Comment by nicbou 4 days ago
It’s unfortunate that American news slip into the HN feed, and that Americans get indignant when it gets flagged. I took so much flak for saying that I already know where to hear about US politics, and don’t need it forced into every unrelated forum.
As a Canadian I have a different perspective.
I am upset when stories that are critical of the country that has threatened to annex my country are spiked by people who don’t want us to pay attention to the actions of the American government that is aided by American tech corporations and the people who work for them.
From my perspective we’re not talking about politics, we’re talking about an existential threat and we shouldn’t be letting these people’s inability to talk about these current events constructively be the reason why we can’t talk about them at all.
We should continue to talk about things like open source, self hosted software, digital sovereignty, defeating DRM, surveillance, and sousveillance and the real world reasons why these things matter.
We shouldn’t let people with brainrot stop us from talking about these very important things.
This might be an open door, but I use the amazing HN-reader app called Hack which offers a filter that hides posts via a list of keywords you can manage. Of course some false negatives happen this way, but I don't mind about that.
Front page consists of 30 links. If one of those 30 is related to politics I don't see the problem. Just don't click on it.
Right now I see two posts about Rust (don't program in it, don't care), Kyber is hiring (retired, not interested in a job), etc. That's fine though, I just don't visit those links/comments.
> If one of those 30 is related to politics I don't see the problem. Just don't click on it.
I think it's a fair issue for people trying to avoid triggering news topics. Sometimes the headlines can be really inflammatory. Avoiding them might be feasible for you and me but may be tougher for others. For example, the top post right now is titled, "ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants", which is tricky because it is tech related and straddles the line of politics and tech. But I can see how someone might get triggered by reading that. Telling someone, "Just don't click on it", may be akin to telling an alcoholic, "Just don't drink that poured beer" in this case.
It would be nice if you could unsubscribe from certain tags like you can on Tildes. That way, you would have slight control over what you see while allowing others to keep what they want to see.
I thought the question was about you reading the news, not about you preventing everyone else from reading the news.
Surely the answer is, when you see news related keywords in an article title, to simply not click through. Same as when there’s so bit of technology or corporation that doesn’t interest you.
OK well, it's been my experience that even well informed people from around the world do not understand a lot of American news, so cutting down on it probably doesn't help the nuance building. Aside from that there are a lot of Americans on HN, it's reasonable that they expect to be able to discuss what effects them.
I haven't really noticed politics of other countries get flagged that much, does it? Other than stuff that looks like propaganda from one country against another, that seems to get quickly flagged.
Finally I don't know what makes you think that HN is an unrelated to American politics forum, given that the guidelines of what the forum is for is quite lax.
Do you think maybe people from around the world dont necessarily care? The USA is not the center of the universe. If its tech related cool, otherwise let people find it somewhere else if they want it? Personally as a brit it does impact me quite a lot, so I try to keep up to date, but expecting the world to care about US news is kind of egomaniacal.
the last bit of my post should have indicated that while tech related things do tend to have a predominant position on HN, tech is not the sole purpose of the forum.
Currently on the front page I see three stories that are not tech related, if I expand the definition of tech to include anything math or science related, there is really only one story, ironically this one that you posted in.
Often however I can find as many as 6 stories on the front page that are not tech and not any politics, as HN also handles art, history, and writing quite well.
But for some reason you seem to think it's a place for tech, and American politics should be kept out, which I find somewhat funny.
It sounds like he touched a nerve but I don't think the comment to which you replied was suggesting it's everyone's duty to follow American politics, and complaining that we're egomaniacs because we discuss such topics here is akin to me whining that Panorama[1] on BBC One devotes too much time to the royals. In America, we have a common piece of advice for avoiding that problem, popularized by one of our past presidents (very different from the guy somehow in office today). It goes, "if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen."
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_(British_TV_programme
also I'm not sure why you think I expect the world to care about US news or why you would use the word egomaniacal, as it should be clear from my original post that I am not American.
> it's been my experience that even well informed people from around the world do not understand a lot of American news
I do not care to understand American news. I don't give a fuck. I follow your politics in the same way I watch a circus, but I do not need to "understand" it.
I second that and I think the HN moderation (@dang) here should do a better job keeping things on topic. That is actually super important because HN will eventually just be another reddit. Quality of conversation here has been deteriorating already significantly in the past years due to more and more people with insignificant curiosity about technology and science but all the more interest for engaging in pointless political debates.
There are other platforms for discussing Trump and his shenanigans. Reddit for example.
This comment is specifically called out as a “do not” in the HN guidelines.
It’s the very last line:
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
FWIW, dang et al do a great job and don’t deserve this slander.
PS: you were the first person I saw mention that politician’s name in this thread
If the last couple of weeks are anything to go by, I'd strongly argue the quality of discourse on any ICE/Trump/Tariffs-related topics have been at exactly Reddit-level, along with the most upvoted opinions mirroring those on Reddit almost to a tee.
