"One of the most admirable things about hackers is their ability to accomplish great things without - or in spite of government. The recent preoccupation is a b

"One of the most admirable things about hackers is their ability to accomplish great things without - or in spite of government. The recent preoccupation is a bit sad. Great minds could be focused on better things." Government is certainly capable of excess, as we see on the front page of HN every day, but there's a tremendous irony (or blindspot, more accurately) in your statement. The computer industry as we know it, let alone the Internet, would not exist if not for the government. Many of us benefited from public education at some point in our lives, or were educated at universities by professors whose research is at least to some extent government supported. Let's not mythologize ourselves by pretending we build all of this great stuff on our own in a vacuum. Like it or not, government plays a huge role in the hacker world. It can be both a huge force for innovation and an instrument of oppression. It behooves us to understand how government interacts with individuals and organizations, and current events. For me, the HN community does a great job of surfacing news stories at the intersection of politics and technology.