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I think it's simply a reflection of the shift of how educated society engages with political topics. If it affects quality of life of humans, it is political. T

I think it's simply a reflection of the shift of how educated society engages with political topics. If it affects quality of life of humans, it is political. This has always been true, it's fundamentally the point of politics. However, the effects on the QoL of many humans is not a concern to those of us who have the privilege to simply look away and not notice a difference to our own quality of life. This privileged demo has drastically shrunk (ie, politics directly and noticeably impacts the QoL of far more people) today, mostly because the rest of the people have deservedly been given more of a voice. Policy in its present state can mean the difference between life and death for many people who happily steered clear of "politics" 5 years ago, and talking about it is an option for people who were silenced and closeted 10 years ago. Even those of us who wilfully try to plug their ears and come up a system of rules and restricted topics that are "political" and "to be avoided" will find it incredibly hard to enforce, because someone or other will break the rule, and it's physically impossible for everyone else to keep their peace until a moderator brings the banhammer. The world is going through shared turmoil right now and politics is naturally a first stop to look for society-level resolutions, or at least adjustments to existing rules to improve QoL.

fauigerzigerk 4y ago
I agree that it's not possible to steer clear of politics. But there is more than one way to discuss politics and political aspects related to hacking and entrepreneurship (such as markets, oligopolies, net neutrality, copyrights, patents, encryption, etc) One way is to focus on difficult questions, on the inevitable trade-offs and on interesting, perhaps less conventional solutions. These debates are supposed to make people think. The other is to declare all questions settled and focus on rhetorical tactics to suppress the enemy. Stop thinking, start acting, crush the evil enemy, it's about life and death! In my opinion, this latter form of politics should be kept off HN. Thinking is not a luxury that we can no longer afford once decisions become important to people's lives. It's a necessity at all times and it needs space.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "political aspects related to hacking and entrepreneurship (such as markets, oligopolies, net neutrality, copyrights, patents, encryption, etc)" I agree that if it's related like these topics, that it has a place here. One thing that is on here often is the talk about housing density and zoning. I don't think that has a technical tie-in to entrepreneurship or hacking. That said, I don't really mind as long as the conversation occurs with an open mind and people are bringing new ideas to the table and not just parroting the mainstream takes.
kortilla 4y ago
I disagree, I think it’s a reflection of lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to political topics. People are so polarized now they have lost the ability to discuss nuance, see the other side, or really compromise at all. Everything is couched in terms of “with us or against us” extremist dichotomies much like the one hiding in the undertone of your post. Of course everyone thinks their political views are critical to life the same way people think their religion is important. It’s still super rude to bring up religion in an orthogonal topic and it’s still super rude to do the same with politics.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "I disagree, I think it’s a reflection of lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to political topics. People are so polarized now they have lost the ability to discuss nuance, see the other side, or really compromise at all." I think this is generally true, but I also think HN is one of the more open minded places on most of the topics. I think the main problem I have seen in political debates on here are when someone automatically assumes a scientific finding should be policy. In reality, we as a society need to figure out how to apply that finding in a way that balances multiple concerns and fits with society's other rules and values.
- adventured 4y ago
  I disagree with you and the parent as to the core issue / cause. Critical thinking skills generally didn't vanish over the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years. That still exists and you can see it in numerous other topics of discussion that don't get so heated. In some spheres of discourse such skills have been overridden by emotion, feelings, however. People are being taught to suppress rational thought and to unleash emotional reaction instead. What has happened is a cultural shift in which outrage behavior, reaction-to-whatever, being triggered, feelings-as-all-important, et al. has become acceptable and primary. Virtue signaling - which is a resulting disease of this shift - is omnipresent today. That all started to build notably throughout the prior decade and accelerated during the Trump years. Emotional reaction and how strong that reaction is, became a way to win contests intellectually. This primacy of feelings is now being taught throughout the US at all levels and at all times. It's an intellectual disaster, it turns adults into infants emotionally and intellectually. It stunts their growth mentally and it makes them fragile, weak, unable to partake in rigourous debate without shattering down to emotionally acting out (if you're losing in a debate, throw a culturally potent accusation card to end the debate). For a masterclass in this behavior observe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, when she does something stupid or ignorant, or when she is caught lying, and watch how she avoids responsibility (she acts out very emotionally and immediately begins throwing any and all accusation cards to deflect and shut down discussion); or observe her approach to argumentation generally, she always argues from feelings-as-primary (watch how she uses her hands as she speaks, it's a tip-off); she's out on the tip of the intellectual spear for the US cultural implosion and the impending rise of violent tribalism and highly dysfunctional statism in the US culturally (and it's no coincidence she's an avowed Socialist; 20 years from now if you disagree with her emotions, her brown shirts equivalent - Antifa & Co. - will burn your house down; we're nearly at that level of primative cultural behavior now). People have gradually come to tolerate outrageous emotional behavior. It's conceptually no different than the broken window theory. Bit by bit more and more emotional, acting-out behavior has become tolerated in the culture. Now it's widespread and the US culture is increasingly a cultural ghetto. When feelings become supreme in the intellectual realm, reason and reasonable behavior loses out every time. The culture that behaves that way will collapse rapidly into tribalism and conflict, lacking the approach necessary to resolve intellectual conflict (turning to feelings and emotion as primary can only end in violent conflict in an intellectual contest, there's no way then to determine right from wrong culturally other than who can shriek the loudest or hit the hardest).
FabHK 4y ago
> politics directly and noticeably impacts the QoL of far more people today > difference between life and death for many people who happily steered clear of "politics" 5 years ago > The world is going through shared turmoil right now You seem to be implying that the political situation has deteriorated and become more violent. Is that so? In 1968, several students were killed during protests against the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights movement sparked demonstrations and riots during which many people were killed (eg 34 at the Watts riots). The 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in 63 deaths. And that's only in the US. In China, you had TianAnMen in 1989. In Germany, you had the Rote Armee Fraktion (Baader-Meinhoff) terror until 1998 with scores of deaths. The Irish Troubles also lasted until 1998 and killed over 3000 people. So, I'd say it is not worse now than, say, five decades ago. It could be that we have had one or two particularly peaceful decades, but I wonder how much bias there is in that assessment. How could one quantify it, or otherwise try to capture it objectively?
- pjc50 4y ago
  Good example of wilful misinterpretation: previous comment says "5 years", so you quote a bunch of examples from several decades ago.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Sorry, I should have been clearer. GP comment posits a deterioration over the last 5 to 10 years. 1. That deterioration might be imaginary, due to recency bias. One would need to examine it carefully. 2. That recent deterioration is most certainly embedded within a massive improvement over a longer horizon.
    - nend 4y ago
      >2. That recent deterioration is most certainly embedded within a massive improvement over a longer horizon. The point was that political discussion became more common on this board in the last five years due to this "deterioration." So whether things are better now than 60 years ago isn't relevant to that point.
eevilspock 4y ago
One can say that the exclusion of politics from HN is itself politics. Likewise the debate in the comments herein is a manifestation of politics. Is technology entrepreneurship and science better served by having a politics-free zone, like the Olympics? Or is society worse served by having a class of people and an industry operate as if politics is orthogonal to it, as if the whole nature of the enterprise isn't built upon a particular political ethos and system that sustains its current incarnation, possibly at the expense of other classes of people or society as a whole? Is HN the Galt's Gulch of the social media world, where techies can withdraw from the rest of society because they can?
- dang 4y ago
  There's no exclusion of politics from HN, and never haws been (since it was renamed from Startup News in 2007) other than a few days in 2016 when we tried a brief experiment with it and got quite decisive results. At the same time, not all political stories are on topic. If anyone wants to read about how we draw that line, there are past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
- tomrod 4y ago
  > Is technology entrepreneurship and science better served by having a politics-free zone, like the Olympics? Or is society worse served by having a class of people and an industry operate as if politics is orthogonal to it, as if the whole nature of the enterprise isn't built upon a particular political ethos and system that sustains its current incarnation, possibly at the expense of other classes of people or society as a whole? While politics often appeals to morality, I'd argue these are moral and social discussions.

