> All: please don't post the sort of low-information / high-indignation comment that could just as easily appear in any semi-related thread. Such generic comments make the discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here.
We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supporters of Musk.
> We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for,
Alas, that is not true for all values of "we". Let's see how we do in the current thread. (Edit: so far it does seem to be a little better.)
> but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged
Yes, and at the same time we've turned off the flags on quite a few of them—enough that this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now. I realize that's not enough for those who want more, but this is always the case whenever there is a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
> by apparent supporters of Musk
But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames. The pattern we've observed over the years is that when a MOT keeps getting flagkilled, the flags are coming from a coalition of these two groups (i.e. users who oppose it politically and users who are trying to protect HN), neither of which would have enough oomph to do this on their own.
> We're being censored.
That word has so many different meanings nowadays that nearly all sentences including it are both true and false. In one sense, sure, any story getting removed from HN's front page could be called censorship—but it's maybe not the most helpful description on a site where frontpage space is the scarcest resource and some kind of curation/selection is essential.
In another sense, the fact that this MOT is the most discussed topic on HN of the past few weeks means that no, it is not being censored—there have been thousands of posts about it.
Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it. Our job is to serve the community as a whole, which is not easy when the community is so divided. Ultimately, whatever solution we come up ends up feeling unsatisfactory to nearly everyone. That is probably my least favorite square on the Cycle of Life of HN, but it comes up once or twice in every go-round.
Here are links to some other comments I've posted in the last few days about this specific issue. If you (or anyone) are willing to read them, take in the explanations, and then have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be curious to know what it is* and happy to take a crack at it.
It's thanks to this kind of guidance that HN survives as a focused technical hivemind.
At the same time, issues of this kind of revolutionary scope are important for users to process. We can learn a lot from each other.
Irrespective of politics, it's necessary to hedge systemic risk that's appearing due to destabilization of the US. That affects so many of us that it's hard to ignore.
Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
Thank you for filtering the noise and fear with the posts.
> Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
It doesn't really feel like a politically agnostic space. A large number of users (though probably a small proportion of total HN users) seem to care a lot and of those who care a lot it looks like at least 3/4rs have a "leftist" persuasion.
(Sadly, I'm not longer aware of any intelligent and politically agnostic space where politics can be discussed. All those I knew have gradually become dominated by one political direction or another)
I would also say, that to me dang and team is doing a good job in general. I disagree with any sentiment that this is being censored, and I applaud the openness for discussing this.
> But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames.
I think there has been an element of backlash here. I believe there are people posting Musk articles repeatedly in response to the flagging, feeding the cycle.
>this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now
I wonder if you are maybe too close to the problem to see it from a normal HN user's perspective. From my perspective, I don't get this impression because I don't see the full breath of conversations that happen on HN like you do. People clearly want to talk about this here and I have rarely seen these stories actually on the front page of HN because they are so quick to drop off the front page due to flagging, downvoting, the flame war detector, or whatever other behind the scenes mechanics exist that you are obviously more knowledgeable about than me. People continuing to have conversations on posts that no one sees unless they specifically search them out is the equivalent of shadowbanning those conversations. Yes, they are still happening, but the normal HN user isn't actually seeing them and that is why you are fielding so many complaints from normal users who want to see these posts.
I think you're right, but it's not clear to me what we could do differently about that. Ultimately it derives from the fundamentals of the site. Most people don't see most of what gets posted here. I don't either.
I think the situation has demonstrated a weakness. Elon Musk, unarguably the single most Hacker News person on the planet due to his control of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and others, and now tied up in US politics with DOGE, has completely disappeared from the front page of hacker news, except for the articles you personally have deflagged. And you can't do that 24x7, such as the weekend Treasury Payments got shutdown and apparently nothing newsworthy was done by DOGE or Musk. I was watching articles mentioning either DOGE or Musk in the headline begin flagged in minutes. The same article might stay up for several hours if the headline had been edited to remove the offending words (but that might just be a side effect of getting less traction). And you get stuck with making the call which articles to unflag, based on limited information as they don't hang around long enough to meaningfully get upvotes or beyond the first 15 minutes of irrational blathering in the comments.
I'm sorry but I don't follow what discussions you're saying haven't happened. But in case you (or anyone) are feeling like the current MOT (Major Ongoing Topic) hasn't received much attention on HN, here's a partial list of recent threads:
First off, thanks for providing all of the moderation energy and you clearly maintain a level of civility on hacker news across a wide range of controversial topics.
However, I think placing this long list of stories all under the same MOT demonstrates that conversation is "happening", but at the same time it isn't really happening.
As an example, the parent story of this comment is no longer on the front page and instead of anything related to Musk at the fed there is now another distraction about him trying to buy OpenAI.
I haven't read all of the above articles, but from just a cursory glance it looks like many different important events are happening. If they happened one at a time over the course of a year no one would consider it MOT, but because its all happening in the same week it gets mashed together. Individual stories quickly fall off the front page.
From my perspective, all that is true, but it's not HN's job to be the zone that is flooded by it. HN's job is to be a place for intellectually curious stories and conversations. We have to hold fast to that mandate because if we don't, the site will quickly cease to exist for its intended purpose.
What this means in practice is that there's some space for discussing these topics, but only some, and not nearly enough to fully cover everything that's going on right now.
I understand that a lot of users want this to be otherwise. Quite rightly, they feel like current events are important and deserve a great deal more airtime. But our first responsibility is to preserve HN for its intended purpose, and HN is not an instrument that can accommodate much more of this. The threads that I listed above are, from HN's point of view, already a lot.
