[slg]

With the direction we're headed, there's a non-zero chance that some day soon I'll click on over to https://news.ycombinator.com/active and see "[flagged][dead] US Erupts in Civil War" and I'll click on the comments to see a copied and pasted comment from dang with a link to a dozen other comments explaining why this political story doesn't belong on HN.

"Politics" doesn't care about your apolitical spaces. It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere.

[dang]

People have been making a version of this argument for as long as I've been doing this job. There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different, how-can-you-not urgency. I'm not saying that's wrong, but there's a counterargument. The counterargument is that political flames have a way of consuming everything they touch and that if we had listened to this argument in the past, HN would have ceased to exist years ago.

I believe that the bulk of this community favors the counterargument, and that it would be a big mistake to let political passions dominate how the site is operated, since that would be the end of HN qua HN. We think a website that's not overwhelmed by politics and political battle—that clears space for other things that gratify curiosity—has a right to exist. I believe most HN readers agree with that and are grateful that we haven't pulled the plug at moments of pressure.

I'm not saying anything radical here - this is the standard way that HN has always operated, and I'm repeating what I've always said:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26253103 (Feb 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785791 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23380817 (June 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16581518 (March 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648 (Feb 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)

[slg]

You seem to be a little sidetracked from my original point so let me reiterate it, "It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere."

I understand you can dismiss that with "There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different", but what happens when it's truly different? Have you set a line for yourself of when it will be different or are you the frog telling everyone else that the water's not that hot? Or are you claiming there is no line and even if there is an all out civil war you won’t want any discussion of it on this site?

[belorn]

Asking people where the final line is with a nuclear option is a classic question with no satisfying answer, and the classical answer is that there is no line for when the button will be pressed.

[slg]

I didn't ask where the line was, I asked if it existed. "The line" is a rhetorical device meant to encourage the reader to consider whether their previously held opinions should be held in perpetuity or whether they need to be reevaluated.

[dang]

I don't see any sidetrack. That's the same argument, and I can only repeat the same counterargument.

I'm not saying that your argument is wrong—I would have to know the future in order to say that, which I don't. All I can do is give the reasons why the counterargument holds more sway from an HN-admin point of view. (Which, btw, is not some sort of disagreement about the politics of this story or other stories.)

[slg]

Well then, thanks for explaining why that the hyperbolic example in my first comment was in fact not hyperbolic.

[nialv7]

but fighting against a tyrannical, oppressive, illegitimate government is exactly what a hacker would do?

if you want an apolitical forum, don't call it hacker news, it's false advertisement.

maybe call it ostrich news or something.

[dang]

Yes, it's what many hackers would do, and have done, and HN has had, and does have, many threads about that kind of thing.

I realize these distinctions get lost when people are feeling heated, but HN has never been an apolitical site and we don't describe it that way. There are more options than just (1) being apolitical and (2) being completely aflame. Not that they're easy squares to occupy.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 (May 2018)

[direwolf20]

Hacker News is from YC, which is a US organization with some power. As a US organization, it must limit discussion to things that are legal in the US. If you want to plan terrorism, you need to go elsewhere.

[card_zero]

But reading all those old threads, I got three interpretations of "on topic":

1. Trivial intellectual trinkets,

2. Important topics that happen to overlap with intellectual interest,

3. Important topics that we somehow manage to have a thoughtful discussion about.

Is "off-topic" really about the standard of discussion and not about the topic?

There's a lot of mysterious influences in the dynamics between topic type, community culture, and standard of discussion. I mean to say that allowing thoughtful discussions of controversial topics is not a pipe dream, but it only happens occasionally and we're not really capable of sustained flight, so to speak. It seems like the interesting (worthy, important) adventures into inflammatory topics are parasitic on the comfortable trivial intellectual fluff, which keeps the forum-wide inflammation level down.

[CamperBob2]

There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different

I don't know, Dan. This does feel different. Innocent people are being killed on the street, under color of law and sanctioned at the very highest levels of government.

When's the last time something like this happened? Kent State? This incident and the Renee Good killing seem worse than Kent State, somehow. Maybe because they were so up-close-and-personal, because they were recorded in real time, and because of the executive branch's overt, sustained gaslighting about what happened. Lies easily debunked by the recordings, yet still accepted as truth by a terrifying, unreachable chunk of our population.

My fear is that the flames being lit now will consume everything they touch. That seems to be Trump's intention, and he almost always gets what he wants somehow, doesn't he?

I think that's what sig was suggesting. There will be no refuge in neutrality. We will all be forced to stand on one side of the line or the other, and use whatever resources are at our disposal to hold that line.