fauigerzigerk 4y ago

I agree that it's not possible to steer clear of politics. But there is more than one way to discuss politics and political aspects related to hacking and entrepreneurship (such as markets, oligopolies, net neutrality, copyrights, patents, encryption, etc) One way is to focus on difficult questions, on the inevitable trade-offs and on interesting, perhaps less conventional solutions. These debates are supposed to make people think. The other is to declare all questions settled and focus on rhetorical tactics to suppress the enemy. Stop thinking, start acting, crush the evil enemy, it's about life and death! In my opinion, this latter form of politics should be kept off HN. Thinking is not a luxury that we can no longer afford once decisions become important to people's lives. It's a necessity at all times and it needs space.

giantg2 4y ago
"political aspects related to hacking and entrepreneurship (such as markets, oligopolies, net neutrality, copyrights, patents, encryption, etc)" I agree that if it's related like these topics, that it has a place here. One thing that is on here often is the talk about housing density and zoning. I don't think that has a technical tie-in to entrepreneurship or hacking. That said, I don't really mind as long as the conversation occurs with an open mind and people are bringing new ideas to the table and not just parroting the mainstream takes.

kortilla 4y ago

I disagree, I think it’s a reflection of lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to political topics. People are so polarized now they have lost the ability to discuss nuance, see the other side, or really compromise at all. Everything is couched in terms of “with us or against us” extremist dichotomies much like the one hiding in the undertone of your post. Of course everyone thinks their political views are critical to life the same way people think their religion is important. It’s still super rude to bring up religion in an orthogonal topic and it’s still super rude to do the same with politics.