It's a pity, because to the extent that discussion here is marginally* more substantive than what's available elsewhere, it's natural to wish that it could be applied to much more important issues. Why care about the origins of Proto-Indo-European when the government is being burned down? and so on. We should turn our attention to the things that matter! But this argument just doesn't work in practice. The only thing that would happen if we "flooded the zone" on HN too is that the place would burn out.
* emphasis on "marginally". I'm not claiming it's particularly good—there is a great deal not to like.
From my perspective it seems like HN abandoned the mandate of intellectually curious stories and conversations and is instead a place where only non-controversial stories and conversations are encouraged. If people can only talk about things where no one can vociferously disagree then we aren't really being inquisitive and curious, merely eccentric.
Your comment of "discussion here is marginally* more substantive" footnoted that it's not particularly good also seems a bit condescending. Its dismissive to those attempting to engage with these stories in good faith even if a vocal minority are behaving in bad faith. When a dozen stories are popping up and disappearing in a few hours it feels a lot harder to participate in a thoughtful and substantial ways.
I can understand HN is in a rough spot. But on the other hand, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
> a place where only non-controversial stories and conversations are encouraged
I've made a list of 23 threads (see the reply below), all from the last month. There are over 13k comments in those threads alone, and it's not a complete list.
At first that seems counterintuitive (like Jevons' paradox, or Yogi Berra's "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"). But it's not so paradoxical. These aren't factual propositions, they're expressions of a feeling—what people are really saying is not that there is no coverage of these topics, but that they would like more coverage. They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough". Which is fair enough. The community always splits between users who want more and users who feel like it's too much.
Also, it's easy to miss any particular thread or sequence of threads. Even among regular HN readers, there will be many who haven't seen even one of the 23 threads listed below, or who only saw 1 or 2, and therefore might naturally feel like none of this is being discussed. Among those, there will be some who feel strongly about it, and some of these will naturally express their feeling in the way I described above. Nonetheless, in reality there is a large amount of this discussion happening—it is by far the most-discussed topic of recent weeks, and will likely continue to be.
> also seems a bit condescending
Sorry for giving that impression! I often add a disclaimer like that because I don't want to sound like I'm making excessive claims about HN's discussion quality. The most I can say is that median discussion quality here is modestly better than elsewhere on the internet, but at its worst it's still pretty bad. I don't mean to put down HN commenters who are using the site thoughtfully. You have to remember that as moderators we see a lot of stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018472, to pick the most recent example. In fact we must see more of that than any other reader, simply because it's our job to.
> They often use words like "no", "zero", "never", and "nothing" to express how they feel, but what they mean by these words is "not enough".
Hyperbole is worse than that, IMHO. It inflames and serves almost no other purpose.
Imagine someone writes, "politician X is the most corrupt ever". What does that tell us? One bit of information (yes/no on this politician), and that the author has strong emotions about it (maybe 2-4 more bits - are they 4 of 4 angry? 16 of 16?); or very possibly they want to perform strong emotion because that energizes the interaction, draws attention, 'wins' the day, or is an aggressive negotiating position (reducing it to ~1-2 bits); and/or they could do those things reflexively and without a conscious plan, participating in a fun social dynamic that is muscle memory from years on the the Internet (reducing it to ~0-2 bits). Maybe it's just easier.
Whatever it is, what we don't learn - what the hyperbole wipes out - is knowledge and learning. We learn - acquire novel knowledge - little regarding X; what X does black, white, and mostly grey (what shades?); what is corrupt and not corrupt about X; what corruption is, the grey areas, and how that applies here, and of course much more. There are gigabits or maybe terabits to say here, dissertations and books, more than could be said in a lifetime. Another thing we could learn is the author as a person and their feelings, including their anger - how, why, when, what kind, etc. - giga-terabits more. On these vast landscapes of knowledge and emotion, we need each other's perspectives and insights to navigate and see what's valuable.
But all real information and nuance and complexity is washed away by the ultimate, by hyperbole. It's so ___, there is nothing to think about. Just a few bits is all you need.
The volume of threads alone does not tell the full story because the visibility of controversial content is just as important as its existence. Even if thousands of comments exist on topics, the way the platform functions means these stories quickly fall off the front page and limits their influence. HN guidelines also discourage political or activating content, making it less likely that stories about these urgent issues, such as Trump stealing $80 million in FEMA aid from New York, will even be posted.
The destruction of the federal government is a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European people because it directly affects millions of lives in tangible ways. Yes historical curiosities are valuable, but they do not carry the same immediate, material consequences as a government being hollowed out from within.
That's a fair point and it's true that some of the threads I listed fell off the front page quickly, but others were on the front page for 7 hours, 9 hours, 22 hours, 26 hours, and so on.
> a more critical issue than the origins of Proto-Indo-European because it directly affects millions of lives
For sure. I've made the same point many times over the years. I dug up a sample:
The question isn't whether current events are more important than, say, "making my own basketball hoops" or "3rd century irrigation systems" or "Do spiders dream?" or any of the other obscure things that have spent time on HN's front page. Current events are far more important than these, and indeed almost anything on HN's front page.
But if you're arguing that HN should prioritize stories by importance, then you're arguing that HN should become a current affairs site. That's not the mandate of the site.
If you're not arguing that, then I think we agree in principle, and disagree only about the degree to which the valve for such stories should be open. I get that you think it should be opened further, and many users agree with you; but then, many users feel that it should be tightened further. We have to think about satisfying the whole community (as best we can), not just one constituency; and we have to think about preserving the site for its intended mandate, which could all too easily be washed away by a tsunami of legitimately more important stories.
I'd arguing that HN should take a stand against the unprecedented shift towards authoritarianism. At best be are in a new era of McCarthyism. At worst the entire federal government is going to crumble and be dissolved.
