[tptacek]

I'm not sure this qualifies as that. IBM's role in politics has been historically fraught. Is everyone here really aware of IBM's role in the Holocaust? That really happened.

The whole thread is problematic. I dug into some of the claims --- for instance, I'd like to see IBM's "15 ideas" for saving 900 billion in healthcare costs (I was unable to find anything other than anti-Obamacare spam sites suggesting IBM had offered to foot the bill for the whole system in exchange for running it on IBM hardware).

I'm not sure there's much to this story, and so I don't think there will be much to the thread.

[sctb]

If it doesn't qualify as entirely unrelated, I think it still qualifies as flamewar-style (“Here—fight!”). The story might be different if the commenter had something to say, as the guidelines ask when broaching these topics.

[hackuser]

Scott - Is this comment appropriate?:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12962658

I understand it's tricky. I certainly don't want to start a flamewar, but I do think that these issues are critically important and should not be ignored.

I'd appreciate your feedback if you think it could be improved somehow.

[sctb]

One thing in that comment that could be stronger is the connection between IBM's behavior then and now ("connect the dots" as a prominent commenter might say). It's perhaps enough to just be reminded of past behavior of the same corporation in order to warrant asking the question in the present context, but saying so may have addressed the objection that you've received.

[hackuser]

Fair enough. I want to find ways to address these issues and get people thinking, not flaming.

[arcticfox]

Politics in general has been historically fraught: go back a century and almost every player has taken some terribly unseemly positions or actions. It's pretty irrelevant to single out IBM mostly because they've happened to exist for that long, unlike the majority of other tech companies.

[tptacek]

I'm not singling IBM out, I'm singling this story out: it is nearly content-free and volatile given the company behind it and the context of the election.