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I've said it before and I'll said it again, I don't think one can decouple a professional community and politics. (or more appropriately, I don't think one SHOU

I've said it before and I'll said it again, I don't think one can decouple a professional community and politics. (or more appropriately, I don't think one SHOULD.) Politics is the framework under which we go about our work. I'd say "cool tech" is rather reductionist for what YC encompasses, even the earliest discussions on this site were about fundraising, startup ecosystem growth, economic climate, of course cool tech is a part but just one facet. We were never "just nerds talking about tech", I'd argue we are something far more fascinating than that, in a similar way to how an emergent community of e.g. entrepreneurial accountants or farmers might be fascinating if it started to become a natural center of discussion and focus for a wider audience. To try and ignore politics insofar as we have a hand in it (and especially given the current zeitgeist we absolutely do) is to abscond from our responsibility to try and guide policy in a better direction, to discuss topics as a community so that we _don't_ devolve into ideology driven filter bubbles or surrender these decisions to be made by a perhaps less benevolent group. I aspire to that we can hold this higher example and try to be a good force in spreading positive debate. I'm always nervous to say "not talking about politics is how we got here" (although with such low voter participation rates that MAY be a somewhat fair statement) but not talking about politics at _this_ point seems like pushing the giant elephant in the room under the rug.

mindcrime 8y ago
Not talking about politics here isn't the same thing as saying that this community should not talk politics. I don't think anybody on HN wants to sweep anything under the rug, or ignore any elephants in the room. But I also don't think anybody wants to spend all day dealing with doom and gloom and arguing about inane partisan bullshit. It would be nice to have some place as a refuge from that crap, where we can talk about "cool tech" and not have to deal with all the other stuff in that moment.
- existencebox 8y ago
  A few responses to that. 1. I'd echo from my first point, HN _never_ behaved as a "Refuge" the way you describe. If you're saying you'd like to see it changed to function as such, I can simply disagree on a precedent of "that's not how it got to be the HN we know and love", but this will likely end up being a subjective disagreement. Politics may have become _more_ central, but unfortunately I think we're going through a period where that's true in many aspects of life. 2. In that same vein, HN has become something of a town-square for things tech. The "you can discuss it, just not here" is like when people say "well you can find things on the internet, google will just block them." Sure, that's factually true, but if it in effect cuts 95% of people out of ever seeing that subject matter, are you still really allowing discussion? 3. I fear that by not talking about it the "insane partisan bullshit" will become more normalized, because the adult voices in the room have stepped out. It's for us to make sure that the discussions don't become "Crap." 4. re: doom and gloom, unfortunately, "we have to sleep in the bed we made." If the broader world seems to be doom and gloom, I'm of the opinion that should be faced down without flinching. I'm not one to try and sugarcoat, fundamentally, that's just my personality, and again, one can philosophically go about life differently, but the way I look at things, an "only positive aspects of cool tech" discussion board would be disingenuous to the true scope of our impact, and lacking in much of the subtlety and interesting depth of discussion that made HN so compelling to me over the last 5-10 years.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    I'd echo from my first point, HN _never_ behaved as a "Refuge" the way you describe. Speaking as someone who has been here from every nearly the beginning, my perception is that it was much closer to that in the past (compared to today). I'm not one to try and sugarcoat, I'm not talking about sugar-coating anything. I'm saying that (pretty much) no one wants to be immersed in that stuff all the time. And in years past, HN seemed to be a site where one could mostly focus on tech/business stuff, without so much of the political baggage. I'd like to see that again. I find that I can get enough political discussion on Facebook / Twitter / meatspace. But, "different strokes for different folks" I guess. The site will ultimately be what the community makes it.
    - existencebox 8y ago
      my perception is that it was much closer to that in the past (EDIT: On a second read of our discussion, we may even be just talking about slightly unrelated things, in that you're unhappy there's more politics period, and I'm trying to justify that by saying "it's the same subject matter, politics is just necessarily more a component". One could justifiably not care about that distinction; it just strikes me as meaningful) I don't think you're wrong persay, and while I've only been here over the last 6-7 years I've read the first hundred posts thousands of times due to HN being my defacto "social scraping test", and with a sampling of the first 10 stories, I'd stand by my assertion that unfortunately politics has been taking a heavier hand in things that previously may have seemed uncorrupted. to give some concrete examples (from the first 10 posts): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 (Real estate costs in NY, still a common topic, but nimbyism/zoning is a central focus, largely political) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5 (Big-co aquisitions, now when discussed come alongside concerns re: consolidation, antitrust, etc) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6 (Forecasting software; while not specifically based off of private data, the discussion nowadays would likely pivot to that due to topical relevence) tl;dr, I don't necessarily agree with how much you may be implying the content has shifted, I just think politics plays a much stronger role in said content, or in our awareness of it, but again, this is perceptual and I'm not going to tell you "you're wrong" in having been there yourself. The site will ultimately be what the community makes it. Yup, and I try to limit my corrosion of this to trying to sway opinion softly. This all comes down to, for me, being more scared about LACK of attention/action, than if some threads go sideways.