This is not hyperbole!
Trump and Elon have started the first round of firing federal workers. A friend's organization just laid off 1500 people because 80% of their funding comes from the federal government.
Yes, HN is a special place. But your silence allows countless other special places to be destroyed. By the end of Trump's term HN might not even survive anyway.
I hear you and I hear the other users expressing similar feelings, but what you guys need to understand is that the community is split on this, and the larger part does not want the frontpage to be taken over by this (or by anything else, presumably).
The more repetitive these threads get, the lower-quality they become. The most recent ones have been truly terrible, by the standards of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That's another key indicator of which way to adjust the valve. The more people are unable to discuss this topic thoughtfully, the further it drifts from the intended spirit of the site.
On one hand it comes across like a conspiracy video, but on the other hand she plays direct video clips of major tech figures talking about dismantling the government and dividing the world into small nation states. Trump and Musk have also both stated they want to eliminate large amounts of the federal government.
I would love to get some perspective from those who have personally interacted with those people over the last 10 years.
This video probably falls under what you consider "activating", but it seems like we need to have conversations around this type of issue rather than letting rational voices get drowned out by the sea of angry shouting.
On the whole, I appreciate and respect your approach to moderation. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many leaders in the YC sphere — possibly including Garry Tan — seem to be aligned with Thiel and Yarvin on the topic of government and democracy. (The “smart ones” should aggressively take over and restructure our republic in the image of a corporation.) If there is, in fact, an active and ongoing conspiracy against the government headed by SV technocrats, how can we trust moderation on this site to be unbiased? (This is my fear, not an accusation.)
I don't know that you can. Trust is a strong word, and I can't claim to be unbiased. What I can claim is that we (HN mods) work hard to be conscious of our biases and not be swayed by them when making moderation calls. Can that be done perfectly? No. One is still influenced, even if not swayed, and anyway unconscious bias is a thing. But can it be done better with practice? I'm sure it can, at least to a point, and we do at least have years of practice.
Let me see what else I can come up with for you...
Well, here are some things: (1) HN's moderation approach to this kind of stuff hasn't changed in years; (2) the principles of what we do are pretty clearly articulated (though we don't always apply those principles optimally); (3) we try to always answer the questions people have; (4) we're open to admitting and correcting mistakes when we find out about them; and (5) FWIW, I don't know of anyone working on HN (or at YC for that matter) who supports the immoderate agenda you're describing, though I also don't have (or want, or need) core dumps of anyone's politics.
I haven't seen that one yet; I was mostly offline yesterday. This happens sometimes.
Btw, stories about "powerful tech people look like idiots" get discussed on HN all the time. The tenor of HN comments about that kind of thing leans strongly towards the cynical, enough that it's actually a problem for the long-term quality of the site. I may be misinterpreting you, but if you feel like HN needs more of that, I have to disagree.
Edit: $Firm hires $PolarizingPerson is probably not a good topic for HN but I'm happy to take a look at specific articles.
> Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it.
Woo love changing the meaning of words to fit what I imagine other people are using it for!!
At what point does a story become big enough to disable the flagging mechanic? Maybe this post isn't the one to do it, but there has been an onslaught of stories about the damage Musk and DOGE is doing to the US government including lots of tech specific stories. This is an important ongoing story that is relevant to the community here and every post about it shoots up the front page of HN only to disappear minutes later because of mass flagging.
> At what point does a story become big enough to disable the flagging mechanic?
I'm not sure "big" is the right word because we're not optimizing HN for topic importance - that would make for a current affairs site, which HN is not [1, 2]. But maybe that's hair-splitting in this case.
The short answer to your question is that when there's a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT), moderators turn off flags on stories that contain Significant New Information (SNI) that is interesting in HN's sense of the word (i.e. gratifying intellectual curiosity) and there is a fair chance of the article supporting a substantively different discussion than the ones which have already recently appeared on the same topic.
If you want more information, I'd start with my other post in this subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42993092) and go on to the other links there. That should give a pretty complete explanation. If, after that, there's still a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
I replied to your comment in that other chain, but just want to point something else out here specifically. There seems to be more than just flags that are dragging down this story. The top post on HN at the moment has 117 points and is 3 hours old. This post has 238 points and is 1 hour old and is currently number 8 on the front page. Number 7 is currently a post with 28 points posted 2 hours ago. There is clearly something else at work here besides flags and maybe disabling flags isn't enough to give these type of posts staying power on the front page of HN.
I turned off the flags and rolled back the clock on this submission so that it would be on the front page and have a chance at a thorough discussion. I didn't do that so much that it would go straight to #1, though, because that would not be in the interests of the site. These things need to be controlled burns.
Yes, I understand that. But you are missing the point of my comment.
From the FAQ:
>The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
> Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.
You are effectively just turning off one aspect of this, the flags, and declaring mission accomplished when obviously there are other things contributing to these stories falling off the front page faster than many people think they should. People care about the outcome, not the specific button you are pushing on the backend to accomplish that outcome.
This story now has more points than anything posted on the site in the last 24 hours and it is currently halfway down the front page. People clearly think this is an important topic worthy of the site and discussion in a way that isn't in line with the HN ranking algorithm. My original point was that if you agree that stories like this have a place on the front page of HN, turning off the flagging isn't always enough to counteract the other factors at play that drop these posts in the HN rankings.
Hmm we seem to be missing each other a bit here. My point is that I'm fine with this article being on the front page of HN today, and I'm not fine with it being at #1 or #2 on the front page. Both of those are moderation calls. Does that help clarify?
I view a "moderation call" as a binary allow or disallow. Once you get to the point of personally deciding that a post is good enough for the front page but not good enough for #1 or #2, you are making editorial decisions.