giantg2 4y ago
"I disagree, I think it’s a reflection of lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to political topics. People are so polarized now they have lost the ability to discuss nuance, see the other side, or really compromise at all." I think this is generally true, but I also think HN is one of the more open minded places on most of the topics. I think the main problem I have seen in political debates on here are when someone automatically assumes a scientific finding should be policy. In reality, we as a society need to figure out how to apply that finding in a way that balances multiple concerns and fits with society's other rules and values.
adventured 4y ago
I disagree with you and the parent as to the core issue / cause. Critical thinking skills generally didn't vanish over the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years. That still exists and you can see it in numerous other topics of discussion that don't get so heated. In some spheres of discourse such skills have been overridden by emotion, feelings, however. People are being taught to suppress rational thought and to unleash emotional reaction instead. What has happened is a cultural shift in which outrage behavior, reaction-to-whatever, being triggered, feelings-as-all-important, et al. has become acceptable and primary. Virtue signaling - which is a resulting disease of this shift - is omnipresent today. That all started to build notably throughout the prior decade and accelerated during the Trump years. Emotional reaction and how strong that reaction is, became a way to win contests intellectually. This primacy of feelings is now being taught throughout the US at all levels and at all times. It's an intellectual disaster, it turns adults into infants emotionally and intellectually. It stunts their growth mentally and it makes them fragile, weak, unable to partake in rigourous debate without shattering down to emotionally acting out (if you're losing in a debate, throw a culturally potent accusation card to end the debate). For a masterclass in this behavior observe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, when she does something stupid or ignorant, or when she is caught lying, and watch how she avoids responsibility (she acts out very emotionally and immediately begins throwing any and all accusation cards to deflect and shut down discussion); or observe her approach to argumentation generally, she always argues from feelings-as-primary (watch how she uses her hands as she speaks, it's a tip-off); she's out on the tip of the intellectual spear for the US cultural implosion and the impending rise of violent tribalism and highly dysfunctional statism in the US culturally (and it's no coincidence she's an avowed Socialist; 20 years from now if you disagree with her emotions, her brown shirts equivalent - Antifa & Co. - will burn your house down; we're nearly at that level of primative cultural behavior now). People have gradually come to tolerate outrageous emotional behavior. It's conceptually no different than the broken window theory. Bit by bit more and more emotional, acting-out behavior has become tolerated in the culture. Now it's widespread and the US culture is increasingly a cultural ghetto. When feelings become supreme in the intellectual realm, reason and reasonable behavior loses out every time. The culture that behaves that way will collapse rapidly into tribalism and conflict, lacking the approach necessary to resolve intellectual conflict (turning to feelings and emotion as primary can only end in violent conflict in an intellectual contest, there's no way then to determine right from wrong culturally other than who can shriek the loudest or hit the hardest).

FabHK 4y ago

> politics directly and noticeably impacts the QoL of far more people today > difference between life and death for many people who happily steered clear of "politics" 5 years ago > The world is going through shared turmoil right now You seem to be implying that the political situation has deteriorated and become more violent. Is that so? In 1968, several students were killed during protests against the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights movement sparked demonstrations and riots during which many people were killed (eg 34 at the Watts riots). The 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in 63 deaths. And that's only in the US. In China, you had TianAnMen in 1989. In Germany, you had the Rote Armee Fraktion (Baader-Meinhoff) terror until 1998 with scores of deaths. The Irish Troubles also lasted until 1998 and killed over 3000 people. So, I'd say it is not worse now than, say, five decades ago. It could be that we have had one or two particularly peaceful decades, but I wonder how much bias there is in that assessment. How could one quantify it, or otherwise try to capture it objectively?

pjc50 4y ago
Good example of wilful misinterpretation: previous comment says "5 years", so you quote a bunch of examples from several decades ago.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Sorry, I should have been clearer. GP comment posits a deterioration over the last 5 to 10 years. 1. That deterioration might be imaginary, due to recency bias. One would need to examine it carefully. 2. That recent deterioration is most certainly embedded within a massive improvement over a longer horizon.
  - nend 4y ago
    >2. That recent deterioration is most certainly embedded within a massive improvement over a longer horizon. The point was that political discussion became more common on this board in the last five years due to this "deterioration." So whether things are better now than 60 years ago isn't relevant to that point.

eevilspock 4y ago

One can say that the exclusion of politics from HN is itself politics. Likewise the debate in the comments herein is a manifestation of politics. Is technology entrepreneurship and science better served by having a politics-free zone, like the Olympics? Or is society worse served by having a class of people and an industry operate as if politics is orthogonal to it, as if the whole nature of the enterprise isn't built upon a particular political ethos and system that sustains its current incarnation, possibly at the expense of other classes of people or society as a whole? Is HN the Galt's Gulch of the social media world, where techies can withdraw from the rest of society because they can?

dang 4y ago
There's no exclusion of politics from HN, and never haws been (since it was renamed from Startup News in 2007) other than a few days in 2016 when we tried a brief experiment with it and got quite decisive results. At the same time, not all political stories are on topic. If anyone wants to read about how we draw that line, there are past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
tomrod 4y ago
> Is technology entrepreneurship and science better served by having a politics-free zone, like the Olympics? Or is society worse served by having a class of people and an industry operate as if politics is orthogonal to it, as if the whole nature of the enterprise isn't built upon a particular political ethos and system that sustains its current incarnation, possibly at the expense of other classes of people or society as a whole? While politics often appeals to morality, I'd argue these are moral and social discussions.