Comment by JasonFruit
3 years ago
As someone who loves to discuss these topics, I don't think there's a place for them on Hacker News, and the quick flag-and-ditch act that happens when they arise is one of the reasons — along with excellent moderation, sensible rules, and a baseline pretty decent community — that HN has not descended into social-media Hell. I'd oppose any of the approaches that I've seen suggested in the comments here that would encourage these flammable topics.
> HN has not descended into social-media Hell.
I'd argue the converse - it IS a social media hell, populated primarily by the elite themselves.
Shying away from hot button social issues is inherently what the capitalist class does, because they can purchase themselves out of any particular problem. And these effects contaminate most conversations here outside the purely technical.
Abortion? Find a Euro country to quietly and cheaply complete. No need to help solve it in the USA.
Medical? Med tourism for the best and cheapest docs in the world. Why demand single payer when we can travel to a country that already has single payer.
Citizenship? That too can be purchased.
Politics? The billionaires hedge their bets by donating/bribing both major US parties. You don't lose when either choice is a win.
Guns? It's vogue to be against guns, yet hire personal protection staff who own guns and will use lethal force.
Taxes? Yeah. Move that money around, and commit tax fraud/"creative money management". Even if caught, the bribed gov't does not care.
This seems way off base as a description of HN. The set of users here who are hiring personal protection staff with guns, or using offshore tax havens, surely has measure zero.
One of the most intriguing things about HN (to me) is what a big Rohrschach test it is. There are enough data points for people to read in whatever they choose to see for whatever reasons. I'm sure the rest of the internet is like this too, but when it's your job to focus hard and long on one corner of it, you become aware of this phenomenon much more acutely.
The real world is like this but people come here to get into a bubble.