zlacker

>>dang+(OP)
This is a terrible decision. The tech industry has built powerful tools of social control, and runs vast databases of private data on pretty much everyone in the country. We have a golden period of forty-some days before a new administration comes to power that has shown every intent of using that information to deport people and create a national Muslim registry.

We need to be talking about the political implications of what we've built, and figuring out how to fix our mess. This is like the period before the hurricane: everyone should be busy boarding up windows, and you can't do that if you decide you're just not going to talk about the coming storm because it makes you feel bad.

>>idlewo+ck
It doesn't seem like most people on HN want to be politically active here. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm here to learn new things.

And yet, teaching people new things tends to affect the world more than political discussion ever could. I'm happy that HN exists as a solace from the political storm the rest of the world is wrapped up in.

Of course politics will affect each of us. But as tptacek is fond of saying, HN can't be all things to all people. It's more important to preserve the spirit of the site than to affect change. (In fact, it seems like one comes at the cost of the other.)

>>sillys+yq
It's weird to talk about the technical aspects of the Zeppelin if you're not allowed to mention the swastika painted on the tail.

>>idlewo+Pq
At some point it moves from politics to history. Using facts to discuss the past is not the same as projecting what might happen in the future, or why something in the near past happened, when we don't have nearly enough data to make definitive statements on it. This lack of factual data leads to opinion holding sway, and that leads to inflammatory arguments.

Let's not pretend that we can talk about the current political spectrum with anything near the certainty and information we have about Nazi Germany, the economic policies that were involved at the time, the propaganda used, and the world events at the time.