I tried to make it clear that I am talking about more than this individual post. That is why I used phrases like "these stories" and "stories like this". In an attempt to stop us from "missing each other", I'll be as direct as possible. The visibility of what is likely the most important ongoing story in the US at the moment should be up to more than just whether you personally are "fine with this article being on the front page of HN today".
Ok, that explains the misunderstanding. From my point of view it's not binary, and yes it's an editorial decision. Moderating and editoring (not a word) are more or less the same thing, no?
> The visibility of what is likely the most important ongoing story in the US at the moment should be up to more than just whether you personally are "fine with this article being on the front page of HN today".
I may have misled you with the phrases "I'm fine with" and "I'm not fine with", which were admittedly a little glib. I'm not applying my personal preferences here. (I'm not even sure what those are—the only strong preference I'm aware of is to try to minimize the pain of masses of people being upset.)
Rather, I'm taking in what the community and software inputs are producing, and then modulating that according to HN principles in an effort to optimize the site for its intended purpose. I wish it weren't necessary—it would so much less work, not to mention less painful—but unfortunately the community system (upvotes and flags) doesn't do this on its own, and there's only so much that software can do, so human intervention is still needed to jig the system out of its failure modes.
>Ok, that explains the misunderstanding. From my point of view it's not binary, and yes it's an editorial decision. Moderating and editoring (not a word) are more or less the same thing, no?
IANAL and I don't know if it is something HN has had to deal with directly, so maybe you know a lot more than me, but isn't that what a lot of the Section 230 debate is about? Either way, I think both our positions on this are now clear and reasonable people can disagree on it either way.
>Rather, I'm taking in what the community and software inputs are producing, and then modulating that according to HN principles in an effort to optimize the site for its intended purpose.
I guess to summarize this conversation, I think the success of this post (now number 3 on https://news.ycombinator.com/best with 2 be another DOGE story from a week ago) is maybe an indication that "the community... inputs" are being ignored too much. Much of the community wants to talk about this ongoing story as evidenced by the upvotes and comments. We shouldn't let a small group of flaggers stop that. And perhaps you are making your own work more difficult by only manually greenlighting a very limited number of these stories. Sometimes you need a pressure release valve in the system. I'm not sure this specific post would have been received as enthusiastically if other similar stories were able to get through and you almost certainly wouldn't have to answer so many questions about your own role in moderating this site.
If HN didn't have user flags and moderators, these stories (not just the current topic but the current affairs of any moment) would dominate the site completely and HN would cease to be HN.
> Sometimes you need a pressure release valve in the system.
I agree! Perhaps we're only disagreeing about the diameter of the valve.
> I'm not sure this specific post would have been received as enthusiastically if other similar stories were able to get through
Yes in the sense that, with some exceptions, the selection of particular articles isn't the high-order bit. The high bit is discussion of the MOT that they're in the orbit of.
> you almost certainly wouldn't have to answer so many questions about your own role in moderating this site
That's definitely wrong. However many users are upset about flags on this MOT, thousands more would be clamoring if they felt like HN was being taken over by it (or politics in general). The bulk of the community here is pretty zealous about preserving HN for its intended purpose.
Basically what I do is try to minimize community pushback by opening "valves" enough to satisfy (well, never to satisfy but at least to reduce the pain) one constituency, but not so much that it causes greater pushback from a different consitutency. The hope is to find a saddle point where we can temporarily hang for a while.
It's hard for people with strong passions on any $Topic to relate to this because they are the most vocal and think they are the community. So they are—but others are too. Users have the luxury of seeing themselves and their viewmates (if I can put it that way) as the community, and others as NPCs or Neanderthals. I don't have that luxury because I've learned the hard way what happens when we neglect the bulk of the community in favor of any vocal contingent—a horrible experience I hope to never have again.
I hope that doesn't sound dismissive—I've enjoyed this conversation!
As I said upthread of that comment, I still think this is the wrong way to look at it. A story being on the site is very different from the story being on the front page. Maybe "time on front page" should be something you look into tracking if it isn't something already available to you on the backend. Because I would guess that the most common way to interact with HN is via the front page. I don't come to HN to specifically talk to people here about this story, but I care about it so I will engage when something on the subject happens to be one of the stories I see on HN.
In fact, having these posts primarily only visible through search leads to worse discussions because the comments are full of people who are already motivated enough (in both directions) to actively seek out the conversation with few "HN normies", for lack of a better term, to help moderate the conversation through their comments, votes, and flags. And if there is a desire to avoid caving to "any vocal contingent", there needs to be an acknowledgement of how easy it is for any motivated minority to keep something off the HN front page with diligent flagging of a topic.
>I hope that doesn't sound dismissive—I've enjoyed this conversation!
It is a technology related article that is detailed and specific about things which appear to violate practices that have been part of the social contact for some time. Relevant regardless of optics.
dang has commented about this before, and IIRC the gist is that he has access to a ton of data about user activity on the site, and that in the vast majority of cases where it feels like a story/comment/opinion is being brigaded or otherwise maliciously targeted en masse, the data hasn't backed that up. The community is a large and varied, so inevitably whatever opinion you or I holds, there are a ton of people who also exist here who disagree.
I suspect the curation mentioned above[0] is crowd-sourced to a relatively small handful of “power” users with an outsized amount of flags in general. Probably not much of a solution to limit that.
0: Slightly confused; I’m referring to dang’s comment, which I thought was the GP comment.
I don't think it's very high, like 1500 upvotes or something, there is a large population of people who can flag.
Another idea is to make flags fractional, so the more upvotes you have the more weight your flags have. So those newly empowered get say 0.1 of a flag while more highly rated users get progressively closer to 1 flag.
