

Ask HN:  The older you are, the more you want to see non-tech on HN? - amichail

I suspect that the older you are, the more interests you have that have accumulated as a result of life experience.<p>Tech starts to look the same after you have seen so much of it.  In fact, I think that the older you are, the less likely you are to browse through technical books in a bookstore/library.<p>Moreover, you would be more interested in topics such as consciousness partly out of intellectual curiosity and partly out of consideration of your own mortality.<p>Finally, I suspect that older readers are more tolerant of others expressing various theories that they have about all sorts of things -- even without citations.  And this probably has something to do with placing greater value on life experience.
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RiderOfGiraffes
I am a counter-example to your musings. I'm 50 and have virtually no interest
in non-tech on HN. That's not why I'm here. I'm interested in programming,
science, math, and technology, and interested in topics such as psychology
only insofar as they impact on usability.

I do have very broad interests outside of technical topics, but regard as
pointless and irrelevant here postings on consciousness, etc.

Including this one.

I've noticed in the past that whenever you try posting on topics outside of
technical matters you are repeatedly ignored or flagged. Perhaps an
alternative hypothesis is that while these things are of interest in general,
they don't really belong here. The evidence seems to be against your
hypothesis. Try applying some science and changing it.

~~~
amichail
Perhaps it's more of an industry vs academia distinction then?

A post on consciousness is of interest in theoretical computer science for
example:

[http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/is-there-a-test-
for...](http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/is-there-a-test-for-
consciousness/)

~~~
wglb
This helps me clarify my thinking on your posted question. It seems that what
I like about this community is that it is started by and run by and for
Makers.

I have little interest in building a machine or spending effort talking about
a machine that acts like a human. I am more interested in building a machine
that is a tool that enhances human abilities. For example, we used to keep
track of our resources with pen and paper. We have built machines that make
that easier. We used to walk to school, now we have cars and busses to drive
us there. We used to dream about flying, now it is routine.

The classic AI approach (speaking of Minsky and others there) seems to be
aimed at replicating a human.

Conversation about consciousness strike me as ill-informed and are not of any
interest to me. But perhaps I am a simple country boy after all.

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brk
Nope, sorry, I think you're totally off-base.

I'm 36, and have been on the interwebs long enough to know where to find the
other non-tech bits of interest.