mindcrime 8y ago

Not talking about politics here isn't the same thing as saying that this community should not talk politics. I don't think anybody on HN wants to sweep anything under the rug, or ignore any elephants in the room. But I also don't think anybody wants to spend all day dealing with doom and gloom and arguing about inane partisan bullshit. It would be nice to have some place as a refuge from that crap, where we can talk about "cool tech" and not have to deal with all the other stuff in that moment.

existencebox 8y ago
A few responses to that. 1. I'd echo from my first point, HN _never_ behaved as a "Refuge" the way you describe. If you're saying you'd like to see it changed to function as such, I can simply disagree on a precedent of "that's not how it got to be the HN we know and love", but this will likely end up being a subjective disagreement. Politics may have become _more_ central, but unfortunately I think we're going through a period where that's true in many aspects of life. 2. In that same vein, HN has become something of a town-square for things tech. The "you can discuss it, just not here" is like when people say "well you can find things on the internet, google will just block them." Sure, that's factually true, but if it in effect cuts 95% of people out of ever seeing that subject matter, are you still really allowing discussion? 3. I fear that by not talking about it the "insane partisan bullshit" will become more normalized, because the adult voices in the room have stepped out. It's for us to make sure that the discussions don't become "Crap." 4. re: doom and gloom, unfortunately, "we have to sleep in the bed we made." If the broader world seems to be doom and gloom, I'm of the opinion that should be faced down without flinching. I'm not one to try and sugarcoat, fundamentally, that's just my personality, and again, one can philosophically go about life differently, but the way I look at things, an "only positive aspects of cool tech" discussion board would be disingenuous to the true scope of our impact, and lacking in much of the subtlety and interesting depth of discussion that made HN so compelling to me over the last 5-10 years.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  I'd echo from my first point, HN _never_ behaved as a "Refuge" the way you describe. Speaking as someone who has been here from every nearly the beginning, my perception is that it was much closer to that in the past (compared to today). I'm not one to try and sugarcoat, I'm not talking about sugar-coating anything. I'm saying that (pretty much) no one wants to be immersed in that stuff all the time. And in years past, HN seemed to be a site where one could mostly focus on tech/business stuff, without so much of the political baggage. I'd like to see that again. I find that I can get enough political discussion on Facebook / Twitter / meatspace. But, "different strokes for different folks" I guess. The site will ultimately be what the community makes it.
  - existencebox 8y ago
    my perception is that it was much closer to that in the past (EDIT: On a second read of our discussion, we may even be just talking about slightly unrelated things, in that you're unhappy there's more politics period, and I'm trying to justify that by saying "it's the same subject matter, politics is just necessarily more a component". One could justifiably not care about that distinction; it just strikes me as meaningful) I don't think you're wrong persay, and while I've only been here over the last 6-7 years I've read the first hundred posts thousands of times due to HN being my defacto "social scraping test", and with a sampling of the first 10 stories, I'd stand by my assertion that unfortunately politics has been taking a heavier hand in things that previously may have seemed uncorrupted. to give some concrete examples (from the first 10 posts): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 (Real estate costs in NY, still a common topic, but nimbyism/zoning is a central focus, largely political) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5 (Big-co aquisitions, now when discussed come alongside concerns re: consolidation, antitrust, etc) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6 (Forecasting software; while not specifically based off of private data, the discussion nowadays would likely pivot to that due to topical relevence) tl;dr, I don't necessarily agree with how much you may be implying the content has shifted, I just think politics plays a much stronger role in said content, or in our awareness of it, but again, this is perceptual and I'm not going to tell you "you're wrong" in having been there yourself. The site will ultimately be what the community makes it. Yup, and I try to limit my corrosion of this to trying to sway opinion softly. This all comes down to, for me, being more scared about LACK of attention/action, than if some threads go sideways.