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Five years of reading HN and I’ve seen comments from all sorts of people. Former inmates, drug addicts, surgeons, lawyers, mechanics, welders, astrophysicist,

Five years of reading HN and I’ve seen comments from all sorts of people. Former inmates, drug addicts, surgeons, lawyers, mechanics, welders, astrophysicist, particle physicists, pilots. Need I go on? Not once have I read anyone here who’s admitted to being a high level politician.

hartator 8y ago
Never thought about it but you’re right.
ngcazz 8y ago
Forgive me for being thick, but is your point that we'd need to have a politician's insight to understand the decision?
- roenxi 8y ago
  To paraphrase, the question was "why is this legal when we all know it won't work?" and the answer was "we aren't the people who write the laws".
  - ngcazz 8y ago
    Makes sense! Thanks.
  - sbhn 8y ago
    Its legal when a whole bunch of suits standing behind the politician who uses there media priveledge to amplify an issue, are able to syphon without scrutiny, as many tax paying dollars as possible.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      It’s not so much about the fact that taxes are levied as that there is a lack of accountability for how it’s used.
      - sambull 8y ago
        It's real easy to attach a 'hot issue'/ buzzword to a blackbox that allows the security forces to do do whatever they want and get yourself sweet defense funding [0] [0] https://slate.com/technology/2013/04/dowsing-for-bombs-maker-of-useless-bomb-detectors-convicted-of-fraud.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/04/dowsing-for-bombs-maker...
Symmetry 8y ago
In fairness, there aren't that many high level politicians. And even if one were to read posting and admitting that fact would probably be bad, career-wise.
- gpm 8y ago
  You could always keep who you are anonymous, 'Member of Congress' isn't identifying enough to be damaging.
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    It's a small enough category and people will be interested enough that there's a good chance that a dogged reported could figure it out in a week given a long posting history. I'm pretty sure that if I admitted to being, e.g., the Zodiac Killer or something and people believed it then the FBI would probably be able to figure out my identity even without the link to my Github in my profile. And more importantly you can never be sure that you haven't let something slip that might reveal your identity in a way you didn't anticipate.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    'Member of Congress' can be narrowed down pretty quickly simply to a comparatively short list by considering which Senators or Representatives are slightly likely to be interested in reading about mostly Californian tech companies on a website called Hacker News. That anonymity disappears much more quickly if said Member of Congress has also posted in the past about where they're from and which political issues they're passionate about...

hartator 8y ago

Never thought about it but you’re right.

ngcazz 8y ago

Forgive me for being thick, but is your point that we'd need to have a politician's insight to understand the decision?

roenxi 8y ago
To paraphrase, the question was "why is this legal when we all know it won't work?" and the answer was "we aren't the people who write the laws".
- ngcazz 8y ago
  Makes sense! Thanks.
- sbhn 8y ago
  Its legal when a whole bunch of suits standing behind the politician who uses there media priveledge to amplify an issue, are able to syphon without scrutiny, as many tax paying dollars as possible.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    It’s not so much about the fact that taxes are levied as that there is a lack of accountability for how it’s used.
    - sambull 8y ago
      It's real easy to attach a 'hot issue'/ buzzword to a blackbox that allows the security forces to do do whatever they want and get yourself sweet defense funding [0] [0] https://slate.com/technology/2013/04/dowsing-for-bombs-maker-of-useless-bomb-detectors-convicted-of-fraud.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/04/dowsing-for-bombs-maker...

Symmetry 8y ago

In fairness, there aren't that many high level politicians. And even if one were to read posting and admitting that fact would probably be bad, career-wise.

gpm 8y ago
You could always keep who you are anonymous, 'Member of Congress' isn't identifying enough to be damaging.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  It's a small enough category and people will be interested enough that there's a good chance that a dogged reported could figure it out in a week given a long posting history. I'm pretty sure that if I admitted to being, e.g., the Zodiac Killer or something and people believed it then the FBI would probably be able to figure out my identity even without the link to my Github in my profile. And more importantly you can never be sure that you haven't let something slip that might reveal your identity in a way you didn't anticipate.
- notahacker 8y ago
  'Member of Congress' can be narrowed down pretty quickly simply to a comparatively short list by considering which Senators or Representatives are slightly likely to be interested in reading about mostly Californian tech companies on a website called Hacker News. That anonymity disappears much more quickly if said Member of Congress has also posted in the past about where they're from and which political issues they're passionate about...