4 ms·

Relevance?

kachapopopow 2y ago
Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, *unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon*. A former US president being convicted of a crime is one.
- falcrist 2y ago
  It also may be worth simply providing an outlet for people to make a comment so it doesn't intrude on usual business.
ok_dad 2y ago
He’s the first president in history to be convicted of a felony. This particular one is related to election tampering, where he paid off a pornstar that he had sex with while married to not tell the story during the 2016 election season. Seems like a big deal that many of us here should discuss. Hopefully as adults with the understanding that our country must socially mend ourselves eventually.
- kachapopopow 2y ago
  Being an outsider I'm particularly interested in this as my friend keeps claiming that these charges are bogus even thought they're a smart guy. As far as I understand it's a jury trial which means it wasn't up to the judge to make the call.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > As far as I understand it's a jury trial which means it wasn't up to the judge to make the call. IANAL but I've done some jury-duty: As a general rule the judge is responsible for determining things like "which laws are involved here", and when there's a jury the judge creates instructions that cover the rest of it like: "The law says X. The question of Y is not relevant and you should not let it affect your decision. You must convict if ((A and B) or C)." So in a jury trial the judge might rule "those aren't actually charges you can make", but not so much "that evidence is fake" or "that person is lying" etc.
  - falcrist 2y ago
    Being intelligent might correlate with a more liberal outlook, but I know a few highly intelligent people who are big fans of trump. My father was a nuclear reactor operator and electrician for a big chunk of his 22 years in the Navy (EM-N, E-8, worked mostly on fast attack subs). He was a manager at multiple nuclear powerplants on the East Coast before leaving that industry. He's honestly highly intelligent and curious. He's definitely a trump fan. He thinks Biden is going to destroy the US. Dude's politics are unhinged. One of my siblings is disabled, bi, and trans, yet both of my parents supported trump openly in 2016. C'est la vie. It goes to show you never can tell.
    - cam_l 2y ago
      I don't doubt what you have said, and it follows my own experiences of politics in Australia. But i must say, when I hear the reasons why people vote the way they do, my estimation of their intelligence drops significantly.
      - pennybanks 2y ago
        does intelligence and voting have some sort of correlation? should a vote from an unintelligent person count less in an hypothetical better system?
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        Speaking in pure hypotheticals, the most effective form of governance is benevolent dictatorship. ... But in terms of forms that are practically implementable without perfect knowledge and control of the future, there are huge risks involved with altering the amount a person's vote counts based upon some kind of gamable criteria.
- stanislavb 2y ago
  The bigger deal to me is that so many Americans (that many that he could win) are still going to vote for Trump! That's so disappointing of the American society.
  - richrichie 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - swader999 2y ago
    Many of them reacted with their wallets tonight. His donation platform couldn't handle the load for quite some time tonight apparently.
- richrichie 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ok_dad 2y ago
    Well, the things I said were proven in open court with evidence and witnesses, and today the verdict came in: 34 guilty counts. You just claimed a bunch of stuff without any evidence, so I’m not sure what your comment is worth.
Terr_ 2y ago
Strange, I don't recall people questioning the "relevance" of other popular things this week like (A) national housing prices or (B) exoplanets or even (C) whether music makes food taste better... So why would you challenge this, which is an extremely noteworthy legal case with internationally-(in)famous politicians that may affect the future of many readers? Sure, there's always a priority on tech news here, but that's not the same as banning all the other articles that don't involving a beeping computer or software for a beeping computer. I see this as plenty notable and relevant to the regular-audience here, I only worry about controlling the inevitable cascade of near-dupe submissions.
- kachapopopow 2y ago
  This is actually a dupe as seen in another comment, before this I didn't know search existed since my extension for dark mode made it almost completely invisible.
- bitshiftfaced 2y ago
  > Strange, I don't recall people questioning the "relevance" of other popular things this week I do. Just a few hours ago, the Supreme Court NRA first amendment decision got nuked from HN.

