Ask HN: Is the omission of politics a political stance?

6 points by rickyplouis 5 years ago | 12 comments

When posting to HN it states posts must be on-topic and exclude things such as

"Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon"

I truly do enjoy the content and community here on HN, but my question is that given the current political climate isn't the decision to omit political content a political stance rather than an apolitical one?

smt88 5 years ago |

My preference is to see political stories here only if they're related to technology or tech companies. That seems to be the line mods are straddling now, as far as I can tell.

For pure political stories, there are a million other places to discuss those, and honestly some really disturbing opinions (e.g. eugenics) come out of the woodwork here on those types of stories.

mattbrewsbytes 5 years ago |

Just because sports stories are omitted doesn't mean HN is taking a stance for/against sports, its just stating that isn't a topic for discussion here. Same for political discussions or crime.

Technology has become more pervasive in a lot of industries. I'd like to see less "news" articles posted here that really have nothing to do the creation of or new insights on technology and just tangentially are related to "tech".

petercooper 5 years ago |

To the main question, I think the answer is yes, although that's only something I've recently come around to.

To strike a metaphor, is ignoring or not participating in religion a 'religious stance'? It depends on your frame of reference. To someone who is religious, yes. To someone unaware or ignorant of religion, no.

So, why is ignoring or not participating in politics a political stance? Because unlike with religion, we have no choice to live outside of the systems which politics govern. You are affected by the politics of your country and your community even if you are unaware or ignorant of them, therefore the frame of reference is within a political system and a lack of politics is a political stance. Purely IMHO, of course.

0xy 5 years ago |

Look what happens when this rule doesn't exist, you end up like the biggest subreddits. Wall-to-wall politics, bots, manipulation, censorship and just a general awful place to be.

TechBro8615 5 years ago |

I don't mind it so long as the political discussion is localized to political stories, and so long as those stories are the minority of content on HN. Generally speaking, the political discussion here is better than on reddit, but I only want to engage with it when I seek it out. What's frustrating is when political discussion creeps into totally unrelated threads.

caymanjim 5 years ago |

Given the current political climate, I'd like to make sure we're extra vigilant about keeping that content off HN. I've already deleted three accounts on other community sites. HN is my last refuge. I'm flagging it all.

tomjen3 5 years ago |

It is never not the case that you can make everything about politics and that politics is a mind killer.

If we accept that not taking a stance is a political act then you can extend that to everything.

If anything, HN should be far more vigilate in banning politics given the current political environment.

afarrell 5 years ago |

I'll put it this way: I'd like to see thoughtful discussions of the flaws of MCAS and what incentives led the Federal Aviation Authority to approve the 737 MAX. I am not interested in discussions of good pilots vs bad pilots.

If we think problems are systemic or structural, then lets talk systems and structures.

giantg2 5 years ago |

If I ask my dentist a gynecology question, does it make him sexist not to answer it?

No, it's simply off-topic for the forum.

potta_coffee 5 years ago |

Emphatic "no".

sloaken 5 years ago |

buboard 5 years ago |

That brings it probably closer to a libertarian position