5 ms·

Interesting, but what does this have to do with HN?

res0nat0r 14y ago
HN has really turned into anti {government, Hollywood, big music, Facebook, Google, Craigslist, anything-else-that-is-large-and makes-a-bunch-of-money} lately so this isn't surprising.
- untog 14y ago
  Agreed. I think everyone here is aware of Reddit- if we want to talk about that kind of stuff, let's just go there.
  - tikhonj 14y ago
    Reddit also has /r/programming, so why don't we just move all the technical discussions there too, while we're at it? The reason HN is interesting is not that it has unique submissions--it mostly doesn't--but that it has consistently insightful commentary. It makes sense to bring up topics like this here rather than Reddit simply because of the resulting discussions. Also, my impression is that HN has always been disproportionately libertarianish. In fact, in my experience, this is true of the tech and startup communities in general. So I don't think this is a particularly new development.
    - jmduke 14y ago
      I'd argue that it doesn't have consistently insightful commentary with regards to these issues. I love reading HN comments on tech news/debates/articles because I know there's going to be a huge depth and breadth of different commenters' experiences and anecdotes. This generally isn't true with regards to political/social stuff, where the vast majority of commenters have the same belief and experience. That being said, I don't really mind the submissions -- because they're easily identifiable -- I just hope they aren't signals of a larger trend towards generalism. (Reddit, too, used to be predominantly tech/programming articles.)
      - Jach 14y ago
        I like to keep in mind http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html for these topics. And it does seem like there have been more and more of them--hopefully at worst it's a trend to "tech, programming, startups, and politics" rather than full generality. From that essay, the large number of comments on these threads is explained by "Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions." Though I would add that this extends to many more subjects, including bashing companies. If submissions to nothing more than image macros ever get popular, then it's time to jump ship because HN has become way too much like Reddit.
    - lotharbot 14y ago
      One of the reason HN has consistently insightful commentary is that we consistently flag/downvote non-insightful articles and posts. You can't simply introduce more social-justice type articles and expect the rest of HN to stay the same. This is why I recommend sticking with the site guidelines: if it would be covered on TV news (this would!) it doesn't belong here, unless it's evidence of some new phenomena (this isn't!)
- Karunamon 14y ago
  Well, government, Hollywood, Big music, Facebook, (arguably) Google, Craigslist, and any other enterprise which is large and makes a bunch of money, are clear and present dangers to the mostly free internet we have today. Which, considering my job, and considering the average startup, is the biggest threat to their existence. If this bothers you, good. It should.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    Craigslist is a danger to the free internet? I've browsed my way into the twilight zone...
    - res0nat0r 14y ago
      Since it doesn't allow other websites to wholesale copy it's listings and data for their own use (and monetization) it is a danger to the free(loading) internet apparently.
    - Karunamon 14y ago
      Considering you now have to give up your copyright to them if you post anything there, I'd have to say yes. Abusing our broken system of laws makes you a danger.
- AJ007 14y ago
  That sounds like the same attitude of 2600 or /. It is hardly new in this sub-culture, and has been around for decades. Innovative technologies are disruptive, and those behind the disruption generally look down on monopolies with antiquated products. Given the pace of change, sometimes we as the disruptive become the disrupted.
paulsutter 14y ago
Privacy and civil liberties are immensely important to the technology entrepreneur. We need to be aware of the legal pitfalls of technology, and be sensitive to the privacy risks we can create. I find this story very relevant to HN. For example, if you are creating an app that records sound or images, you would want to be aware of the risks to camera users. Especially if that camera is less obvious than the camera used by the photographer in this story. The law seems to be on the side of the photographer but the realities are complex. This is covered under the HN guidelines, as the intersection between technology, privacy, and civil liberties is definitely an interesting new and ongoing phenomenon.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Every civil liberties story ever posted to HN has been accompanied by that justification, and, were it to be taken seriously, there would be nothing but social justice stories on HN, there being no dearth of important social justice stories to find on any given day.
  - Steko 14y ago
