[krapp]

>When did HN become so... radicalized?

More and more hackers and programmers from outside SV/startup culture started showing up. Outside of that bubble, hacker culture leans far more anarchist, and fundamentally mistrusts large scale power structures and centralized authority. And then Snowden and Aaron Swartz happened.

So in a way, HN isn't becoming radicalized, it's becoming normalized.

[Zak]

HN used to lean very libertarian. I might need to say "right-libertarian" to be specific enough. That philosophy tends to tolerate large-scale power structures as long as they're not violating the rights of others and remain subject to competition.

I've noticed a shift away from that in the past couple years. The grandparent post doesn't seem to be left-anarchist though; more like state-socialist. It proposes that some central authority, presumably the US government dissolve or split up large tech companies. The problem I have with that is I fundamentally mistrust large scale power structures and centralized authority. The US government is one of the most extreme manifestations of those things.

[StreamBright]

I only know state-socialist people who did not live in a socialist state.

[dsfyu404ed]

I would argue the opposite. From time to time the SV crowd can be very good at driving off those who don't drink the cool-aid.

Recall every Tesla thread.