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I, for one, believe that political issues like warrantless wiretapping and SOPA cannot be extricated from other news that is deeply important to Internet-based

I, for one, believe that political issues like warrantless wiretapping and SOPA cannot be extricated from other news that is deeply important to Internet-based startups. While politics can be deeply divisive and can suck all the air out of the room, this is not strictly a requirement. People can respectfully agree on issues that matter to their businesses. Most entrepreneurs know that it is critical to their business that foreigners not avoid doing business altogether because their country spies on their customers. They also understand that big businesses would likely abuse laws like SOPA that harm small startups who cannot enforce its provisions and benefit big players who can. While I understand the desire to avoid overtly political topics and debates, I find that burying your head in the sand does nothing to protect you from issues that affect us all. There should be a clear distinction to classify these issues are pertinent or not pertinent to this site.

drstewart 13y ago
How many meetings have you had at your workplace to discuss these issues? Surely you must have nestled a meeting or two between standup and sprint planning to discuss SOPA or the NSA? I'm guessing none. And I see it similar to HN -- these are topics that are important and affect you, but they're not relevant to what you do. Personally, I come to HN to discuss technology, not politics.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  There are "not relevant to what you do" because most of the people you meet at work probably don't give a crap about anything else than the end of their (short) noses. It's common in people in general. I actually tend to bring out issues like SOPA or NSA at work regularly, only to find them losing to topics like "what's your opinion on the last Game of Thrones episode". Even in a situation a company could take a meaningful stand, the issue typically gets dismissed as "it doesn't affect the bottomline". And it sucks to be the only person around who cares, so at some point you just stop bringing issues up.
- mncolinlee 13y ago
  If you work at a startup, SOPA is more relevant than Sarbanes-Oxley ever was. It's only relevant, however, to people whose function is directly affected by it. In that sense, it's similar to any serious, macro-level issue that affects your company, but which goes unnoticed by the rank-and-file engineers. That doesn't mean you can ignore it.

drstewart 13y ago

How many meetings have you had at your workplace to discuss these issues? Surely you must have nestled a meeting or two between standup and sprint planning to discuss SOPA or the NSA? I'm guessing none. And I see it similar to HN -- these are topics that are important and affect you, but they're not relevant to what you do. Personally, I come to HN to discuss technology, not politics.

TeMPOraL 13y ago
There are "not relevant to what you do" because most of the people you meet at work probably don't give a crap about anything else than the end of their (short) noses. It's common in people in general. I actually tend to bring out issues like SOPA or NSA at work regularly, only to find them losing to topics like "what's your opinion on the last Game of Thrones episode". Even in a situation a company could take a meaningful stand, the issue typically gets dismissed as "it doesn't affect the bottomline". And it sucks to be the only person around who cares, so at some point you just stop bringing issues up.
mncolinlee 13y ago
If you work at a startup, SOPA is more relevant than Sarbanes-Oxley ever was. It's only relevant, however, to people whose function is directly affected by it. In that sense, it's similar to any serious, macro-level issue that affects your company, but which goes unnoticed by the rank-and-file engineers. That doesn't mean you can ignore it.