
Ask HN: Is the omission of politics a political stance? - rickyplouis
When posting to HN it states posts must be on-topic and exclude things such as<p>&quot;Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they&#x27;re evidence of some interesting new phenomenon&quot;<p>I truly do enjoy the content and community here on HN, but my question is that given the current political climate isn&#x27;t the decision to omit political content a political stance rather than an apolitical one?
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smt88
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.

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matt_s
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".

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petercooper
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.

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0xy
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.

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TechBro8615
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.

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caymanjim
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.

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tomjen3
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.

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afarrell
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.

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giantg2
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.

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potta_coffee
Emphatic "no".

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sloaken
No

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buboard
That brings it probably closer to a libertarian position