    "were it to be taken seriously, there would be nothing but social justice stories" Total non-sequitur. I'm not saying I think this is a good HN article to upvote but the idea that this is somehow going to exclude everything else is bizarre.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      I think you misread (or, equally likely, I wrote unclearly). I'm not saying "if you take the article seriously, we'll have nothing but social justice stories". I'm saying that if you take the premise that social justice is inherently interesting to hackers, then we'll end up with nothing but those stories. Many people here, myself very much included, get their social justice stories in a different section of their RSS readers. It's not that those stories aren't interesting; it's that they simply aren't Hacker News, any more than updates about Girl Talk albums are Hacker News because hackers are so likely to listen to them.
385668 14y ago
I would say that it shows evidence of the increasingly common trend of police officers frequently greeting citizens going about lawful activities with violence.
- k-mcgrady 14y ago
  And what does that have to do with HN?
  - xutopia 14y ago
    http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - jusben1369 14y ago
      Off Topic indeed it would appear.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    It's technology related, is it not?
jamesmcn 14y ago
Most of us carry smart phones that could, at any time, be recording audio, photos or video. It is useful to know if the police can abuse you simply because you are suspected of recording them. Some of us are building or contemplating building products that make use of those smart phone features. If such activity is likely to result in police brutality directed at our customers, that is worth knowing. Technology impacts the real world. How and where our technology touches society in general is worth understanding.
- untog 14y ago
  Most of us carry smart phones that could, at any time, be recording audio, photos or video. Most of everyone does, though. That doesn't make it HN material. I'd wager that most of us brush our teeth, but I don't think that an article about toothbrush sales should be posted here.
  - jamesmcn 14y ago
    > I'd wager that most of us brush our teeth Woah, woah, woah! Let's try to be realistic here!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
adaml_623 14y ago
You have to know about the world in order to change it. I don't want to sound like an idiot spouting zen koans but you really have to be aware of major trends to be able to navigate around them or even perhaps change them. The clash between technology and authority is a very interesting one. The individual, the mob and the government are all empowered differently by each new advance.
- davidw 14y ago
  So read a newspaper, no? Nothing says you have to get the totality of your news from HN.
tptacek 14y ago
It has nothing at all to do with HN.
- thebigshane 14y ago
  Yet here we all are, reading it and discussing it. :-)
- larrys 14y ago
  I think there is a story here actually that is a valuable lesson to those who read HN. He goes to a great lengths to tell this as "nothing to see here, move along.." Now why would he do that? My theory on this is that in the past he didn't have to contend with pain in the ass bystanders doing the same thing that he did. Those amateurs are now making it increasingly difficult for a professional like him to do his job. As a result he wants to send a message out there for fear that if he doesn't his rights will be restricted as a result of others behaviors. It's a little "last man over the bridge". The other possibility of course is that he has something to hide. He doesn't want to stir the hornets nest for fear that something will happen to him and he wants to keep a low profile by ending this as soon as possible.
  - harshreality 14y ago
    Really? He didn't say there was nothing to see here. He said his rights were violated (and given his professional history, he seems capable of making that determination). He said he was appalled at his treatment, at the individual police who did this to him, and the people who are backing up the police who did this to him. His equivocation was intended to head off the "police are all nazis because one of them took my camera and arrested me when I was in the middle of a crime scene and interfering with the police" attitude that's all too common. He pointed out that there is a line between responsible documentation of events, and interference, and that line is crossed sometimes, and people criticize the police anyway, and that's not right.
  - jcc80 14y ago
    I agree that he might be concerned about the proliferation of amateur journalism. But, my guess is that his balanced attitude is really because doesn't want to be known as a problem photographer to NYPD officers. It would just make his job (and life) more difficult.
lifeguard 14y ago
American democracy has now begun to begin "The Internet Reformation". This will be annoying for the apathetic. Expect significant friction with police as they are the tools of those currently in power. To put it another way, how useful is the right to read the source if one does not have the right to free speech, assembly, religion (or lack there of), and petition for redress of grievances. To be even more blunt, the Magna Carta Libertatum is under attack.
liquidcool 14y ago
While civil liberty issues get upvoted here, I think the added element of photography amplifies the interest. The intersection between techies and photography enthusiasts seems pretty high (you'll note there are a number of photography/imaging technology stories here as well).
- MartinCron 14y ago
  Photography, even before digital, has always been such a technical art form that it makes sense that a lot of hacker-types are drawn to it. I have more computers in my house than cameras, but only barely.
mmaunder 14y ago
It's part of the Redditization. Please try to keep up.

