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I feel like I have to be that guy. How is this Hacker News? Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If

I feel like I have to be that guy. How is this Hacker News? Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

lkrubner 16y ago
I guess if I really needed to, I could make some argument that connected stories like this to the forces that either support or cripple innovation. I realize that the crowd that reads Hacker News is mostly into software, but Hacker News is also an important website for anyone who is into innovation and entrepreneurialism. Some people who read Hacker News have ideas for startups that, if successful, would come up under the regulatory review of the FDA. As such, the heavy-handed tactics that the US government uses against anything drug related becomes a block on innovation in that field. An entrepreneur contemplating some new bio-tech, say some interesting use of new proteins from bio-engineered stem cells or bacteria, has to feel a chill when reading an article like this. The problem is that the government's actions appear to be both arbitrary and heavy-handed, meaning that even when an entrepreneur has good reasons for taking whatever action they take, they may not be given a fair chance to explain themselves. Hacker News sometimes upvotes articles that are not about software or startups, but they are about the US economy. This article (above) could be tied into that category of posts. After all, the USA is at risk of getting a very uneven form of innovation. If everyone who wants to do a startup dealing with drugs has to face (or their customers have to face) arbitrary actions from the government, whereas those entrepreneurs working with software face very little regulatory review, then the USA is going to get a lot of innovation with software, and relatively little innovation in fields in which drugs are involved. We will have an abundance of small web startups and a shortage of small biotech startups. For a variety of reasons, too long to cover in this comment, it would be better for the USA, and the world, if innovation could happen evenly across all sectors, so that the only brake on entrepreneurs was their own imaginations.
nowarninglabel 16y ago
This article gratifies my intellectual curiosity. Current drug policies stifle innovation here and abroad. I work with students in SSDP who would make great hackers, but they are stigmatized from even trying to apply for computing jobs at many places due to fears of random drug tests and past drug convictions. Granted, what would be more appropriate to Hacker News would be articles about Dr. Shulgin, arguably the greatest drug hacker of all time.

lkrubner 16y ago

I guess if I really needed to, I could make some argument that connected stories like this to the forces that either support or cripple innovation. I realize that the crowd that reads Hacker News is mostly into software, but Hacker News is also an important website for anyone who is into innovation and entrepreneurialism. Some people who read Hacker News have ideas for startups that, if successful, would come up under the regulatory review of the FDA. As such, the heavy-handed tactics that the US government uses against anything drug related becomes a block on innovation in that field. An entrepreneur contemplating some new bio-tech, say some interesting use of new proteins from bio-engineered stem cells or bacteria, has to feel a chill when reading an article like this. The problem is that the government's actions appear to be both arbitrary and heavy-handed, meaning that even when an entrepreneur has good reasons for taking whatever action they take, they may not be given a fair chance to explain themselves. Hacker News sometimes upvotes articles that are not about software or startups, but they are about the US economy. This article (above) could be tied into that category of posts. After all, the USA is at risk of getting a very uneven form of innovation. If everyone who wants to do a startup dealing with drugs has to face (or their customers have to face) arbitrary actions from the government, whereas those entrepreneurs working with software face very little regulatory review, then the USA is going to get a lot of innovation with software, and relatively little innovation in fields in which drugs are involved. We will have an abundance of small web startups and a shortage of small biotech startups. For a variety of reasons, too long to cover in this comment, it would be better for the USA, and the world, if innovation could happen evenly across all sectors, so that the only brake on entrepreneurs was their own imaginations.

nowarninglabel 16y ago

This article gratifies my intellectual curiosity. Current drug policies stifle innovation here and abroad. I work with students in SSDP who would make great hackers, but they are stigmatized from even trying to apply for computing jobs at many places due to fears of random drug tests and past drug convictions. Granted, what would be more appropriate to Hacker News would be articles about Dr. Shulgin, arguably the greatest drug hacker of all time.