I don't know whether this consequence is intended or not, but at times HN feels unbearably stuffy, self-important and, well, humourless. I've always thought of

I don't know whether this consequence is intended or not, but at times HN feels unbearably stuffy, self-important and, well, humourless. I've always thought of hacking above all as a fun activity - in the way that posing and solving puzzles is fun ... or in the way that posing and solving jokes is fun. Humour is all about thinking around corners, framing and reframing a set of premises, melding logic and creativity to produce surprising[1] results. Killing humour to keep a hackers' discussion on-topic is like killing inductive reasoning to keep scientists focused on the big picture. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html