6 ms·

That topic flag is called reddit.com/r/politics. We are already choosing to come here instead of there.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago
I have always bowed to the wishes of PG and the mods when it comes to calling out articles as too "hot" This is a funky one, though. The issue itself is about how politics affects what we can say and not say online. In that way, it's a "meta" issue. I can still understand the flagging and death, but damn. Google, Apple, and Facebook are huge monsters that control hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and virtually everything a huge chunk of the world's population sees and does. This is a tech story. It's a politics story. It's a story about business. It's all of that. This is the first time I've felt the tech community actively sticking their head in the sand. For ten or twenty years, we've created the internet and all the things people use today. When asked about morals, ethics, and politics, we've just said something like "We make the tools. We're not responsible for their use" And here we are in a security and surveillance state that we've created. We're refusing to even talk about Google's desired monoculture because we're unable to maintain civil discourse. I get it. But fuck me. Something's really wrong here. I can't help but feel that the tech community at large -- and HN in particular -- is no longer working towards the betterment of mankind. Something is terribly broken. And we had a big part in breaking it.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > This is the first time I've felt the tech community actively sticking their head in the sand. This happens all the time. Techies being 'apolitical' is a huge problem, and of course those very same techies then turn around and scream blue murder when laws are made that hurt their interests or when their tech is used to further some political goal they do not agree with.
  - DanielBMarkham 9y ago
    Being apolitical is fine. I try to be that way publicly and in my work. I fail sometimes, but I try. But when I look at huge messed up things in society, and I know there are people on HN who had a big role in making them that way? At some point you gotta cut the crap. Not taking a stand is taking a stand. Nobody gets a free ride. There's no special "get out of difficult conversations for free" card that we tech folks get that others don't have. I do not think HN needs to be reddit. But yes, I do think a second room for the intersection of tech and politics (and only that topic) is way overdue. We are better than this.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      > We are better than this. We could be, but we're not. This is what we are right now, a bunch of people that can't even have a rational discussion on a subject such as this.
      - DanielBMarkham 9y ago
        I spent my entire youth reading sci-fi stories about mankind making new technology that eventually wipes out the species: giant robots, viruses, nuclear bombs, and so on. And this it what we got? Tweeting and liking posts? This is the scary tech that's destroyed mainstream media and now threatens to lay waste to civil discourse in general? Typing little comments into boxes? Really? Nobody can say the universe doesn't have a sense of humor.
        true_religion 9y ago
        Some of us have spent our entire adult lives working to prevent technology that "wipes out species". It's not an accident that these things did not occur.
      - adrienne 9y ago
        It might help if 2/3 of HN commenters weren't giant misogynists and racists.
    - dismantlethesun 9y ago
      There are places for cutting the crap, and taking a stand... that doesn't necessarily have to be here. To call upon the topic of "safe spaces", I think HN ought to be a safe space for people involved in technology to simply... be... without having to constantly add disclaimers to their comments referencing their employer, or watching out for attacks due to their involvement in something that's suddenly politically volatile. There are many different forums in the world, and the only way they stay different is by drawing a line as to what topics and discussion patterns they won't except. The line drawn on HN is hardly a "hard line". Political topics are acceptable, but only one at a time and only if participants remain somewhat aloof. In conclusion, I think HN is nice simply because it has only one room. Adding other rooms isn't something I'd like to consider, whilst the existence of other multi-room sites exist with the same population. I am on Reddit, but I use pseudonyms there ... merely because I am afraid.

I have always bowed to the wishes of PG and the mods when it comes to calling out articles as too "hot" This is a funky one, though. The issue itself is about how politics affects what we can say and not say online. In that way, it's a "meta" issue. I can still understand the flagging and death, but damn. Google, Apple, and Facebook are huge monsters that control hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and virtually everything a huge chunk of the world's population sees and does. This is a tech story. It's a politics story. It's a story about business. It's all of that. This is the first time I've felt the tech community actively sticking their head in the sand. For ten or twenty years, we've created the internet and all the things people use today. When asked about morals, ethics, and politics, we've just said something like "We make the tools. We're not responsible for their use" And here we are in a security and surveillance state that we've created. We're refusing to even talk about Google's desired monoculture because we're unable to maintain civil discourse. I get it. But fuck me. Something's really wrong here. I can't help but feel that the tech community at large -- and HN in particular -- is no longer working towards the betterment of mankind. Something is terribly broken. And we had a big part in breaking it.

jacquesm 9y ago
> This is the first time I've felt the tech community actively sticking their head in the sand. This happens all the time. Techies being 'apolitical' is a huge problem, and of course those very same techies then turn around and scream blue murder when laws are made that hurt their interests or when their tech is used to further some political goal they do not agree with.
- DanielBMarkham 9y ago
  Being apolitical is fine. I try to be that way publicly and in my work. I fail sometimes, but I try. But when I look at huge messed up things in society, and I know there are people on HN who had a big role in making them that way? At some point you gotta cut the crap. Not taking a stand is taking a stand. Nobody gets a free ride. There's no special "get out of difficult conversations for free" card that we tech folks get that others don't have. I do not think HN needs to be reddit. But yes, I do think a second room for the intersection of tech and politics (and only that topic) is way overdue. We are better than this.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > We are better than this. We could be, but we're not. This is what we are right now, a bunch of people that can't even have a rational discussion on a subject such as this.
    - DanielBMarkham 9y ago
      I spent my entire youth reading sci-fi stories about mankind making new technology that eventually wipes out the species: giant robots, viruses, nuclear bombs, and so on. And this it what we got? Tweeting and liking posts? This is the scary tech that's destroyed mainstream media and now threatens to lay waste to civil discourse in general? Typing little comments into boxes? Really? Nobody can say the universe doesn't have a sense of humor.
      - true_religion 9y ago
        Some of us have spent our entire adult lives working to prevent technology that "wipes out species". It's not an accident that these things did not occur.
    - adrienne 9y ago
      It might help if 2/3 of HN commenters weren't giant misogynists and racists.
  - dismantlethesun 9y ago
    There are places for cutting the crap, and taking a stand... that doesn't necessarily have to be here. To call upon the topic of "safe spaces", I think HN ought to be a safe space for people involved in technology to simply... be... without having to constantly add disclaimers to their comments referencing their employer, or watching out for attacks due to their involvement in something that's suddenly politically volatile. There are many different forums in the world, and the only way they stay different is by drawing a line as to what topics and discussion patterns they won't except. The line drawn on HN is hardly a "hard line". Political topics are acceptable, but only one at a time and only if participants remain somewhat aloof. In conclusion, I think HN is nice simply because it has only one room. Adding other rooms isn't something I'd like to consider, whilst the existence of other multi-room sites exist with the same population. I am on Reddit, but I use pseudonyms there ... merely because I am afraid.