[StavrosK]

It's an interesting post that appeals to our inquisitive nature.

[kelvin0]

Posted this a few months back, it never got the attention the 'hoax' got. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation So all the reasons stated for this post apply to this earlier one, yet some HN posts get 'flushed' down as soon as they appear ... why? How?

[louhike]

Interesting in which sense? Even if I liked it, it is only humor and does not have nothing to do with "hackers". I'm not a better developper or I do not know what will help to launch a startup after reading this. Hacker News is not the Huffington Post.

[doorhammer]

I'd say it's a fascinating social manipulation, but mostly it just satisfies my own intellectual curiosity.

The HN guidelines on what to submit:

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

The HN guidelines on asking why something was posted:

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

It might be worth reading through the HN Guidelines. They're pretty concise: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can't find a guideline that's meta enough to tell me not to mention the guidelines, but I've blundered in worse ways before.

[Robin_Message]

It's an excellent example of hacking a social system, merely as a prank and with no damage to any individual, and follows a long history that goes back to MIT hacking (http://hacks.mit.edu/ and http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html).

In other words, it has a lot to do with "hackers" and is a very interesting and relevant piece of history. I agree it won't help you start your startup though; get back to building things and talking to people! :-)

[omegant]

Precisely I think that it shows you in a funny way, how far talking to people can take you.

[StavrosK]

Hacker news is not developer news or startup news. I'm a hacker, and I liked this, therefore it should be here. Read the site's mission statement.

[kelvin0]

Of course hackers all like the same things, and you represent them perfectly? Therefore what you judge relevant is also hacker relevant ... nice.

[StavrosK]

I'm telling you why I upvoted it. If I don't represent hackers perfectly, why are you asking me?

[philbarr]

It actually is a hack in a sense. It's a social engineering attack, for fun.

[venomsnake]

HN is great because of the people that lurk here, not because it is great resource for anything.