One one hand, I'm not flagging anything because I'm happy to let these discussions take place. If nothing else they are entertaining.
On the other hand, I see where the flaggers are coming from. If there isn't any gate keeping, other topics can be drowned out by a single highly contentious topic if enough people believe it is their civil duty to bring up that topic at every conceivable opportunity. This has happened on much of reddit, and on smaller scales in many social spheres across the country. Reddit demonstrates that almost any conversation could be steered into the direction of partisan politics if there are enough participants who think it's important to do that.
No I live in Europe. And if I didn’t I wouldn’t worry about it until there’s armed men in uniforms and red armbands walking the streets. I’ve found the best coping mechanism to the overabundance and inflation of information due to the internet, is to simply live within your horizon. I see no musk/trump, I fear no musk/trump. Have a great day, hope your cortisol levels are good.
If you now tell me, a, but I live in <insert more specific European country>, you'll know just as well as I do that the fascists are on the rise in every European country.
When they start marching down the streets it will already be far too late. And if you think we're safe just because we live across the pond, well... remember that there is no European army, and that so far our leaders have been extremely passive in the face of obvious political interferences, in e.g. Germany.
This is a common type of argument that my friends and colleagues have offered me. Perhaps it doesn't make sense to help with wildfire relief because my house didn't burn down. Perhaps it doesn't make sense to have concerns about systemd because I use BSD. Perhaps it is a waste of resources to ensure HIV positive people have access to medicine because I don't have HIV.
How much time do you really spend worrying about all of the things you could be worrying about? Maybe you really do worry about SystemD, after all you thought to mention it, but couldn't that time and emotional energy be spent on climate change or malaria instead? Your resources are finite and the list of things you could be worrying about include many which could easily swallow all of your time and energy. You must be prioritizing some while neglecting others, using some manner of selection function biased towards local and personal matters. Which is fine, and completely natural. I cleaned my house yesterday, time I could have spent advocating the cause of mosquito nets.
"Local residents confronted and drove off neo-Nazi demonstrators waving large swastika-emblazoned flags along a highway overpass on Friday between Lincoln Heights and Evendale, Ohio, home to a historically Black community that has endured a long history of racism... As they approached the neo-Nazis, the demonstrators, which Talbert said were carrying guns, called them the N-word."
Whose side is currently dismantling the government to profit a few billionaires? Whose side is doing nazi salutes at rallies and giving white supremacists illegal positions of power (see the political views of the aforementioned individual named "bigballs" in the article above)? Neither court nor congress will attempt anything on Trump or Musk anymore. They are going after judges and journalists who dare report what they are illegally doing.
It absolutely is and always has been a "just one side" issue. Fascists are consolidating their powers by the day but somehow it's on progressives to be more civilized?
Cool, you cherry-picked some radical and terrible things. I can find some examples of progressives doing radical and terrible things, too.
This whataboutism is unrelated to the point I was making, and entirely representative of the kind of thinking that is facilitating and encouraging the dissolution of political discourse in this country.
When your first response to someone suggesting that you might be part of the problem is to excuse every bad action from your side by pointing to the egregious actions of the other, you tell me that you have no interest in having a good-faith discussion with anyone who disagrees with you, even slightly. We may agree on most topics, even, and yet you come out of the gate swinging because I suggested your side (which is also my own side!) might be part of the problem.
How then can you expect someone like me to believe you actually have my best interests in mind? Responses like this are not convincing that we even are on the same side, even if we agree on most things!
P.S. The problem with whataboutism is that it undermines your point. If you're offended when "the other side" does a thing, you should be even more offended when your own side does it, because it represents a betrayal of your values. The fact that you're using the other side's bad behavior to entirely discount criticisms about your side's behavior just tells me you don't actually think it's bad behavior when your side does it. At the end of the day, the message I get from that is "rules for thee, but not for me".
Trust me, "they go low, we go high" never worked and never will. Anything the right can criticize an opponent on, they will blast on Fox news and X 24/7, with nonstop propaganda and added lies, but Elon does a nazi salute on live TV twice and it's barely acknowledged.
I'll be succinct: no amount of courtesy and patience will deradicalize a fascist. The only thing that can get us out of this mess is a constant reminder to the people that aren't radicalized yet, that what Musk and his goons are doing is not OK and actually very dangerous to everything and everyone they hold dear. Use your voice while you still can.
(Also, I doubt you could find anything the left ever did to this country that would remotely compare in severity to what republicans are currently doing. And even if you could, they are not the source of the current threats our democracy, rights and freedom faces.)
Ah, so "hate has no place here" never was a serious statement?
Amazing how much the progressive movement has changed over the past few years, and in no way for the better.
Please understand: people very rarely change their beliefs without both push and pull mechanisms being in effect. The Democratic party lost this election soundly, which is strong evidence that a) they lack a meaningful message to attract people not yet on their side, or b) they are projecting a powerful message that's pushing existing allies out; or some combination of the two where the "push" outweighs the "pull". Doubling down on the "push" when it's being called out as such hardly seems like a recipe for success?
One place where I've experienced this personally is the increasingly extreme rhetoric coming from self-professed progressives; to the point where they are now blatantly contradicting the words of yesterday with the actions of today.
While I agree that what's happening with DOGE has the potential to be dangerous, it's also 100% in line with the professed goals of the effort: a full audit of government spending, efficiency, and waste.
So while the rhetoric you're peddling is indeed worrisome and plausible, it's also the same overblown conspiracy-minded rhetoric that has been evolving over the same time period I mentioned. Most of that rhetoric has turned out to be entirely unfounded, so I have trouble believing that this time will be different.
