[washedup]

Couldn't agree more that the opposition is real. I have witnessed much of it living in a divided city like Chicago. The most difficult question about it is what we can do to shift government attention and resources? Not in the form of police cameras, squad cars, or militarization, but in the form of education and infrastructure projects. This is only a small part of the question, however. A bigger issue is not where the government spends money, but zoning laws, tax incentives to move to certain areas, and other laws that have been built up and influenced over time to create the situation we have today.

People have been noticing this and pointing it out for a long, long time. Surely Einstein would observe similar treatments as well, particularly because of his fresh perspective.

[doomlaser]

One of the biggest peaceful protests on this issue is happening today, across the nation, but you wouldn't know it from the Hacker News frontpage.

It's been troubling seeing any links about the Ferguson and Eric Garner protests wiped from Hacker News before they attract very many upvotes. The issues being debated encompass government action, fundamental technology and privacy rights, as well as race, but they're being ignored here for the most part and I don't understand exactly why.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/us/thousands-march-in-wash...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2014/dec/13/police-k...

[dragonwriter]

The intent of Hacker News is to be news of particular interest to the "hacker" (defined in a somewhat unclear and unusually broad way, but still) community, not particularly news of general interests that is of interest to members of that community for generally the same reason and to the same extent as of the more general community.

There are plenty of other forums with different intended purposes where such discussions are less ephemeral than on HN.

[rockmeamedee]

I argue that a good hacker would be interested in these things. First, hackers care a lot about issues of justice, power and bias. Here people are being strangled on camera and their murderers are getting away with it. And, even the 'body cameras on all cops' idea we were clamoring for didn't help. That's a conversation we have to have: bodycams won't be helpful if America keeps on working this way.

Plus, how can we talk about wanting to have a 'diverse' Silicon Valley and ignore black people getting killed in the streets?

[fsloth]

Previous discussions about why not to discuss current issues in politics in HN have included the conclusions a) they are off topic and b) usually result in low quality discussion, sadly.