Is hacker news not social media? Serious question. I always thought it was.

Not that Wikipedia is authoritative or anything but it seems to meet their definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

HackerNews is elevated above regular social media, in no small part thanks to dang's excellent moderation. I wouldn't be surprised if it loses its 'classification' due to this.

The term "social media" became popular with profile-oriented sites like MySpace and Facebook, and for a lot of people like myself, refer to that type of site. They're about being social, not about topics, like forums are (which predate profile-oriented sites). By that standard, HN isn't social media.

You might wonder why the "conservative" answer to men's mental health struggles or joblessness and such suddenly is no longer the traditional traditional masculine "man up and deal with it" but has changed into "this requires politicians getting involved!"

So if you're not a conservative who's picked this up as a thing to push forward your career with, you can't "not politicize" it because once something is politicized you can't put it back in the jar.

EDIT: And if those politicians, however disingenuous, are successful in politicizing it... well doesn't that just mean it resonates with a lot of people and then the left should talk about it because it's important to people?

> treatment isn't political

The US has a major political party dedicated to opposing expanded health care. That makes it political.

> it's bizarre to me when someone tries to divert a basic human concern into a political agenda

"The personal is political." It's a phrase originating in second-wave feminism and continuing onwards in current cultural issues.

> so it’s bizarre to me when someone tries to divert a basic human concern into a political agenda.

Why (ethically) would a political agenda be based on anything else?

> it's healthcare.

And healthcare is NEVER politicized.