Relevance?

Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, *unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon*. A former US president being convicted of a crime is one.

falcrist 2y ago
It also may be worth simply providing an outlet for people to make a comment so it doesn't intrude on usual business.

ok_dad 2y ago

He’s the first president in history to be convicted of a felony. This particular one is related to election tampering, where he paid off a pornstar that he had sex with while married to not tell the story during the 2016 election season. Seems like a big deal that many of us here should discuss. Hopefully as adults with the understanding that our country must socially mend ourselves eventually.

kachapopopow 2y ago
Being an outsider I'm particularly interested in this as my friend keeps claiming that these charges are bogus even thought they're a smart guy. As far as I understand it's a jury trial which means it wasn't up to the judge to make the call.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > As far as I understand it's a jury trial which means it wasn't up to the judge to make the call. IANAL but I've done some jury-duty: As a general rule the judge is responsible for determining things like "which laws are involved here", and when there's a jury the judge creates instructions that cover the rest of it like: "The law says X. The question of Y is not relevant and you should not let it affect your decision. You must convict if ((A and B) or C)." So in a jury trial the judge might rule "those aren't actually charges you can make", but not so much "that evidence is fake" or "that person is lying" etc.
- falcrist 2y ago
  Being intelligent might correlate with a more liberal outlook, but I know a few highly intelligent people who are big fans of trump. My father was a nuclear reactor operator and electrician for a big chunk of his 22 years in the Navy (EM-N, E-8, worked mostly on fast attack subs). He was a manager at multiple nuclear powerplants on the East Coast before leaving that industry. He's honestly highly intelligent and curious. He's definitely a trump fan. He thinks Biden is going to destroy the US. Dude's politics are unhinged. One of my siblings is disabled, bi, and trans, yet both of my parents supported trump openly in 2016. C'est la vie. It goes to show you never can tell.
  - cam_l 2y ago
    I don't doubt what you have said, and it follows my own experiences of politics in Australia. But i must say, when I hear the reasons why people vote the way they do, my estimation of their intelligence drops significantly.
    - pennybanks 2y ago
      does intelligence and voting have some sort of correlation? should a vote from an unintelligent person count less in an hypothetical better system?
      - shadowgovt 2y ago
        Speaking in pure hypotheticals, the most effective form of governance is benevolent dictatorship. ... But in terms of forms that are practically implementable without perfect knowledge and control of the future, there are huge risks involved with altering the amount a person's vote counts based upon some kind of gamable criteria.
stanislavb 2y ago
The bigger deal to me is that so many Americans (that many that he could win) are still going to vote for Trump! That's so disappointing of the American society.
- richrichie 2y ago
  [flagged]
- swader999 2y ago
  Many of them reacted with their wallets tonight. His donation platform couldn't handle the load for quite some time tonight apparently.
richrichie 2y ago
[flagged]
- ok_dad 2y ago
  Well, the things I said were proven in open court with evidence and witnesses, and today the verdict came in: 34 guilty counts. You just claimed a bunch of stuff without any evidence, so I’m not sure what your comment is worth.

Terr_ 2y ago

Strange, I don't recall people questioning the "relevance" of other popular things this week like (A) national housing prices or (B) exoplanets or even (C) whether music makes food taste better... So why would you challenge this, which is an extremely noteworthy legal case with internationally-(in)famous politicians that may affect the future of many readers? Sure, there's always a priority on tech news here, but that's not the same as banning all the other articles that don't involving a beeping computer or software for a beeping computer. I see this as plenty notable and relevant to the regular-audience here, I only worry about controlling the inevitable cascade of near-dupe submissions.

kachapopopow 2y ago
This is actually a dupe as seen in another comment, before this I didn't know search existed since my extension for dark mode made it almost completely invisible.
bitshiftfaced 2y ago
> Strange, I don't recall people questioning the "relevance" of other popular things this week I do. Just a few hours ago, the Supreme Court NRA first amendment decision got nuked from HN.