While i wouldn't agree that HN is a conservative forum, there is certainly a lot more conservative-leaning material posted here than similar tech-focused forums.

See any thread about California, Texas, diversity & affirmative action, COVID, etc.

This thread was diverted from questioning alcohol as a poison in "any amount " to culture war. This is the borderline astroturfing that destroys communities. Turn every discussion into a political one. I no longer read Slashdot knowing I'll find commenters with more insight than the OP, because they're buried in fragile outrage. Sorry I'm making it worse, just this thread, which should be a few references on each point, became panic and FUD disorientingly fast.

The pattern only overlaps with conservative on the topics of regulation, maybe taxes, definitely affirmative action.

Everything you said but it's not about conservatism in general or most of the rest of the current conservative platform.

It's just anything that annoys a tech bro who never had a problem in life except that it's a crime that his copycat app was taken down and some girl got a job he thought the world owed him, or he succeeded and believes he did it all himself and doesn't owe anyone else anything.

I mean, it is a large overlap. You could describe both this and the coservative platform as "whatever rationalization works to justify being selfish"

But for instance, I bet almost none of these "conservatives" have a moral or religious objection to sex outside of marriage, sex outside of their race/ethnicity/religion, definitely aren't down at the soup kitchen every wednesday to feed the hungry, never turned the other cheek in their lives, will happily ridicule "preppers" even while researching about data islands...

I think I'm not really articulating my point all that well but hopefully you do still get what I mean despite my weak examples.

> Not terribly on topic, but I've been lurking here for more than a decade, and today I learned that it's a conservative forum

Me too.