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Why is Hacker News like that?

363 points · 173 comments · caution

  1. jmyeet · · focus · HN ↗
    When it comes to submissions and comments, "political" or "controversial" is what you disagree with. As the article notes, capitalism (as just one example) is taken as a given. Anything else is "political".

    Shouldn't intellectual curiosity challenge norms and assumptions?

    What's changed I think is that Big Tech are essentially defense contractors. You can put Amazon, Google and Microsoft in the same bucket as RTX, Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

    A huge portion of HN is simply after their bag. The idea of the countercultural almost beatnik "hacker" like early Steve Jobs (yes, yes, I know, he's not the tech guy) is long dead. We saw this with crypto dominating HN. Crypto is just a bunch of people who are hoping to be the first to do the rug pull. Now it's AI.

    Silicon Valley itself grew out of the military industrial complex. It's simply returned to its roots.

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