I vaguely remember checking one of those ICE posts out the other day, and there was not a single comment going against the grain that was neither flagged nor heavily downvoted, out of over a hundred. Nuance/dissent wasn't even vaguely on the cards.
I don't know what your definition of Reddit-like is, but that's mine.
Nuanced understanding of a thing does not necessary ends up with opinion in the middle. Sometimes, understanding the nuance will make you walk away with "yep, this is bad and dangerous" conclusion.
Overwhelming majority of people concluding that shooting protesters to back or head is a bad thing does not imply lack of nuance or low quality of the discussion. Overwhelming majority of people concluding that political repressions and fear based government are bad thing does not not imply lack of nuance or low quality of the discussion either.
The both sides and truth in the middle knee jerk is does not represent nuance or meaningful discussion. It frequently muddles nuances, creates false equivalences and makes the discussion loose the substance.
On reddit they used to say "the down vote is not a disagree button" but that's not the case here. I've been specifically corrected when I assumed that.
So if the prevailing opinion is that ice is committing murder, it makes sense a contrary comment would be heavily down voted.
I agree that hn is heavily liberal and holds a lot of the toxic leftist anti-thought patterns that are prevalent on reddit. But I think it's more of a symptom of the country and perhaps the West being wound-up over "things".
Reddit comments would focus on the headline—essentially confirming they never read the article. And of course add a sprinkling of "Cheeto Emperor" or whatever. I've not seen that (that wasn't also then heavily "disappeared" on HN).
Regarding the past couple of weeks, I think it's rather difficult to find nuance when we all saw the videos of protesters being killed by a federal police force. Anyone trying to take the Administration's side is, I imagine, going to come across as shrill.
On the more nuanced political issues though I have been happy to see opposing viewpoints well reasoned—even when I disagreed with them. There was a time when reddit was young that you might have found the same level of discussions.
Agreed. HN has proven time and time again that it is incapable of having a good discussion on politics, or at least American politics. The threads are always chock full of flamebait, outgroup-bashing, and unwillingness to consider other points of view. I flag every single post I see about American politics at this point because they are always, without fail, extremely low quality threads.
I sympathize, and the attitude may be annoying, but you've got to realize you can not bury your head in the sand about the global rise in fascism, nor the fact that what happens in America affects the entire world. Imagine if you were to transfer your comment back to WWII era, perhaps you're French and you're saying that you're tired of hearing about this little kerfuffle between Germany and Austria... well, clearly the disinterest did not pay off.
They may be aware of it, but others who frequent this particular forum may have HN as THEIR source. When someone like the above commenter tries to gatekeep areas where discussion, particularly of things like fascism or other forms of oppression, takes place, it only serves and furthers the goals of the oppressor. There is no domain of life which is not intrinsically political. When we act like there is -- such as when we pretend politics should be off the table for discussion -- we are simply ceding ground, casting away our part in the story, and abdicating our responsibility to take that part seriously.
> There is no domain of life which is not intrinsically political.
There are a great many such domains, and the insistence that everything is political is one of the chief problems with modern society. We can, and should, be able to enjoy some things together without bringing up bickering and strife. If you drag politics into a politics free zone you aren't taking responsibility for anything, you are just being a jerk.
Whatever domain you think is apolitical is political because bad politics can happen anywhere and ruin the thing you love.
Get it? Bad people in power = you don't get to do the things you love, at some point.
Do you also believe you should discuss every other topic under the sun in the belief that not discussing it is "ceding ground" to a viewpoint or action of others?
It would seem that in your view, we should be discussing all things at all times due to this "oppressor" mindset.
This simply cannot be true.
You're clearly being facetious. I will simply say that the rise of Naziism/Authoritarianism in the west is a preeminent threat to all human beings on the planet, especially when the king of all nazis has access to the nuclear missiles. It obviously demands a sense of urgency that other topics don't.
If you disagree with that, be explicit about exactly what part.
“global rise in fascism” implies a baseline ... when was fascism declining exactly? curious what point you're measuring this rise from
GP hinted at that if you read the rest of their comment, but it took a serious nose-dive during the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, and kinda petered out with Franco.
That’s not an answer, it’s historical hand waving .. "global rise in fascism" it seems .. lol
If you are really interested in data, you might check out the Freedom House website. They have been rating countries around the world on things like free elections and civil rights since 1973, and their take is that things have been going downhill since about 2006, with countries becoming more autocratic.
Interesting. They seem to be a D.C based NGO .. but i'll check them out.
> and that Americans get indignant when it gets flagged
It's not exclusively (or mostly) U.S.A. residents who complain about contemporary politics topics getting flagged. We see plenty of complaints from Europe and elsewhere.
We've long accepted that there is a large overlap between politics and technology. The Snowden leaks in 2013 were huge on HN, as were several other Wikileaks releases well before that.
HN has never been a politics-free zone. It’s just subject to the same standard as everything else on HN: there has to be some “significant new information” to the story.