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Hacker News? How does a slate.com article like this get on the front page? I've read freshman philosophy papers that were more intellectually engaging than this

Hacker News? How does a slate.com article like this get on the front page? I've read freshman philosophy papers that were more intellectually engaging than this.

bkbleikamp 18y ago
The members of Hacker News are very smart (on average) and probably enjoy reading and thinking about things beyond programming. Intellectual stimulation comes from things other than programming.
- axod 18y ago
  They're probably smart enough to get "things beyond programming" from other sources wouldn't you say? Discussing religion (again), why women are cold, what 'adolescence' means, is not hacking IMHO. There is more than enough of that sort of thing elsewhere.
  - unalone 18y ago
    No. But similarly, there's more that interests the average hacker than programming and programming articles. I tend not to find the programming articles as interesting, actually. There's an equilibrium here. Some weeks we get lots of programming articles and nothing else. Some weeks we get only Linux articles, or only Google articles. Some weeks we get a lot of "off topic" stuff. So far things haven't gotten too out-of-hand. I think things are still ticking along pretty nicely.
shader 18y ago
In that case, maybe you should post links to them; they'd probably provide an interesting, welcome alternative to articles this.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Except that they aren't Hacker News.
- nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  if you're bored. here's why the ideology I, and most entrepreneurs espouse does not work. http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-a...
robg 18y ago
On-Topic: 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. Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hacker News? How does a slate.com article like this get on the front page? I've read freshman philosophy papers that were more intellectually engaging than this.

bkbleikamp 18y ago

The members of Hacker News are very smart (on average) and probably enjoy reading and thinking about things beyond programming. Intellectual stimulation comes from things other than programming.

axod 18y ago
They're probably smart enough to get "things beyond programming" from other sources wouldn't you say? Discussing religion (again), why women are cold, what 'adolescence' means, is not hacking IMHO. There is more than enough of that sort of thing elsewhere.
- unalone 18y ago
  No. But similarly, there's more that interests the average hacker than programming and programming articles. I tend not to find the programming articles as interesting, actually. There's an equilibrium here. Some weeks we get lots of programming articles and nothing else. Some weeks we get only Linux articles, or only Google articles. Some weeks we get a lot of "off topic" stuff. So far things haven't gotten too out-of-hand. I think things are still ticking along pretty nicely.

shader 18y ago

In that case, maybe you should post links to them; they'd probably provide an interesting, welcome alternative to articles this.

run4yourlives 18y ago
Except that they aren't Hacker News.
nazgulnarsil 18y ago
if you're bored. here's why the ideology I, and most entrepreneurs espouse does not work. http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-a...

robg 18y ago

On-Topic: 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. Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html