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HN has long been a bastion of Ron Paul fandom, going back as far as the founding of the board. So there's backstory here. I don't support either political part

HN has long been a bastion of Ron Paul fandom, going back as far as the founding of the board. So there's backstory here. I don't support either political party, and the odds are great that I will not vote for Rand Paul. However, as a technical person living in a democratic society I _am_ interested in the factors that change public policy, whether it's a RP filibuster, a Snowden leak, or a public move on policy by Wyden. Perhaps if the tech community pulled together, somebody like Wyden could cross the aisle and make it a bipartisan filibuster. Whether you like either guy or either party or not is immaterial. The important thing is to try to get a little momentum here. The system is totally hosed, and we've got a long way to go to get it functioning again.

GlickWick 11y ago
I agree that public policy that impacts software is very relevant to HN in general. However, this post is clearly meant to draw focus to supporting a political candidate specifically. A thread about the cons of the renewal of the Patriot Act without the obvious Libertarian political candidate undertones would be much more fitting for the front page of HN.
dang 11y ago
> HN has long been a bastion of Ron Paul fandom, going back as far as the founding of the board. I don't think that's accurate. Fewer than ten Ron Paul stories got much traction here in eight years, and most were either tied to more popular topics (SOPA, Snowden) or skeptical: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ron%20paul&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ron%20paul&sort=byPopularity&p... Similarly, I doubt that the interest in the current post has much to do with partisan support for a candidate. Given the community's interests, it is more likely because of what he's talking about.
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  Apologies. It appears I remember this discussion with pg and paul -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=76469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=76469 -- but not the fact that it was about reddit, not HN. It certainly felt to me like during the 2008 election that there were RP stories all over HN. Wasn't the case though. Odd.

GlickWick 11y ago

I agree that public policy that impacts software is very relevant to HN in general. However, this post is clearly meant to draw focus to supporting a political candidate specifically. A thread about the cons of the renewal of the Patriot Act without the obvious Libertarian political candidate undertones would be much more fitting for the front page of HN.

dang 11y ago

> HN has long been a bastion of Ron Paul fandom, going back as far as the founding of the board. I don't think that's accurate. Fewer than ten Ron Paul stories got much traction here in eight years, and most were either tied to more popular topics (SOPA, Snowden) or skeptical: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ron%20paul&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ron%20paul&sort=byPopularity&p... Similarly, I doubt that the interest in the current post has much to do with partisan support for a candidate. Given the community's interests, it is more likely because of what he's talking about.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Apologies. It appears I remember this discussion with pg and paul -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=76469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=76469 -- but not the fact that it was about reddit, not HN. It certainly felt to me like during the 2008 election that there were RP stories all over HN. Wasn't the case though. Odd.