Because this is not about tech, this is just politics. /s

One thing I've learned since last year; a lot of the tech bros seem to really love fascism. Many others go along to get along. And some hide behind a veneer of "impartiality" to continue to stay in their bubbles. Looking at you ycombinator/hackernews.

Things have changed, but some of these people love it; more money and power for themselves. Some are afraid of rocking the boat, and some choose to maintain willfull ignorance.

I feel like I'm living in a black mirror/silicon valley hybrid tv episode.

I'm not sure if it's "a lot", or more than the general population. I think last time I checked about 40% of the US population still approved of Trump... :-/

But yeah, there's definitely a streak of that, and it also seems people are more bold/outspoken in ways that I didn't see before. Not long ago I saw someone argue that some children TV show was woke garbage because ... it featured mixed race couple. What the actual fuck? "Hi, I'm from the KKK, and I'm wondering if you have time for a chat about the darkies and Jews?"

When that Google AI was doing crazy stuff such as displaying black Nazi soldiers, the Musk crowd was all over it (and according to many, the only possible answer was that it's a woke soyboi beta cuck brainwash attempt). But God forbid Musk does anything wrong... then it's "no politics on HN".

Hacker News is primarily read by young, affluent, intelligent men. In the old days, people like us would often fall hard for Ayn Rand's bullshit (I know I did!), now they fall for this new bullshit.

Really, it's the same thing though - it feels good to have someone tell you that you are exceptional and that your biggest problem is that someone (women, minorities, The Man, bureaucrats) is holding you back from becoming the next Steve Jobs or Frank Lloyd Wright.

You gotta understand that most people are not principled and operate solely on a vibes-based ethical framework: "If it feels good, it's probably right."

The intelligence part is debatable. Clever, maybe, but "clever" is not necessarily intelligent. The latter is commonly taken to be a matter of depth and consideration as well as sharpness, and if you fall hard for "Ayn Rand's bullshit", you probably have neither (if not the capacity to develop them).

>One thing I've learned since last year; a lot of the tech bros seem to really love fascism.

The current tech-feudalism/AI accelerationist/neo-nazi flavor of American fascism was created by tech bros and nerds who have been deeply influential within the tech community - Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel and the like, and this forum is the nexus of it. The anarchist/anti-capitalist/liberationist strain of hacker culture seems all but dead now.

I really miss the anarcho hacker days, those people were cool

Because a lot of HN users secretly agree with this stuff and don't want it discussed.

Garry Tan and Paul Graham both post praise of the DOGE team on their Twitter pages. Maybe the problem extends above users.

I keep a list of recent falsely flagged HN stories in my favorites. There's a pretty clear theme there.

> I keep a list of recent falsely flagged HN stories in my favorites.

Great idea; I'm gonna start doing the same.

The question at this point is when do we pivot away to an alternative where these topics aren't covered up? Maybe even hosted in Europe.

Tildes has replaced HN and Reddit as the site I default to for news aggregation.

I do feel like it is a bit light on the technology/programming front, otherwise it has a well-rounded mix of interesting topics. I feel like its decisions to not have a downvote button, as well as only allowing sign-ups through limited invites from other existing users, were smart ones.

Mastodon is also good, depending on how well you curate.

Lemmy uses the same underlying protocol but is closer to hn in form

There's https://frontpage.fyi/, which is built on ATProto (same as Bluesky). Doesn't seem to have a whole lot of activity yet, though.

> I keep a list of recent falsely flagged HN stories in my favorites.

Someone should make an alternative HN frontpage listing only the flagged discussions, ordered by upvotes/comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/active lists all stories, including flagged stories.

It should not be flagged. This ham-fisted application of a system prompt to mirror Elon's personal beliefs and agenda is a critically important lesson about these tools.

I thought it was newsworthy and earned criticism when Google performed "white erasure" and forced laughable diversity in its models, and similarly it's newsworthy when Elon is forcing his fringe beliefs on his model.

Because Hacker News is about as "free speech" as X.

I remember when "Gemini always creates racially diverse people in images even when it is inappropriate like when creating pictures of SS officers" was a #1 story here.

The aggressive flagging in this case is... interesting.

a lot of HN users are like a hair away from being openly white supremacist itself. Sometimes HN is just 4chan linkedin

There's a dead comment at the bottom of this page from someone who flagged it.

> Sorry I had to flag this it makes me uncomfortable and personally attacked when people say negative things about Elon's businesses. Politics has no place on HN, Elon has done too much for humanity to be treated like this

i'd say this has to be Poe in action if not for the fact that they flagged it. why on earth are people internalizing indirect criticism of Elon Musk?

Judging by the rest of the user's comment history, I think it is Poe in action. But it's funnier to take it at face value.

surely that cant be real good god