HN has really turned into anti {government, Hollywood, big music, Facebook, Google, Craigslist, anything-else-that-is-large-and makes-a-bunch-of-money} lately so this isn't surprising.

untog 14y ago
Agreed. I think everyone here is aware of Reddit- if we want to talk about that kind of stuff, let's just go there.
- tikhonj 14y ago
  Reddit also has /r/programming, so why don't we just move all the technical discussions there too, while we're at it? The reason HN is interesting is not that it has unique submissions--it mostly doesn't--but that it has consistently insightful commentary. It makes sense to bring up topics like this here rather than Reddit simply because of the resulting discussions. Also, my impression is that HN has always been disproportionately libertarianish. In fact, in my experience, this is true of the tech and startup communities in general. So I don't think this is a particularly new development.
  - jmduke 14y ago
    I'd argue that it doesn't have consistently insightful commentary with regards to these issues. I love reading HN comments on tech news/debates/articles because I know there's going to be a huge depth and breadth of different commenters' experiences and anecdotes. This generally isn't true with regards to political/social stuff, where the vast majority of commenters have the same belief and experience. That being said, I don't really mind the submissions -- because they're easily identifiable -- I just hope they aren't signals of a larger trend towards generalism. (Reddit, too, used to be predominantly tech/programming articles.)
    - Jach 14y ago
      I like to keep in mind http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html for these topics. And it does seem like there have been more and more of them--hopefully at worst it's a trend to "tech, programming, startups, and politics" rather than full generality. From that essay, the large number of comments on these threads is explained by "Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions." Though I would add that this extends to many more subjects, including bashing companies. If submissions to nothing more than image macros ever get popular, then it's time to jump ship because HN has become way too much like Reddit.
  - lotharbot 14y ago
    One of the reason HN has consistently insightful commentary is that we consistently flag/downvote non-insightful articles and posts. You can't simply introduce more social-justice type articles and expect the rest of HN to stay the same. This is why I recommend sticking with the site guidelines: if it would be covered on TV news (this would!) it doesn't belong here, unless it's evidence of some new phenomena (this isn't!)
Karunamon 14y ago
Well, government, Hollywood, Big music, Facebook, (arguably) Google, Craigslist, and any other enterprise which is large and makes a bunch of money, are clear and present dangers to the mostly free internet we have today. Which, considering my job, and considering the average startup, is the biggest threat to their existence. If this bothers you, good. It should.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Craigslist is a danger to the free internet? I've browsed my way into the twilight zone...
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    Since it doesn't allow other websites to wholesale copy it's listings and data for their own use (and monetization) it is a danger to the free(loading) internet apparently.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    Considering you now have to give up your copyright to them if you post anything there, I'd have to say yes. Abusing our broken system of laws makes you a danger.
AJ007 14y ago
That sounds like the same attitude of 2600 or /. It is hardly new in this sub-culture, and has been around for decades. Innovative technologies are disruptive, and those behind the disruption generally look down on monopolies with antiquated products. Given the pace of change, sometimes we as the disruptive become the disrupted.

paulsutter 14y ago

Privacy and civil liberties are immensely important to the technology entrepreneur. We need to be aware of the legal pitfalls of technology, and be sensitive to the privacy risks we can create. I find this story very relevant to HN. For example, if you are creating an app that records sound or images, you would want to be aware of the risks to camera users. Especially if that camera is less obvious than the camera used by the photographer in this story. The law seems to be on the side of the photographer but the realities are complex. This is covered under the HN guidelines, as the intersection between technology, privacy, and civil liberties is definitely an interesting new and ongoing phenomenon.

tptacek 14y ago
Every civil liberties story ever posted to HN has been accompanied by that justification, and, were it to be taken seriously, there would be nothing but social justice stories on HN, there being no dearth of important social justice stories to find on any given day.
- Steko 14y ago
  "were it to be taken seriously, there would be nothing but social justice stories" Total non-sequitur. I'm not saying I think this is a good HN article to upvote but the idea that this is somehow going to exclude everything else is bizarre.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I think you misread (or, equally likely, I wrote unclearly). I'm not saying "if you take the article seriously, we'll have nothing but social justice stories". I'm saying that if you take the premise that social justice is inherently interesting to hackers, then we'll end up with nothing but those stories. Many people here, myself very much included, get their social justice stories in a different section of their RSS readers. It's not that those stories aren't interesting; it's that they simply aren't Hacker News, any more than updates about Girl Talk albums are Hacker News because hackers are so likely to listen to them.

