4 ms·

Meta: Why are there multiple political / social commentary posts on every page of HN now? Was it always like this, or is it worse now? If you want to read socia

Meta: Why are there multiple political / social commentary posts on every page of HN now? Was it always like this, or is it worse now? If you want to read social/political "news", well, literally every other media source in existence can provide those stories for you. Why on Hacker News? It'll just be a comment thread of political arguing.

j-j-j-j 3y ago
[flagged]
23B1 3y ago
The technologists that read HN have created a surveillance panopticon that will make it very easy for the state to go after unpaid taxes – particularly those who can't afford the army of accountants, laywers, and lobbyists required to hide their income, offshore their businesses, or otherwise avoid paying their fair share. SV techbros will happily sell your data to whichever tyrant is paying, including the federal government. https://www.csis.org/analysis/surveillance-sale https://www.csis.org/analysis/surveillance-sale https://epic.org/issues/consumer-privacy/data-brokers/ https://epic.org/issues/consumer-privacy/data-brokers/ https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/how-your-online-data-is-being-abused-to-surveil-you-and-violate-your-freedoms https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/how-your-online-data-... https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-releases-documents-confirming-the-nsa-buys-americans-internet-browsing-records-calls-on-intelligence-community-to-stop-buying-us-data-obtained-unlawfully-from-data-brokers-violating-recent-ftc-order https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-relea...
h2odragon 3y ago
Propaganda spreads to pollute all available niches.
palmfacehn 3y ago
Agreed. It is always posts repeating left/center-left dogmas. Agree or disagree, fine. It is also fair to dismiss the entire exercise as meaningless bickering. However I find it hard to describe this as "intellectual curiosity", when the discussion is narrowly limited to specific brands of sloganeering. Entire books have been written on some of the common disputes arising on this site. There's rarely anything new added in the usual short comments here. Most commonly I read a pop culture interpretation/regurgitation of the same concepts. Perhaps it was something a talking head repeated somewhere? When I have made the mistake of engaging, I'll cite an author or perhaps link a short article by the same author summarizing some of the points. Inevitably, posters will smear the source for having, "an agenda". As if all of politics isn't framed from within "agendas". It is bad enough on explicitly partisan posts like this one, but I'm also noticing politics creeping into other benign areas. A discussion about Google's practices will always lead down the rabbit hole of "more regulation and government can solve that!". Observations around the business cycle, state managed economy and how these factors fuel monopolies are less welcome. Perhaps John Oliver didn't give those talking points.

j-j-j-j 3y ago

[flagged]

23B1 3y ago

The technologists that read HN have created a surveillance panopticon that will make it very easy for the state to go after unpaid taxes – particularly those who can't afford the army of accountants, laywers, and lobbyists required to hide their income, offshore their businesses, or otherwise avoid paying their fair share. SV techbros will happily sell your data to whichever tyrant is paying, including the federal government. https://www.csis.org/analysis/surveillance-sale https://www.csis.org/analysis/surveillance-sale https://epic.org/issues/consumer-privacy/data-brokers/ https://epic.org/issues/consumer-privacy/data-brokers/ https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/how-your-online-data-is-being-abused-to-surveil-you-and-violate-your-freedoms https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/how-your-online-data-... https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-releases-documents-confirming-the-nsa-buys-americans-internet-browsing-records-calls-on-intelligence-community-to-stop-buying-us-data-obtained-unlawfully-from-data-brokers-violating-recent-ftc-order https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-relea...

h2odragon 3y ago

Propaganda spreads to pollute all available niches.

palmfacehn 3y ago

Agreed. It is always posts repeating left/center-left dogmas. Agree or disagree, fine. It is also fair to dismiss the entire exercise as meaningless bickering. However I find it hard to describe this as "intellectual curiosity", when the discussion is narrowly limited to specific brands of sloganeering. Entire books have been written on some of the common disputes arising on this site. There's rarely anything new added in the usual short comments here. Most commonly I read a pop culture interpretation/regurgitation of the same concepts. Perhaps it was something a talking head repeated somewhere? When I have made the mistake of engaging, I'll cite an author or perhaps link a short article by the same author summarizing some of the points. Inevitably, posters will smear the source for having, "an agenda". As if all of politics isn't framed from within "agendas". It is bad enough on explicitly partisan posts like this one, but I'm also noticing politics creeping into other benign areas. A discussion about Google's practices will always lead down the rabbit hole of "more regulation and government can solve that!". Observations around the business cycle, state managed economy and how these factors fuel monopolies are less welcome. Perhaps John Oliver didn't give those talking points.