Many "hackers" fall on the conservative right-wing side of the political spectrum, but this sort of personality doesn't tend to self-identify one's self as a "h

Many "hackers" fall on the conservative right-wing side of the political spectrum, but this sort of personality doesn't tend to self-identify one's self as a "hacker" even if they share similar technical interests. For years, Slashdot has tended to attract the more straight-laced conformist breed of hacker, and (at the risk of stereotyping) they tend to have steady, reliable engineering jobs at large established companies that do a steady business. This is not to say that Slashdot doesn't attract a broad readership, just that, in particular, that subset of hacker does seem to be present there and missing here. Mostly, because you'll find stories there, that they can comment on, with first-hand experience, which, for whatever reason, don't seem to catch on here on HN. A good example might be a story about nuclear engineering, and you'll see comments from experienced nuclear engineers with military backgrounds and security clearances comment on nuclear engineering articles on Slashdot, that you wouldn't see here on HN, because in many ways that field has absolutely nothing to do with the startup scene. I'd still regard those people as "hackers" though.