385668 14y ago

I would say that it shows evidence of the increasingly common trend of police officers frequently greeting citizens going about lawful activities with violence.

k-mcgrady 14y ago
And what does that have to do with HN?
- xutopia 14y ago
  http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - jusben1369 14y ago
    Off Topic indeed it would appear.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  It's technology related, is it not?

jamesmcn 14y ago

Most of us carry smart phones that could, at any time, be recording audio, photos or video. It is useful to know if the police can abuse you simply because you are suspected of recording them. Some of us are building or contemplating building products that make use of those smart phone features. If such activity is likely to result in police brutality directed at our customers, that is worth knowing. Technology impacts the real world. How and where our technology touches society in general is worth understanding.

untog 14y ago
Most of us carry smart phones that could, at any time, be recording audio, photos or video. Most of everyone does, though. That doesn't make it HN material. I'd wager that most of us brush our teeth, but I don't think that an article about toothbrush sales should be posted here.
- jamesmcn 14y ago
  > I'd wager that most of us brush our teeth Woah, woah, woah! Let's try to be realistic here!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

adaml_623 14y ago

You have to know about the world in order to change it. I don't want to sound like an idiot spouting zen koans but you really have to be aware of major trends to be able to navigate around them or even perhaps change them. The clash between technology and authority is a very interesting one. The individual, the mob and the government are all empowered differently by each new advance.

davidw 14y ago
So read a newspaper, no? Nothing says you have to get the totality of your news from HN.

tptacek 14y ago

It has nothing at all to do with HN.

thebigshane 14y ago
Yet here we all are, reading it and discussing it. :-)
larrys 14y ago
I think there is a story here actually that is a valuable lesson to those who read HN. He goes to a great lengths to tell this as "nothing to see here, move along.." Now why would he do that? My theory on this is that in the past he didn't have to contend with pain in the ass bystanders doing the same thing that he did. Those amateurs are now making it increasingly difficult for a professional like him to do his job. As a result he wants to send a message out there for fear that if he doesn't his rights will be restricted as a result of others behaviors. It's a little "last man over the bridge". The other possibility of course is that he has something to hide. He doesn't want to stir the hornets nest for fear that something will happen to him and he wants to keep a low profile by ending this as soon as possible.
- harshreality 14y ago
  Really? He didn't say there was nothing to see here. He said his rights were violated (and given his professional history, he seems capable of making that determination). He said he was appalled at his treatment, at the individual police who did this to him, and the people who are backing up the police who did this to him. His equivocation was intended to head off the "police are all nazis because one of them took my camera and arrested me when I was in the middle of a crime scene and interfering with the police" attitude that's all too common. He pointed out that there is a line between responsible documentation of events, and interference, and that line is crossed sometimes, and people criticize the police anyway, and that's not right.
- jcc80 14y ago
  I agree that he might be concerned about the proliferation of amateur journalism. But, my guess is that his balanced attitude is really because doesn't want to be known as a problem photographer to NYPD officers. It would just make his job (and life) more difficult.

lifeguard 14y ago

American democracy has now begun to begin "The Internet Reformation". This will be annoying for the apathetic. Expect significant friction with police as they are the tools of those currently in power. To put it another way, how useful is the right to read the source if one does not have the right to free speech, assembly, religion (or lack there of), and petition for redress of grievances. To be even more blunt, the Magna Carta Libertatum is under attack.

liquidcool 14y ago

While civil liberty issues get upvoted here, I think the added element of photography amplifies the interest. The intersection between techies and photography enthusiasts seems pretty high (you'll note there are a number of photography/imaging technology stories here as well).

MartinCron 14y ago
Photography, even before digital, has always been such a technical art form that it makes sense that a lot of hacker-types are drawn to it. I have more computers in my house than cameras, but only barely.

mmaunder 14y ago

It's part of the Redditization. Please try to keep up.