[tombert]

Let me just preempt this by saying that I think you and tomhow do a very good job at moderating, and I'm just some goober on the internet sitting on a high-horse, so take what I say with as much respect as possible.

Hacker News is my favorite forum in no small part because this forum's users are, on average, a lot more educated than the average internet user. If not formally, a lot of the people here still do value learning and education as a whole. Those environments aren't organic on the internet, and it is largely due to efforts from folks like you to cultivate this audience and I do not want to dismiss that.

The concern, then, is that when the educated people can't discuss (and let's be honest, argue about) politics, then the only people who will be discussing politics will be the uneducated people. Politics is inherently contentious and we can't make progress (however you want to define it) without occasionally hurting feelings.

Now, a perfectly valid counter to this is "we're not stopping you from discussing contentious political issues, you're welcome to discuss it on one of the many other forums on the internet, just not here". That's fair enough, but it can come off as a little arbitrary, because virtually anything can be deemed "political"; I could argue that disagreements with type systems or the ISO standard of C or complaining about SQLite could be construed as "politically motivated".

I do realize that a line has to be drawn, though. The last thing I want is for the forum to devolve into 8chan or The Drudge Report or something, so while I don't completely agree at where you draw the line, I do understand why it is drawn.

[tptacek]

I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for.

If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters.

(For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions. All the more reason not to nurture threads about it here.)

PS: I'm a longstanding "too-much-politics-on-HN" person, and even I'm a little annoyed that Jonathan Rauch's piece won't work here, if only so I can annoyingly noodle on the varying definitions of fascism. But flags are the right call here.

[johnnyanmac]

>For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions.

Funny because I'm probably very radical about ICE and I can still find subtleties on how to reform this. I've never been "Defund the police", quite the opposite. I believe LEOs should have standing, qualities, and training that makes them stand by their emergency peers. Truly the best of the best. Getting that badge should be a similar thrill to being accepted into a top college. They should have years of schooling before truly starting to gain their title.

Getting into a firefighting isn't easy, so why should an LEO see of as a career as a backup for failing to graduate high school? That's where all this falls apart. And now the standards barely get these ICE goons a month of "training". That needs to change.

But with current times, that's not a topic I can discuss on X nor Bluesky. That makes it all the more frustrating that HN plugs its ears on such subtlety instead.

[tptacek]

I probably agree with like 90% of this but feel like if we actually tried to hash it out we'd get drowned out pretty quickly by vitriol.

[johnnyanmac]

If that's the case, then I suppose this community is no different. And I don't like saying that because 1) I don't personally believe that and 2) it's against guidelines. But reality can be disappointing at times.

[jacquesm]

Then maybe you should put that assumption to the test.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46762767

Is a pretty good comment, but it got flagged, there is a degree of unfairness here.

[tptacek]

I didn't flag it, but it's not an example of the kind of productive comment I was talking about either.

[jacquesm]

I recall us having a conversation about checks and balances long ago and you were pretty strongly trusting in those keeping the US safe in the longer term. I am quite curious what your expectations are for the mid-terms and the presidential election three years from now based on the recent past, are you willing to write about that?

[zahlman]

> do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs?

When I see a submission like the current one, I get the impression just from the title that the OP doesn't believe it.

[jacquesm]

The easy fix is to let go of the unsiloed concept and to add a couple (<10) main subjects and an 'all' page. That way whoever wants to can discuss what they want and flags can go back to their original meaning.

[tptacek]

You should go build that site! It's exactly what HN isn't.

[fzeroracer]

> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for.

I think this is a poor litmus test, because there are plenty of stories on HN where the majority perspective is going to be either agreement or disagreement. For example, zero day exploits, leaks, anything related to Tesla circa 7-8 years ago etc. The notion that every conversation needs to have multiple perspectives is a common fallacy; I think we can agree that things like companies ignoring security holes is bad for example and someone saying 'actually, it's good' isn't actually adding anything productive.

> If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters.

That ship sailed long ago with stuff like the Google Manifesto or companies like Palantir. People rightfully point out ycombinators (and by extension, HNs) connection to the current political environment which means people here, especially long standing users, will find themselves more and more agitated.

For me at least, these kind of stories are increasingly unavoidable because they aren't just things I read on the internet, they're directly my life. Schools have gone into lockdown here in Seattle when ICE activity flares up, stores I've gone to have needed to prepare and think long and hard about what to do when ICE knocks at the door. Naturally this means people are going to gravitate towards stories here that are directly related to their life, and when those stories get squashed people start to notice the disconnect. People might go on HN to avoid these stories, but I literally cannot avoid my life.

[sifar]

>> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for.

This would disqualify more than half of AI/LLM/<insert_tech_person> stories. This seems like a cope out. It is our inability as tech people to embrace the discomfort that is not rational and engage with it.

[tptacek]

Huge problem on those stories, too! A lot of those threads are dreadful. My point exactly.

[zahlman]

Yes, I've been flagging a fair amount of them too.

Although generally I think the un-nuanced AI hype/doom articles are not nearly as damaging as the flood of one-shot LLM projects being presented under "Show HN" with apparently none of the framing text (HN post, project README, responses to feedback) being human-written.

[tptacek]

I think Show HN was due an overhaul even before vibecoding jammed it up, but I agree that's an issue too.

[zahlman]

I'm happy to hear your ideas about this, including off-site (I could email you if you like) if you don't want to go further off topic here.

[sifar]

My point is that the discrimination to flag one and not the other seems arbitrary. It has nothing to do with promoting/preserving intellectual curiosity etc. We are deluding ourselves by repeating that.

In that we are practicing the very doublethink we criticize in the society.

[tptacek]

I flag overheated AI stuff all the time.

[sifar]

I was referring to the general zeitgeist on the site rather than you specifically. Apologies if it seemed personal.

[johnnyanmac]

And Dang will take action any day now...

[tptacek]

What makes you think he isn't? That's a rhetorical question; he and Tom obviously do intervene with those stories.

[johnnyanmac]

I've read his responses here and in other topics over 2025. He still seems to maintain that politics is something to avoid, regardless of quality. Not explicitly, but the way he talks about it gives that impression.

Having a tepidness when it comes to the dozens of slop articles on some trivial Ai blogs contradicts this mission to encourage curiosity and encourage a quality discussion. It feels outright contradictory and feeds into this sentiment that "anything tech is fine, nothing political is". Having flaggers do the work and promoting it as "community vote" is a convinent smokescreen, even though we all know flagging is based on a super minority of the community.

I know it feels knee-jerk, but I had this sentiment for a few years now as AI rose, and it of course hit a fever pitch in 2025. I think seeing a Tesla earnings call flagged because it wasn't stellar earnings really made me go from quiet apathy to being more vocal on the phenomenon. The actions (which I disagree on) simply do not match the words behind it (which I overall agree with).

[johnnyanmac]

>The concern, then, is that when the educated people can't discuss (and let's be honest, argue about) politics, then the only people who will be discussing politics will be the uneducated people. Politics is inherently contentious and we can't make progress (however you want to define it) without occasionally hurting feelings.

I completely agree. That's why ultimately I abandoned the mainstream stuff (outside of YouTube. Yay monopoly) for discussion and go to Tildes for a lot of political talk. But Tildes is small by design and will have some blind spots.

I feel denying a quality article like this (or rather, upholding the minority's rule of denying) cracks into the idea that these policies work to keep HN high quality. Especially when what's on the front page right now is "I ported typescript to rust in a month with Claude!". These don't feel quality driven.

[jacquesm]

Amen.