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by hipadev23 501 days ago
aannnd it's gone
4 comments

> POTUS Tracker experienced significant downtime on 1/28 due to an overloaded server. Thanks to your generous donations, the server has been upgraded to better handle the demand.
How long before the "why do I have to see politics" crowd is here?
i understand you and many others might not feel it, but it can have a very severe emotional impact on someone. it's especially undesirable when you're taking a break and browsing something you find joy in, like hackernews.

i've abandoned a lot of websites just to avoid being reminded/thinking about this reality. and yes, i know that my behavior is going to be a growing problem that enables the problems. it sucks. but no one else is gonna protect my mental health. therefore........ i dislike politics on HN.

On the one hand, I'm with you. I went from being incredibly uninformed about most current events to being incredibly anxious about EVERYTHING due to HN. I've since stepped away (in fact, this is my first time back in weeks, maybe, and I approached the feed very cautiously.) But, on the other hand, I come to HN for its intelligence. Compared to other similar sites, I've scarcely found another userbase that's as consistently sincere, nuanced, and intelligent as the users on here. So, while I agree that politics and related topics can be remarkably anxiety inducing at times, I value HN because I can see what I believe to be the best Laymen's thoughts on it, on a website which isn't nearly as profit-driven and exploitative as the alternatives.
That's fair. I'm very used to bad faith users who participate in a lot of political threads but only post "why politics" in threads that make them uncomfortable.

Thanks for your perspective.

Use the hide topic not the reply button. There is a joke inthere about political affiliation but you didn't give me enough to work with.
Your weak mindedness shouldn’t affect what others learn/read. Go for walk, get a hobby offline etc.
you're attacking me when all i did was articulate why someone might not enjoy the content.

post all the trash on social media you want, won't bother me one way or another other than that i wouldn't engage with you.

Looks like the answer was 18 minutes.
See, it was a technology topic after all.
Meh. I don’t have to look at photos of agent Orange when browsing HN. I can skip those posts the same as most AI articles.

I noticed my YouTube feed on desktop keeps political videos in a single band, just “below the fold”. I can handle that. I blink, and move on.

I trust about an hour of NPR radio to let me know if the sky is falling, and that lets my mind skip over content that leaks elsewhere.

A valid question, no?
No, tech and politics are inextricably linked in this modern age. We might wistfully wish for the days when this wasn't the case, but this is our current reality.
Assuming in good faith that this is the first time you are exposed to this conversation (though my intuition strongly suggests it is not):

Anything that can be used to exercise power over another person is political, including (and increasingly so as our society progresses) technology.

It’s back?
Yeah not working for me right now.