[biot]

Some other suggestions along the same lines as you suggest:

  Interrupt a court case so that the courtroom can appreciate the 
  plight of dying African children before they get back to quibbling 
  over legal wording.

  Speak at a conference for accountants so that they can appreciate 
  the plight of dying African children before they get back to 
  fiddling with spreadsheets.

  Share this in sexual abuse groups so that they can appreciate the 
  plight of dying African children before they get back to discussing 
  their own troubles.

  Visit schools and interrupt classrooms so that they can appreciate 
  the plight of dying African children before they get back to 
  learning about math, English, or history.

---

Or... how about we keep human interest stories that would otherwise be covered by major media off of HN unless there is a component of the story which is particularly hackerish and gratifies one's intellectual curiosity? As it stands, this story is little more than "large underground aquifers exist" which is unlikely to gratify anyone's intellectual curiosity any more than "large deposits of coal exist". If finding this aquifer was accomplished via innovative new technology, let's see the story on that.

How about a discussion on Alain Gachet's WATEX publications which I understand to be the technological basis that enabled this find:

http://fr.linkedin.com/pub/alain-gachet/0/71a/93b#profile-pu...

[crusso]

Ultimately, he's a hypocrite for being here to dole out sarcasm rather than actually working on resolving the plight of dying African children that he implies outweighs others' petty concerns.

[rabino]

Here's a novel idea: Post that WATEX publication and let's see how many upvotes it gets vs. this one here. Let's allow democracy to do its thing.

[biot]

I think there's a very good reason why pg and the editors actively curate HN (eg: blocking certain sites from submission) and don't let democracy do its thing: it doesn't stand a chance against Eternal September.

(Besides which: those publications, like this story, aren't all that interesting from an intellectually gratifying perspective.)