[aredox]

>many are interested in HN _not_ becoming _yet another_ front in the political flame wars.

Thanks for deciding that without asking.

Stories about the Therac-25 - badly using a computer to control a radiation machine - are fine and often end on the front page. It killed 6 people.

Stories about DOGE - badly using computers, big data, AI to save "trillions" of USD - are apparently not fine. DOGE is killing tens of thousands of people, put Musk is close to Trump, so talking about it is "political" and therefore there is no interest in showing on the front page that DOGE's claims are wrong by several orders of magnitude.

Stories about Theranos - badly using computers to automate lab diagnostics - used to be fine. We talked at length about how Elizabeth Holmes was hailed as a genius, then how fishy it seemed, then the whistleblowers came and blew the lid off the deception that was going on. Holmes was condemned and sent to detention.

Will we be forbidden to talk about Theranos once she gets her pardon from Trump[0]? Because it would be "political"?

Are we forbidden to talk about Trevor Milton - co-founder and CEO of bankrupt electric truckmaker Nikola Motors, pardoned in March - was a fraudster[1], when he will inevitably launch a new startup? Will any mention of it be flagged because "we don't want no political flame wars"?

[0]https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/27/310688... [1]https://www.axios.com/2025/03/31/trump-pardons-bitmex-crypto...

[lp0_on_fire]

That’s exactly it. People are tired of every forum on the internet being turned into a soap box for whatever political cause-du-jour is in vogue that week. People are equally tired of the melodrama that comes with it (“are we forbidden to talk about xyz politically charged topics that have repeated ad nausuem for a decade”).

Talk about it all you want. Don’t be surprised when people start rolling their eyes at you like we roll our eyes at the weird uncle who always ruins family gatherings by bringing up politics at the dinner table.

[jaybrendansmith]

I think the issue is both-sides-ism here. This article is about the Fed illegally losing it's political independence, something that could trigger terrible inflation and a recession. That's quite a bit different than Biden falling off his bicycle. I would like to humbly suggest that the US slip-sliding into fascism is something hackers should be concerned about, worthy of discussion and debate. Pushing it down the memory hole seems unworthy of this site.

[jacquesm]

> I would like to humbly suggest that the US slip-sliding into fascism is something hackers should be concerned about

Plenty of these hackers are aiding and abiding the slide. If not actively greasing the skids personally. Thiel and Musk are minor gods here.

[jaybrendansmith]

Hate the sin, love the sinner. I have a lot of respect for Musk, but his politics are awful.

[lp0_on_fire]

“Slip-sliding into fascism”? Please.

This is the same tired melodramatic trope that’s played out every time anyone even remotely to the right wins an election in the United States.

It should be no surprise that many people, myself included, aren’t interested in “discussion and debate” that amounts to “anyone who is disagrees with me is cartoonishly evil”.

[aredox]

See here for some melodrama:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42615336

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42614018

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38532483

"The beam of thine eye", heh.

But you don't live in areas where masked armed people disappear people in vans while shouting "ICE", so I guess you don't notice - and as you blank out any discussion of it as "political", as long as it doesn't happen to you personally, you will keep refusing to admit anything is happening.

Anything like that list:

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/01/trumps-enemies-within-list

[jaybrendansmith]

You can try to normalize this as much as you want, it ain't gonna normalize. Ignoring the supreme court? Ignoring habius corpus and due process? Pissing on the constitution, when you swore an oath to defend it? WTF.