The why isn’t important. HN would be better without current events. Banning current events would solve the political threads. Without current events the site would be a respite from rather than extension of whatever the current rage is (which is mostly politics).
Current events also encourage repetitive topics. Every day is multiple coronavirus threads. During an election it’s daily election news. During the 737max thing it’s multiple daily threads on the same thing.
Every current events topic just turns into a flame war. Coronavirus is a good example. Every thread is an argument about whether lockdown is good or not, how deadly the virus is, etc.
Ban current events. They dominate every other medium. HN doesn’t need them.
1. At least some politics is not out of scope. Some politics directly impacts the tech world - crypto policy, for example. Some other politics requires tech to work - surveillance, for example.
2. At least some of us have some interest in some political topics, even if they don't directly impact tech. (Just like some of us have some interest in some philosophical topics, or some cooking topics, or some music topics, or some art topics.) Since HN is a community, not just a web site, then HN discusses whatever enough people on HN find interesting (subject to moderators keeping the flames down).
3. I've never really understood the angst about articles that don't interest people. There's (I believe) 30 on the front page, and 30 more on the next. If there are, say, 5 on the front page that are topics you don't care about, then skip over them. It's really not hard to just drop your eyes down a line to the next one.
There has been a shift in the last few years where more "news" like content gets on HN that is not really hacker/startup focused. To me, the "Hacker" in HN is in the sense of engineering culture around making things, not just "technology".
In my opinion topics that are related to tech don't qualify as hacker news. Political topics certainly don't have anything really to do with hacker news.
Yeah, I wanna see shell scripts, puppet and vimrc files, C++ tricks, coding techniques, circuit teardowns, MCU hacks, and docker discussion...! (Seriously) Not WikiLeaks and censorship and vote suppression!
I've been spending more time on stackexchange, it is probably better suited to what I'm looking for.
It's difficult (if not impossible) to divorce some political topics from technology.
Trying to neutralize political discussion is effectively a permanent ceasefire: It sides with the status quo (whatever that status quo might be) while maintaining the illusion of being impartial, but is anything but.
That being said! A lot of political discussion on HN isn't interesting and, from my understanding of the guidelines, doesn't belong here.
Just to complement what I believe is a spot on comment I want to add that anything you do in your life is political.
The way you shop, organize your family or work or even think about solving problems is related to politics because that’s where you get your world view from.
There is no such thing as a apolitical conversation. What we can do here, though, is try to address the content that was submitted in the most objective way we can.
> Repeat after me: all technical problems of sufficient scope or impact are actually political problems first.
How does a "fat pointer in C" or "devops for ML" become political? I'm joking, but I think too many deliberately charged issues make it to the top. I popped over to slashdot for the first time in years and it has become a right-wing megaphone. It is very sad. I would prefer to not see HN go this way. (Mea culpa: I'm partially to blame for this because politics makes my blood boil... but it would be nice to just say 'no' at some point...)
> I popped over to slashdot for the first time in years and it has become a right-wing megaphone.
That's the trouble with faux neutrality and negative peace: It will be exploited by people who want their "side" to win. Given enough time and people with colluding self-interest, and an inflexible moderation policy, they will.
> It is very sad. I would prefer to not see HN go this way.
I agree, but there's not much we can do about it except flag flame-bait topics (i.e. anything that's purely political or religious and non-technical).
I understand your question. My observations and experience on trying to comment on such posts have left a sour taste in my mouth.
Political posts on HN are a honeypot designed to lure in people with different views. The moment you post something that does not jive with the herd you get down voted.
It does not matter if you are making a valid point.
I like the idea of a site like this reaching a group consensus. But I also don’t like how dissenting views aren’t even considered. I wish I could come up with a solution.
Current events also encourage repetitive topics. Every day is multiple coronavirus threads. During an election it’s daily election news. During the 737max thing it’s multiple daily threads on the same thing.
Every current events topic just turns into a flame war. Coronavirus is a good example. Every thread is an argument about whether lockdown is good or not, how deadly the virus is, etc.
Ban current events. They dominate every other medium. HN doesn’t need them.