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I Quit Hacker News

(mattmaroon.com)
261 points cwan | 8 comments | 23 Nov 10 17:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.843s | source | bottom
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lwhi ◴[23 Nov 10 17:16 UTC] No.1934446[source]▶
Why not quit quietly?
replies(6): >>1934477 #>>1934496 #>>1934509 #>>1934536 #>>1934538 #>>1934641 #
davidw ◴[23 Nov 10 17:28 UTC] No.1934509[source]▶
Perhaps PG will change his mind about allowing political articles (TSA)?
replies(3): >>1934539 #>>1934555 #>>1934582 #
1. devmonk ◴[23 Nov 10 17:34 UTC] No.1934539[source]▶
How is the TSA political?
replies(3): >>1934569 #>>1934596 #>>1934698 #
2. davidw ◴[23 Nov 10 17:41 UTC] No.1934569[source]▶
Smells like politics to me. It's all over the place here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/

If you feel a need to discuss it, perhaps that would be a more appropriate forum?

Not to mention featuring on sites like cnn.com. It's a pretty big issue that is certainly not "startups" or "tech". Yeah, there's tech involved, but the issue is how does society believe it should be used: politics.

replies(2): >>1934632 #>>1934878 #
3. gloob ◴[23 Nov 10 17:47 UTC] No.1934596[source]▶
The TSA isn't. The TSA articles are. They have almost nothing to do with startups, and even less to do with tech. They are the antithesis of intellectually interesting.
replies(1): >>1935188 #
4. lwhi ◴[23 Nov 10 17:57 UTC] No.1934632[source]▶
So how do you decide if an article is 'political'?
replies(1): >>1935236 #
5. pohl ◴[23 Nov 10 18:10 UTC] No.1934698[source]▶
Because the erosion of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search & seizure is implicit in every article about the TSA, and some people would rather we trade essential liberties for an immeasurably small increase in safety in silence. And, thank you sir, may I have another[1]. This makes it political.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ

6. bballbackus ◴[23 Nov 10 18:49 UTC] No.1934878[source]▶
Something occupying /r/politics adds no merit to its political status.
7. rbancroft ◴[23 Nov 10 20:20 UTC] No.1935188[source]▶
The site is currently called Hacker News, not Startup or Tech news. Even though the site is heavily associated with the ycombinator brand, for a lot of people, the hacker identity has a lot to do with personal freedom, even more so than technology. So if this site is really only about startups and tech then it is poorly named.

Startups can be very hacker-oriented, however forming a startup to sell out to a large corp. in the end is very anti-hacker in my opinion. But you don't see people complaining about every startup article on the site. The reality seems to be that the site attracts a cross section of visitors.

Resisting unjust searches and ridiculous security theatre procedures is hacking. The fact that it is also political is irrelevant. I have a hard time understanding a mentality where these issues are not considered interesting or important as they affect our most basic rights. Is your startup or your tech really worth anything without freedom?

8. davidw ◴[23 Nov 10 20:32 UTC] No.1935236{3}[source]▶
Whether you like them or not, you really can't tell? To me it's pretty obvious what goes where, with a few things that are on the edge, like politics that are really important for tech and startups, like net neutrality. The TSA articles aren't tech or startups at all. I think the "pro-politics" people would still vote them up if there were no scanners and it was only about being groped by the goons.