I prefer just the facts here.

~~~
randallsquared
I'm 36, and my interests vary so much that I find having a community of smart
people discussing multiple topics nice in and of itself. Most communities are
either full of not-smart people or much more specialized. Of course, I still
read both other types of communities, so perhaps I just have too much free
time these days.

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clueless123
Disagree completely. I am ~ 50 and really enjoy the tech stuff. for fluff I
can always go do digg.

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diiq
And to complete the anecdotal refutation, I'm 21 and I'm perfectly happy to
see non-tech articles on HN, as long as it's pepper over the techy meat &
potatoes.

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wglb
Good question, but for me _Tech starts to look the same after you have seen so
much of it. In fact, I think that the older you are, the less likely you are
to browse through technical books in a bookstore/library._ is really not true
at all. I won't say my age, but I have been programming professionally since
1965 and always hit the computer section of bookstores first. (Sadly in
apparent decline. My favorite was Borders, mainly because of their first store
in Ann Arbor. It was more like a seriously overstuffed library with lots of
big soft chairs and tables.) My technical curiousity is as great as it was
when I was 12.

Yes, my interests are quite varied and wide, and I have places to go on the
net and elsewhere to explore them. I come to hn because i look for the serious
technical discussions you find here and the startup and business focus.

I am not interested in topics such as consciousness as I find them
particularly undisciplined or worse. And not sure how that is influenced by
our consideration of mortality.

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forensic
It's the opposite for me. As I get older I become more interested in tech
stuff, and less interested in the general stuff. I used to spend almost all my
time considering the meaning of life and all that.

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dgulledge
One of the best things about HN is precisely that there is a core focus to it,
but that it touches on many related topics. Some of the most valuable areas
for exploration are where one field of knowledge meets another. Each sheds
some light on areas of the other that haven't yet been explored.

At 44, I'm backing up your argument. But honestly, I had already accumulated
most of my eclectic intellectual curiosity a quarter century ago. Even so, I
still browse the technical books at bookstores. Libraries are hopelessly out-
of-date on anything technical that would interest me. I don't need the latest
power users' guide to anything. I'm interested in new insights into building
something that has never been done before.

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ams6110
Your sentence _Tech starts to look the same after you have seen so much of
it._ resonates with me a bit (I'm 43 and have made my living as a developer
for over 20 years). What happens a lot is some old idea is dusted off and
becomes a current fad. Sometimes this is because the old idea was a good one,
but sometime it's because a younger generation is ignorant of history and why
that idea didn't work the last time it was tried.

So sometimes there a feeling of "What! That again??" when some topic such as
"NoSQL" comes up, but that doesn't, to me, make tech in general less
interesting.

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quantumhobbit
Not the case with me. I'm 24 and I like reading all sorts of news on HN. The
community here provides a level of commentary that you don't get at more
general interest sites like reddit and digg.

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kbob
More non-tech on HN: No, for the same reasons others have said. That's what
I'm here for. In fact, since I'm not planning to found a company, I'm more
interested in the technical articles than the business stories (though I read
both).

More interests with age: true.

Tech starts to look the same: sometimes, but there is more groundbreaking
stuff going on than ever before.

Bookstores: yes, but is that because of my interests changing, because the
books available are getting more superficial? Would you believe that in the
early 1980s, the bookstore at the mall stocked comp sci texts? I bought one
volume of Knuth there.

Consciousness: If I'm interested it's because it looks like we're on the verge
of being able to program it.

Tolerance of others' theories: only if they're genuinely new.

Life experience: absolutely not. In fact, the one thing I've learned from
joining Facebook this year is that most people spend their time doing stuff
that would bore me to death.

My age: 50, and gratified to see so many others of my generation speaking up
here. (I can't call us old, because we're not.)

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Scott_MacGregor
I like the tech and industry related business posts only. There are other
forums for other things. Case in point, the one or two posts linked to stories
from the New York Times that seems to show up every day. While I’m sure there
is a subset of us who enjoy reading the articles in the New York Times those
who do are probably already reading it natively and don’t re-read them in this
forum.

I realize the NYT is linked on the main page of the YC main site, but the two
posts that seem to show up every day strikes me as being spam in a tech forum.
They are not on topic. Same with the climate change conundrum posts, there are
other forums that discuss that on a daily basis such as
<http://www.abovetopsecret.com/> .

If this is a vote type of thing I would vote for tech and industry related
business posts only. That is what makes us special and unique as a forum.

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ct
You can always go to another website. I'd prefer websites to be focused. I'd
want HN to be mainly about how to realize your dream in creating a successful
startup. If I want hilarious stuff I'd go to YouTube, TMZ, etc.

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HeyLaughingBoy
I don't know if it has anything to do with age, but I am more interested in
the business aspect of HN than the tech stuff. _Meaningful_ changes to
technology are slow and I can find that information all over the net.But
people talking about startups, their problems and the solutions are
fascinating. That stuff is much harder to find elsewhere.

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rmason
I am over 50 and you don't speak for me. I want tech and startup news and
nothing else. There are many other places I can go for poltics, arts and
culture on the web.

I value the HN community as a chance to network with like minded people. I
sometimes feel isolated living in a rust belt state where coders and startups
aren't understood and barely even tolerated.

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sixspeed
I'm 54 and come here first for the tech articles. But after lurking around for
many months I've come to respect many HNers a great deal. So I also appreciate
reading their thoughts and opinions on topics of the day. (healthcare reform,
net neutrality etc.)

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jeremymims
Some of the best ideas come from intersections of knowledge. I typically enjoy
and learn something from articles that are not tech related but are still
voted up by the HN community.

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jhancock
I appreciate a wide range of topics on HN so long as the discourse is civil.
I'm 40.

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yan
Just curious, how old are you?

~~~
amichail
Here's a hint:
[http://cbm.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/transactor/v8/i3/p006.ht...](http://cbm.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/transactor/v8/i3/p006.html)

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wlievens
I'm fine with non-tech geek substance here, as long as it's _not_ politics!

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ComputerGuru
I'm 21 and open to all things hackish and interesting, tech or not. So...
nope.

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known
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone

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robotron
38 and prefer HN focused on tech and the business of it.

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pasbesoin
I would suggest that age can bring focus. You may have various interests, but
you get better and sorting one from another at deciding which gets attention
when and where. You've seen more, and you've learned how to choose what gets
attention. To be selective.

This is different from the absorption of youth. It may actually get a bit
harder to be so fully absorbed. But a bit easier to set aside an intriguing
novelty that does not pertain to your current endeavors.

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count
Non tech on HN is called 'Reddit', you may have heard of it.

~~~
iamelgringo
This isn't Reddit, or Digg, and it's one of the reasons why we don't like
comments like the above. Please refrain from snarky one liners. See:
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

