Half the articles about Japanese culture are "off topic" yet rocket to the front page without issue.
i.e, on or off topic hasn't been the deciding factor on that for some time now. Pretty sure the rules even state that it's about "what people find interesting".
I think the politics of the USA becoming so entangled with the tech scene to be quite interesting, it's definitely not a phenomenon I expected to see given the ethos of the industry when I started my career in the early 2000s.
Seeing the support from the previous SV "rebels" for the demolition of US's institutions is interesting.
A lot of people in tech today think politics is something “other” to tech. It’s the same kind of “we just make the thing, how it’s used, by whom, for what, and why is someone else’s problem” that pervades the likes of Meta Platforms Inc. With today’s technology industry, thinking like that is naive at best.
The worst of the worst tech bros and their earlier investors (like Marc A) created and have tried hard to spread that idea around. The goal is to keep politics out of the tech workforce so that they can meddle in politics without fighting multiple fronts.
You’re not supposed to say that though, for that’s saying the quiet part out loud. The sad thing is how many people buy it hook line and sinker.
Which isn’t to say you’re somehow wrong for wanting a safe space away from political discourse. It’s important not to forget how empowering silence and ignorance are to causes that typically undermine the rights of the populace.
> Which isn’t to say you’re somehow wrong for wanting a safe space away from political discourse. It’s important not to forget how empowering silence and ignorance are to causes that typically undermine the rights of the populace.
I feel like these two statements nearly contradict each other. Maybe the second sentence should have begun with "However,..."
Either way, I totally agree that apathy is enemy #1 and policies that enable censorship for any reason are enemy #2.
There’s a small print to that and we know that “some” politics is off topic.
Or else I should not be seeing lots of criticism on the front page when the current US president does something that negatively affects the tech or AI industry.
These don't stick around on the front page for long. These get demoted automatically as they usually generate flame. Flame is calculated by comparing numbers of comments and voting patterns. Or users see them and flag them. Unless a moderator intervenes or the submission is Very Important (quite rare).
What often happens to not understanding how NH works is conspiracy theorising. I note that the user account age who submitted this question is only a year or so old which might indicate a gap in understanding how this place works.
Dang has a number of comments (find them using the search below) explaining all this better than I can :)