This is an entirely self-inflicted wound on the part of people who share your opinions and methods. You keep making wild predictions, and they keep not coming true. I would believe that some of them have "come true" for some definition of "true", and probably enough for you to maintain your belief in the righteousness of your cause; but as an apparent "outsider", I'm less convinced.
[E] I do have to point this out, though:
> Anything the right can criticize an opponent on, they will blast on Fox news and X 24/7, with nonstop propaganda and added lies, but Elon does a nazi salute on live TV twice and it's barely acknowledged.
The irony of making this statement given the amount of ink spilled over the last couple weeks (more like years!) criticizing anything remotely related to "Elon Musk". The lack of self-awareness is saddening.
I do not hate anyone, besides the fascists currently running the show.
I know you couldn't convince a red cap wearing MAGA fanatic to vote blue, just like you couldn't convince me to vote red. But most people aren't politicized, and those are the ones that need reminders of what is going on up there.
We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.
The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.
And now millions will get deported, all US aid in the world suddenly ended, causing millions more to suffer. Minorities are losing rights by the day, etc.
Also, why are you labelling me as a conspiracist? Did I ever lie? What DOGE is doing is illegal. They are employing neonazis. They are going after judges and journalists. Congress is doing nothing to oppose this. Notice how I didn't make a single prediction. Shouldn't this alone be enough to be concerned?
You put too much faith in the strength of our democracy and institutions.
> I do not hate anyone, besides the fascists currently running the show.
So you hate a lot of people, then. Democrats made "hate has no place here" a key slogan back around the time of George Floyd, and some people at the time felt like it was just posturing and pandering to the zeitgeist. This level of hatred that's now being openly leveled against anyone you feel like labeling a "fascist" does nothing but prove those people right.
You do see how this is ultimately self-defeating, right? It utterly destroys your faction's credibility, especially because your faction is no longer even maintaining the pretense that they're opposed to hate "in all forms", despite that being a key piece of messaging only a few years ago. This destroys trust, and trust is your most valuable asset.
> We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.
I think populism is a large part of it, but is not the only reason he won. The Uncommitted movement shares some blame there, as does the increasingly hateful progressive rhetoric that is still being given the largest of megaphones. As a prime example of this, I watched the entirety of the most recent (I think?) House Oversight Committee meeting, and was abjectly embarrassed by the level of demagoguery on display by the Democratic members of the committee. The irony was that it was a meeting about "government efficiency"! The constant obstructionism and deflections and blatant sound-byte farming by the Democrats on the panel really highlighted their inability to be "efficient", and really could not have made the Republicans' points more effectively. It's a sad day when I find myself agreeing with the logic and reasoning of some of the most toxic Republican members of Congress, especially when I feel that the delivery of their points was highly objectionable. I (un?)fortunately believe that logic and reasoning can stand apart from delivery, so despite how utterly abrasive some of the speakers were, I'm forced to admit they demonstrated sound reasoning. Despite all of that, the whole thing was a complete and total "self-own" by the Democrats, and cannot even charitably be described in any other way. The bar was set pathetically low, and still they could not clear it.
To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is, while constantly ignoring the concerns of the people that voted that side into power. Going back to my "push" and "pull" analogy, while the "pull" of populism certainly helped get Trump elected (the why of which is worth a lot of inspection, but would be an entire tangent of its own), the "push" of the Democrats' increasing detachment from reality is also partially to blame. A whole debate should be had at the relative contributions of each of these things to Trump's victory, but to try to claim as fact that "populism was the largest factor" is both arrogant and ignorant, especially a mere 3 months later. These are the kinds of complicated, nuanced things that are rarely ever conclusively decided, so to try to push a specific conclusion as fact at this point is elitist speculation at best, and outright misinformation at worst.
> The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.
I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own. Democrats are often the loudest voices for sweeping change (universal health care, for example), and yet have never managed to put together a coherent plan of action to the level of detail/scope of "Project 2025". I don't agree with much in Project 2025, but after reading through some of it I'm impressed by the level of detail and thought put into it. It represents a massive undertaking across a broad range of expertise, and yet is more coherent, coordinated, and cooperative than anything the Democrats have been capable of achieving in a very long time (if ever!). Democrats' constant infighting and alienation of their moderates cripples their ability to execute at this level, and I don't think they want to draw any attention to that.
> And now millions will get deported, all US aid in the world suddenly ended, causing millions more to suffer. Minorities are losing rights by the day, etc.
I feel like this is another area we disagree. I don't think people who are not in the country legally have a right to stay here. I think deportations are an important mechanism in a country's border security policy, and not engaging in them is antithetical to having an effective entry process. There's a reason why we want people to go through the legal process(es) of entry; I don't think folks who do an end-run around that should be rewarded by being allowed to stay.
I also highly doubt "all US aid in the world" would end. They've been very clear about this: their benchmark for aid is "is it in the US' interests?" This is a complicated question, but there certainly is a lot of aid that the US gives that is still in this administration's interests.
To make an earlier point concrete: Blowing this up into "all US aid might suddenly end" is unnecessarily sensationalist and almost certainly untrue. This is an excellent example of the kinds of rhetoric that I find to be providing the most "push" from the Democratic party. If I'm being charitable and giving the public the benefit of the doubt, I suspect only people who already hate this administration actually take this rhetoric at face value. Others, like myself, are skeptical of it, because even putting a moment's skepticism into it makes the argument fall apart. The original executive order pausing aid [0] has explicit carve-outs for aid programs to be resumed or exempted from the pause, and makes it clear that the purpose of the pause is to review the programs for consistency with US' interests (as defined by the current administration). This is not "all US aid in the world might suddenly end", even under the most charitable of interpretations.
