> "If day after day goes by with nobody discussing uncomfortable questions like these, won't the good people of my country be guilty of making things worse?"
Of course, this is just a re-wording of Edmund Burke's famous (and oft-used to the point of cliché) quote: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." The point is nonetheless valid, however. If hackers don't commit to thinking, speaking and debating about political issues relating to tech - who will? Sure, HN might be an echo chamber where we preach to the choir until our faces are blue - but it provides a place for us to hone our arguments, build alliances and keep our fingers on the pulse of the hacker community when it comes to such issues.
All of that said, I couldn't agree with you more on this point:
> "Very few are evidence of some "interesting new phenomenon". Most are a rehashing of the same old topics."
I'd definitely like to see less than 7 articles on the front page every time Snowden opens his mouth, unless all those 7 articles each have something unique and interesting to add to the discussion.
I'm not sure how this can be reconciled with the fact that if 7 different posts about the same thing make it to the front page, then there is obviously a massive interest in the community on that topic. What about the wishes of all of these contributors, who have voted already in our debate by putting the content on the front page in the first place?
One possible solution is to implement some sort of clustering system that groups posts about the same topic into a single "uber post" (with links to articles and a single comments thread). I'm neither a NLP nor a ML guru, so I have no idea how feasible this would be to automate given such a small data set. I'm also not sure if a manual tagging / grouping system would carry with it more overhead than it is worth. Most of the time (when we are blissfully ignoring the NSA, censorship, etc.) the front page is reasonably diverse.
Seems like some kind of mutually beneficial relationship.
Looks like Quora is a contributor to Forbes[1], but that no one gets paid[2]. At least that's what the answer that I can read without signing up for Quora says...
> Is the idea that our democracies could eventually fix this situation really beyond all hope?
Of course not. We should vote these creeps out of office and elect someone that really stands for privacy and civil liberties - like this promising young man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4
> I wouldn't want to live in one but probably would if SoMa had an equivalent - and I imagine many others would as well.
I came to the comments hoping someone else felt this way, actually. I really, really wish micro-accommodation would become a thing in American cities.
I'm moving to San Francisco after I graduate next spring. I would love it if some sort of crossover between a co-working space, a Japanese airport "capsule hotel"[1] and a hacker house type environment existed.
The hacker houses that exist now sound like a nice idea in theory[2] (being around a bunch of interesting, like-minded people). In practice, however, trying to get some sleep in a place like that sounds like - well, a nightmare. Great when you first arrive and are meeting people and going to interviews or whatever - not really viable over the long term for someone like me who values his sleep.
In my mind, I see a place where I have:
* A clean, comfortably appointed, soundproof capsule for sleeping
* Access to a nice, luxury-gym-like shared bathroom
* Access to a co-working space / commons area for hacking
I'm not sure how realistic this is given government regulations, housing prices, the number of people interested in actually paying for such a place, etc. Sure would be cool though.
Your analysis reminded me of an article I read a few years ago called "Driven off the Road by MBAs"[1].
I won't give a synopsis because it is a really short article - but here (IMO) is the key sentence and take away: "...ultimately, moving numbers around can do only so much. Over the long haul, you've got to invent or improve real products and services to grow."
The author of the article references a book written by Bob Lutz called "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business"[2], which contains numerous examples of how replacing executives from engineering backgrounds with executives from more traditional business backgrounds failed GM as a strategy.
I agree that it sounds insincere, but I'm curious - what about his actions and his apology makes you think it was truly unintentional?
I'm all for assuming good will, but it's very difficult for me in this case.
>"I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of understanding"
Seems intentionally condescending, not at all accidental.
>"Awesome, enjoy it. I'll be over here in not-node."
How is this completely dismissive, elitist snobbery not intentional?
That's like walking up to someone, punching them in the face, and then saying "oops, it was an 'accident'... sorry".
IMO his intention with these tweets is the core of the problem. To me, the intention quite obviously was to cultivate attention and elevate his status at the expense of humiliating another human being.
That's not something you can do by "accident". It's something you can regret[1] - but it's not like tripping over a curb, or rear ending a car because you were checking a text message.
Similar to the "nuclear option" - post as much racist / homophobic / misogynistic hate speech and fetish porn as possible while adding as many strangers as you can.
A friend mentioned this as an option back at the beginning of the "you can't delete - only disable your account" change a few years ago when Facebook made you go through a click maze and a waiting period before terminating your account.
Idiotic, but illustrative of how frustrating Facebook's polices can be.
