zlacker

>In fact, this site has been embarrassingly bad about the technical issues of surveillance, for reasons ranging from gullibility to capriciousness.

Poor analysis by some of the users (there are a lot of non-technical commenters on here) doesn't negate the higher degree of technical discussion that has indeed been present here. Just because opinion and fallacious arguments are present doesn't mean that good technical discussion isn't. Outside of dedicated infosec communities, I am not sure what online community has had more purely technical discussion on these issues over time. Feel free to list them though, because without sarcasm, I would be happy to know of them.

>>deveac+(OP)
I don't think tptacek is saying that good posts don't exist on HN, of course they do. The problem is that the signal-to-noise ratio is so low nowadays that it's hardly worth wading through all the hyper-politicized vitriol just to get to it.

The amount of horribly bad posts on HN has reached a proportion where they're no longer exceptions, they characterize the site as a whole.

Personally I've noticed my participation drop in the last few months because of this. There are fewer and fewer people interested in engaging in a discussion, and more and more religious zealotry where it's clear poster has zero interest in opposing views, and will stoop consistently to hostility and fundamental indecency when confronted.

>>deveac+(OP)
The problem is that many HN users think that because they are qualified to talk about tech, they are also qualified to talk about everything else. In reality, they're often not qualified to talk about anything.