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And this is on YC why? Stop upvoting/commenting/clicking on these and maybe they'll go away.

by bigtoga 18y ago

mtts 18y ago
Because hackers might also care about the world around them, that's why.
- davidw 18y ago
  Bad answer. That opens up the site to anything and everything. I care deeply about the ongoing Giro d'Italia, and if all goes well, will go watch a stage in the near future, but I wouldn't post daily results on this site. Nor would I attempt to inflict my own political and economic views on the other users. Were we all to do that, the site would rapidly degrade.
  - edw519 18y ago
    I thought it was an excellent answer. Hacker News IS my portal now, and if an occasional piece not directly related to hacking spawns excellent discussion among my peers, great. That's something I'd probably find nowhere else. As far as the "appropriateness" of submissions, just trust the rest of us to prudently use our up arrows. Sure, stupid stuff will get through, but a small price to pay for good content and discussion. Oh, and go ahead and submit a Giro d'Italia post. Not sure it would see too many upvotes.
    - davidw 18y ago
      Are any of these discussions actually that interesting? They all seem to turn into "market-will-fix-everything libertarians vs OMG evil corporations!!! types". Ok, that's a little bit of a caricature, but not too far off the mark, and in any case the whole thing is a slippery slope into territory that's not really about hacking or hackers or startups.
  - mtts 18y ago
    I disagree with you, of course, but finding a fellow cycling fan here on HN is cool. And I do agree with you that HN shouldn't cover the Giro. That's taking it too far (but I do think an occasional piece on a major geo-political issue is no problem at all).
LPTS 18y ago
Not that this article is great, but I would think anything thats about huge scale world problems would be of interest to the group of creatives that need problems to apply their technical skills too so they can create world changing companies. Which I thought was kind of the idea of entrepreneurial activities. Also, the studies on divergent thinking show their are huge cross pollination type benefits to people who are in a field considering the problems in another, both for the people who have mastered the field, and for the problem. Therefore, some hackers who encounter non hacking problems like this (again, not that this article is great, it isn't) will benefit themselves and the problem they are able to apply their unique style of thinking too. In fact, I think a lot of great companies probably started as a result of hackers applying their skills to what seemed like non hacker problems. I think stuff like this should be here, even if this article happens to not be great.

And this is on YC why? Stop upvoting/commenting/clicking on these and maybe they'll go away.

by bigtoga 18y ago

And this is on YC why? Stop upvoting/commenting/clicking on these and maybe they'll go away.

mtts 18y ago

Because hackers might also care about the world around them, that's why.

davidw 18y ago
Bad answer. That opens up the site to anything and everything. I care deeply about the ongoing Giro d'Italia, and if all goes well, will go watch a stage in the near future, but I wouldn't post daily results on this site. Nor would I attempt to inflict my own political and economic views on the other users. Were we all to do that, the site would rapidly degrade.
- edw519 18y ago
  I thought it was an excellent answer. Hacker News IS my portal now, and if an occasional piece not directly related to hacking spawns excellent discussion among my peers, great. That's something I'd probably find nowhere else. As far as the "appropriateness" of submissions, just trust the rest of us to prudently use our up arrows. Sure, stupid stuff will get through, but a small price to pay for good content and discussion. Oh, and go ahead and submit a Giro d'Italia post. Not sure it would see too many upvotes.
  - davidw 18y ago
    Are any of these discussions actually that interesting? They all seem to turn into "market-will-fix-everything libertarians vs OMG evil corporations!!! types". Ok, that's a little bit of a caricature, but not too far off the mark, and in any case the whole thing is a slippery slope into territory that's not really about hacking or hackers or startups.
- mtts 18y ago
  I disagree with you, of course, but finding a fellow cycling fan here on HN is cool. And I do agree with you that HN shouldn't cover the Giro. That's taking it too far (but I do think an occasional piece on a major geo-political issue is no problem at all).

LPTS 18y ago

Not that this article is great, but I would think anything thats about huge scale world problems would be of interest to the group of creatives that need problems to apply their technical skills too so they can create world changing companies. Which I thought was kind of the idea of entrepreneurial activities. Also, the studies on divergent thinking show their are huge cross pollination type benefits to people who are in a field considering the problems in another, both for the people who have mastered the field, and for the problem. Therefore, some hackers who encounter non hacking problems like this (again, not that this article is great, it isn't) will benefit themselves and the problem they are able to apply their unique style of thinking too. In fact, I think a lot of great companies probably started as a result of hackers applying their skills to what seemed like non hacker problems. I think stuff like this should be here, even if this article happens to not be great.