Thank you for not only flagging it, but saying something. Supposedly that's against the guidelines, but if a community doesn't communicate in cases like these, how can the newcomers learn that articles like these are not hacker news.
One of my own guidelines for "not hacker news" is if it's an article that's designed to "raise hackles" in the sense of offending one's sense of justice or "how things ought to be". This clearly falls in that category. This isn't "intellectually gratifying", it's gratifying to your sense of righteousness / indignance. None of this stuff is at all new to anyone whose residence is not located under a rock.
Oh, also, as an aside:
> And please spare us the lame "situational logic" response of how <anyShit> is hacker news.
I think of that game as "7 degrees of hacker news". The more outlandish it is, the more 'fun'. For instance, an article about renaissance Italy could be hacker news, because Paul Graham has talked about the style of painting in that time period, and has compared painting to to hacking, and since Paul Graham is a hacker...voila`! Although, truth be told, that sort of subject matter might at least be interesting in the sense of telling me something I didn't know, rather than discussing current US politics.
that sort of subject matter might at least be interesting
in the sense of telling me something I didn't know,
rather than discussing current US politics
I am of two minds about it. Learning is important and essential to our profession. But does all kind of knowledge belong in HN? I would not say so. Where the borderline is I am not yet sure.
(Regarding politics, I would say whatever affects the professional life, scientific research, etc, is in; pure politics is out. But it's just a single person's opinion.)
> But does all kind of knowledge belong in HN? I would not say so.
I agree, but a scholarly article about an obscure, uncontroversial and off-topic subject is just not likely to cause much 'damage'.
The problem with "affects professional life" in terms of politics is that pretty much everything does, somehow: taxes, health care, bureaucracy, and so on. You could talk all day long about that stuff without getting anywhere.
One of my own guidelines for "not hacker news" is if it's an article that's designed to "raise hackles" in the sense of offending one's sense of justice or "how things ought to be". This clearly falls in that category. This isn't "intellectually gratifying", it's gratifying to your sense of righteousness / indignance. None of this stuff is at all new to anyone whose residence is not located under a rock.
Oh, also, as an aside:
> And please spare us the lame "situational logic" response of how <anyShit> is hacker news.
I think of that game as "7 degrees of hacker news". The more outlandish it is, the more 'fun'. For instance, an article about renaissance Italy could be hacker news, because Paul Graham has talked about the style of painting in that time period, and has compared painting to to hacking, and since Paul Graham is a hacker...voila`! Although, truth be told, that sort of subject matter might at least be interesting in the sense of telling me something I didn't know, rather than discussing current US politics.