> Also, why are you labelling me as a conspiracist? Did I ever lie? What DOGE is doing is illegal. They are employing neonazis. They are going after judges and journalists. Congress is doing nothing to oppose this. Notice how I didn't make a single prediction. Shouldn't this alone be enough to be concerned?
Because of your logic and reasoning demonstrated so far? See the previous paragraph for an example. People around you are injecting their own invented intentions and biases on the actions that are happening, and you are accepting them without question. I don't question the reporting on the actions themselves (somewhat, there's a lot of mixing of fact and conjecture), and I absolutely agree that DOGE is doing things that are questionably legal (and likely illegal, given what I know). The problem is, those actions are also entirely consistent with the purported goal of the department: auditing the spending of the federal government. When auditors audit a company, they generally are given full access to all financial records, so they can do their job effectively. Their actions so far have also been entirely consistent with their charter as established by the EO that created DOGE [1].
Whether or not what DOGE is doing is actually illegal (i.e. represents executive overreach) is for legal system to decide, not you, me, or the legislature (unless you or I happen to actually be part of said system). And they will do so; but that is not something that happens instantly. And by all accounts, Musk and his team are simply executing orders from Trump, even if they're being given large leeway in how they execute them. This means they are doing what they're doing with the explicit authority of the executive branch; how far that authority goes is not something I'm qualified to assess. Then again, the majority of folks who are speculating on it are also unqualified to make such assessments, but that hasn't stopped them from doing so, nor has it stopped you from taking their opinions at face value.
I would need some citations on the "going after judges and journalists" bit, because that's news to me.
> You put too much faith in the strength of our democracy and institutions.
No, I've just stopped putting so much faith in the loudest voices in the Democratic party. They've been wrong more often than they've been right, have demonstrated an incredible ability to alienate some of their most powerful allies and largest demographics, and have demonstrated a complete inability to unify anyone, preferring instead to be increasingly divisive as they lose ground.
Well excuse me for failing to show kindness to the most bigoted and hateful beings on the planet. Hating hatred is not the same as blind hate. To be clear, I throw no vitriol to Trump voters, only to elected republicans actively pushing to maim and wound our legal system, minorities, political opponents, etc. Which to be fair, is quite a lot of them.
I have no idea what you're referring to with "hateful progressive rhetoric". I do not hold the democrats in my heart either, but can you seriously claim the democrats are anything remotely comparable to the republicans when it comes to hating stuff?
> To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is
Seemed to work well enough for the republicans.
> I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own.
Democrats couldn't have had a "Project 2025" because something as large can't be realized that quickly in a reasonable democracy. And why would they want one of their own? Republicans acted like it didn't exist because they knew it looked very bad, as was confirmed by the polls. Why didn't the dems use that? Confront Trump and Vance on their constant lying.
> I don't think people who are not in the country legally have a right to stay here.
You're a fool if you really believe they will stop at only illegal residents. In fact, go read the news right now. They also deport legal residents now. ICE now acts unconstrained from any oversight, free to deport on racial criterion. They have deportation quotas and sanctions if they don't fulfill them.
> I also highly doubt "all US aid in the world" would end.
It already did.
> Whether or not what DOGE is doing is actually illegal (i.e. represents executive overreach) is for legal system to decide, not you, me, or the legislature (unless you or I happen to actually be part of said system).
It is illegal, go read what lawyers are saying. Trump does not hold absolute power (yet), we don't live in a monarchy (yet). He is supposed to abide by the law but doesn't. Which is why I am concerned. I feel like talking to a wall here.
> No, I've just stopped putting so much faith in the loudest voices in the Democratic party. They've been wrong more often than they've been right, have demonstrated an incredible ability to alienate some of their most powerful allies and largest demographics, and have demonstrated a complete inability to unify anyone, preferring instead to be increasingly divisive as they lose ground.
We do agree on the basic issue, but I think our conclusions are completely opposite. You seem to advocate for the democrat becoming some sort of republicans-lite. This won't help anyone, not even themselves. They can't win by weakly catering to MAGA voters.
My vision is that of a real left-wing party, with a populist messaging on universal healthcare, high taxes on the ultra-wealthy, more redistribution, pro-union policies, etc. All those subjects poll incredibly well with Americans.
There is no future for this country if we continue shifting both parties right-ward.
I feel like we're both losing time. Do you have any closing words on this?
> Well excuse me for failing to show kindness to the most bigoted and hateful beings on the planet.
Except... They're not? I've seen more hatred and bigoted behavior directed at Musk by the Democratic party in general than I've seen directed at any minority group by Republicans of any flavor (to pick two common examples of hate in today's politics). I agree that there's been a lot of hate from the latter, but it does not compare in scale and general "acceptability" to the hateful rhetoric I see thrown about on a daily basis by Democratic leaders in the most mainstream of places.
Maybe you "only hate the most bigoted ones", but I suspect that's just a rationalization on your part? I suspect every person I see this hateful rhetoric from would say the same thing about "only hating those who deserve it": but the scope and scale of actual hateful rhetoric tells me that's just rationalizing and posturing. Many Democrats are quite gleeful when they spew their hatred, and there's are not nearly enough Democrats speaking out about it.
> Seemed to work well enough for the republicans.
And yet they also came up with a very detailed plan of action and are currently executing on it. So they clearly are doing more than "just" complaining how bad things were under Democrats.
The Republicans' victory in this past election should be a searing indictment of Democrats' perceived ability to execute.
> You're a fool if you really believe they will stop at only illegal residents. In fact, go read the news right now. They also deport legal residents now.
This is wild speculation and the exact kind of rhetoric that does you no favors. I've seen a couple accounts that this has happened in isolated incidents, but certainly nothing that rises to the level that you're claiming here.
