace whole swaths of people from their jobs. How can it not be political?
dragonwriter 10y ago
> I see this great move as a way of the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be, unsullied by political nausea. The vision of where we want to be is the central political debate of all time, to which all other political discussions are peripheral appendages. So, no, banning political discussion doesn't let us focus on that, it prohibits even considering it.
yolesaber 10y ago
This is some incredibly naive thinking. To build a 'positive future' you need to focus on the problems its facing - otherwise what are you building?
mcphage 10y ago
> the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be The thing is that we all have very different visions on the hill of where we want to be, and that friction is what's playing out in these threads.

mememachine 10y ago

Not all of us view political topics as nausea inducing. I don't think politics have overtaken the site or even become a significant part of it, so I wonder why politics-averse individuals cant just avoid political threads?

dang 10y ago
It's in HN's DNA to have a single community. The path you're talking about leads to subreddits, which would make for a different kind of site, one that was broken into silos rather than being in the same world. This is an important point, because it touches on the what-HN-is-and-isn't thing. HN is a community for the the intellectually curious, who come here for a wide range of interests (some of which have political aspects, of course--there's no getting away from that). But there's a different kind of users, ideologically committed ones, who use HN primarily for political battle. That's not something that sits well with the purpose of this site, as I tried to explain above. Those users really want a different kind of site than HN, and need to find another, or maybe start a new one. Plenty of new sites have spawned from HN; that's partly a function of our not trying to be all things. HN has always been in the lucky position of not needing to grow for growth's sake, so we're happy when people who want a different kind of community find it, or create it.
- duncanawoods 10y ago
  Can you carve out an exception for economic / startup relevant legislation please? As a UK based startup, I would really value HN support navigating Brexit and VATMOSS changes.
  - dang 10y ago
    If one comes up this week, sure. Otherwise I doubt you need to worry. (It's interesting how the "this is just for a week" thing hasn't seemed to enter the conversation.)
    - mattnewton 10y ago
      Of course, News doesn't stop rolling in, and people love their hacker news :) I know I'm personally guilty of being really sensitive and reactive to anything that looks like censorship right now.
    - aaachilless 10y ago
      I think one of the reasons the time limit hasn't come up much in discussion is that it's hard to envision the data/information/knowledge that we might have in a week that we don't have today. I don't mean to imply one way or the other whether this experiment will have meaningful results, just that it's hard for me to picture myself, in a week, reviewing the situation and saying "wow, now I know X, Y, Z." I mean I'm not sure what those X, Y, and Z might be. On the other hand, the idea of an interminable ban on political discussion has many obviously salient implications, emotions, and such. A sort of half-baked analogy is that it's like lighting a tiny, contained trashcan fire in the middle of a nuclear reactor--it's not really a big deal but it's easy to see how it could trigger high-magnitude reactions from onlookers.
      - dang 10y ago
        I see what you mean, but we've already learned a lot just today. That's a creative analogy though.
    - matheweis 10y ago
Cafey 10y ago
> so I wonder why politics-averse individuals cant just avoid political threads It is indeed possible to avoid clicking on a specific kind of topic. From what I understand, the issue here is more that it just isn't a fit for the purpose of this community/website.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

At least allow us to opt out of the artificial safe space. Technology and politics go hand in hand, unless we'd like to head back into the dark ages. EDIT: I'm not hear to offend or persuade with politics talk. I'm here to provide or obtain new perspectives and understanding. If I want an echo chamber that reinforces my perspectives and beliefs, I can head back to Facebook.

Karunamon 10y ago
Technology and politics go hand in hand This just reads like a cop-out to me, in the same way that large media orgs have been parroting the "it's impossible to be truly unbiased" line as if it were an excuse to throw up their hands and stop trying altogether. Not that I'm saying you're being disingenuous here, mind, it just reads like defeatism. "All tech is politics so it's pointless to try delineating them". This mentality gets worse and worse as you go down the main thread... Not all, or even most tech talk is political related. I'm just looking down the front page right now.. a new Golang web framework, Elixir and Ruby IPC, OpenAI, new SSDs.. Those topics aren't even tangentially political in nature.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > Not all, or even most tech talk is political related. I'm just looking dowen the front page right now.. a new Golang web framework, Elixir and Ruby IPC, OpenAI, new SSDs.. And these are the articles that matter the least to me. I come here to discuss applied technology, not theory. How can technology improve quality of life? How are we going to deal with automation replacing the need for jobs? How are startups and their culture effecting both their employees and society as a whole (I'm looking at you AirBnB and Uber). To each their own. I don't believe it's a cop out, but that's my opinion. You can have your threads and I can have mine without any interference. That's my problem. There's no need to censor politics threads if you simply skip them because you have no interest.
- icebraining 10y ago
  OpenAI is one of the tools that might be used to replace whole swaths of people from their jobs. How can it not be political?

dragonwriter 10y ago

> I see this great move as a way of the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be, unsullied by political nausea. The vision of where we want to be is the central political debate of all time, to which all other political discussions are peripheral appendages. So, no, banning political discussion doesn't let us focus on that, it prohibits even considering it.

yolesaber 10y ago

This is some incredibly naive thinking. To build a 'positive future' you need to focus on the problems its facing - otherwise what are you building?

mcphage 10y ago

> the community lifting its head out of a sandy quagmire to glance at the shining beacon, the vision on the hill, the where we want to be The thing is that we all have very different visions on the hill of where we want to be, and that friction is what's playing out in these threads.