As much as it sucks, I would expect any deportation program to mistakenly deport a few people it shouldn't, no matter how carefully they identify individuals.
Maybe I'm a "fool" for believing it's a baseline error rate thing, but I would certainly be a fool if I believed every person who was as convinced of malfeasance as you seem to be! Every situation over the past few years that could be plausibly extrapolated to "ending democracy" has been by Democrats, regardless of how feasible that outcome actually is... So perhaps I now carry more skepticism of those kinds of hyperbolic claims than I should.
> It already did.
It didn't, though. Some aid programs were immediately exempted from the EO, and more exemptions have been added over time.
So, no. You're factually incorrect
> It is illegal, go read what lawyers are saying. Trump does not hold absolute power (yet), we don't live in a monarchy (yet). He is supposed to abide by the law but doesn't. Which is why I am concerned. I feel like talking to a wall here.
I've seen a lot of ink spilled by lawyers about what's "illegal" over my lifetime, and more often than not the courts do not agree with them. You can find a lawyer willing to make a case that anything is illegal, and everyone has one they're ready to trot out to question the legality of their opponents' actions.
As such, I've put a lot less weight on the authority of those statements.
I agree that some of the things the current administration is doing could be illegal, and I agree with some of the rationale behind why some lawyers are saying it is illegal. However, I'm not convinced it is illegal, due to the poor predictive power of such blanket announcements--especially when they're being made in such an information-poor environment.
Being concerned is fine. I'm concerned, too. Categorically declaring the actions are "definitely illegal" based on the words of some lawyers' motivated reasoning? Probably foolish.
> We do agree on the basic issue, but I think our conclusions are completely opposite. You seem to advocate for the democrat becoming some sort of republicans-lite. This won't help anyone, not even themselves. They can't win by weakly catering to MAGA voters.
No, I'm saying Democrats should cater to the moderates, and stop giving their most hateful and extreme members the spotlight all the damn time. Democrats' recent approach has spent far more time and energy on efforts which only benefit (much less affect) some of it's most marginal populations, which has left their much larger, more moderate Democrats out in the cold.
This is not a strategy to double down on, and yet it is what they're doing. This is just plain stupid, and as a "more moderate" Democrat, feels a little demeaning.
> My vision is that of a real left-wing party, with a populist messaging on universal healthcare, high taxes on the ultra-wealthy, more redistribution, pro-union policies, etc. All those subjects poll incredibly well with Americans.
I don't think all those things poll well, though? Universal healthcare certainly does, but pro-union policies? Higher taxes on the wealthy? I don't think either of these things has clear majority support.
Personally, I'm not even convinced that unions are a net good, given how prone to exploitation they can be. I mean, just look at the recent dock worker strike, where one of the major reasons for the strike was to protest automation. Automation! Our ports need more automation, and more automation would be a net good for anyone who depends on those ports--and yet this is being obstructed by the existing unions, whose continued existence apparently depends on blocking progress. And the Democratic party supports this! Anyway, this is a whole tangent.
> There is no future for this country if we continue shifting both parties right-ward.
I whole-heartedly agree, but there is also no future for this country if the Democratic response to Republicans' victory is to just ratchet up the rhetoric and hate.
> I feel like we're both losing time. Do you have any closing words on this?
Not really anything I haven't already said, I guess. I think you're being unhelpful to the cause you claim to champion by being hateful and spiteful, but I don't think I'm going to change your mind about the effectiveness of that approach. I'm saddened that so many Democrats so readily embrace hatred when things don't go their way. I think such an approach is transparently self-defeating, yet feel like I'm relatively alone in that belief.
I'm embarrassed by current Democratic leadership, and yet as someone who disagrees with the vocal minority of the party on a lot of nuance, I'm utterly disincentivized to throw my hat into the ring. I've seen how easy it is for the current leadership to manufacture large amounts of hate for people they're opposed to, and have absolutely seen that weaponized against "insider threats".
The problem there isn't the Democratic leadership's willingness to heap hate on anyone they see as a threat--it's the regular "rank and file" like yourself who take up that hate, and gleefully and righteously spread it around. You've normalized hate, and that's just sad.
its not censorship. There's several comments on here that have no relevance to the source article and are hand wringing which is unproductive and often is eager to descend into flaming. Lets talk about the article and its content and the potential cybersecurity risks to government data please.
> all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supporters of Musk.
I'm not a Musk supporter at all, but I flag these discussions for several reasons.
1. To keep my sanity. These stories are pretty much everywhere and will be all over for the next 4 years at least. I don't want to engage in them and lose even more time and get even more anxious.
2. The comments aren't useful and don't bring new information. It's pretty clear what Elon and the oligarchs are trying to do. Those who don't see it won't change their mind at that point.
HN is one of the rare forum to avoid flame war, let's keep it that way.
If your objection is that "I don't want to engage with it" and "I don't find them useful", it seems obvious to me that the solution is to simply not click on the thread and move on, rather than to attempt to stifle everyone else from engaging with it.
I would assume there are counter measures and detection. I strongly remember people discussing up-voting rings/puppet groups that pushed stories on slashdot and reddit, and the counter measures used to prevent that.
I don't recall if dang has ever openly discussed such security measures, through I do recall him saying that people can loose access to flag/voting if they are misused.
But where this particular article is from Brian Krebs, a niche reporter on hacker news, and bringing SNI, significant new information to the table, why flag this one? The broader strokes of what's going on is obvious, but this particular article is a specific detail of a detail, from a source that is relevant to tits community, and not a generic breathless CNN or Fox News "something happened today"
We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supporters of Musk.
We're being censored.