It likely will. There’s major impact on literally everyone in tech, there’s huge data privacy concerns, and it has less coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery. The US gov could fall but that would count as politics here so clearly irrelevant.
Tons of political posts are on the front page of Hacker News all the time. The ones I actually see get flagged are generally bad articles. Sure, there's real stuff that gets flagged down too, but Hacker News is far from a place where politics is always flagged.
There is always going to be an intersection between tech and politics. This convo is no different than talking about Section 230, H1B visas or using vision models to sexualize people or distort the truth.
Or rather, most people aren’t here to have their preconceived notions challenged by reality.
Politics is a nebulous term for topics that affect a large number of the population. Tech intersects with politics all the time and deserves good faith discussion.
When the computer code many of us are working on is directly shaping that politics I think that we should talk about it and stop hiding behind the bush.
Yeah so find a forum that’s for discussing that and discuss it there. Don’t try and force people who are discussing something else to talk about politics with you. Do you also randomly go onto GitHub issues and start talking politics because the people who are talking about repo bugs are “hiding behind a bush” and should talk about the political things you think are important instead?
I think that forums like this one should discuss politics as affected by computer code seeing as HN is one of the main (for lack of a better word) computer programmers' forums based/located in/with a focus on SV, it's not some random computer forum which specializes in some random computer programming issue.
Hacker News is not lambda-the-ultimate.org, seeing them as similar is part of that hiding behind the bush, people commenting on here actually work at companies like Palantir, Alphabet, Meta and the like, companies whose recent involvement in politics affects us all, at a worldwide level. Also see this recent FT article [1] in connection with how the leaders of those companies have gotten a lot reacher since Trump ascended to power for a second time.
> Tech titans lined up for Trump’s second inauguration. Now they’re even richer
> Silicon Valley bosses who lined up behind the US president for his inauguration have fared well under his administration
Absolutely and it's unfortunate that all essential topics that need discussion, which is the only thing that works to understand and find solutions for problems, is being flagged off the front page. Some of the flagging seems political as well, why isn't that recognized as a problem as well?
In a corrupt and authoritarian country, it is common to have officials busted on "corruption" or "embezzlement" charges. And yet most people know they are actually not jailed for the crimes they got charged for, because there are more than enough people to fill all the prisons for breaking the exact same laws they are accused of breaking. They knew the only reason these people got jailed is because they lost some kind of power struggle within the administration, and corruption is just a convenient lie those who prevailed tell you to keep you comfortable.
You never see the "no politics please thk u" crowd when it is about protests in Iran, Chinese oppression in Hong Kong, Russian aggression on Europe or hell, when people were literally running a political campaign the EU to stop killing games. You only see people flagging political submissions when it is a particular kind of politics - just like you only see corrupt officials jailed when they are a certain kind of officials.
There was a time when SV and technology eschewed politics, but that time is long gone. You only have to look at how often all the big tech CEO's end up at random Whitehouse events to see how they are intimately intertwined now.
There has always been politics in SV, this is a weird rewriting of history.
Presumably there’s so much pushback now because people are quite uncomfortable having to confront the fact that they may be the bad guys (even though they were probably the bad guys years ago as well).
> There has always been politics in SV, this is a weird rewriting of history.
Not rewriting at all.
Nien-hê Hsieh, a professor of business ethics at Harvard University says that in the 1990s, “there was a real reluctance or reticence to engage in Washington” from the leading tech companies of the day.
...
The early 2010s saw huge growth in lobbying spending by tech companies. A plateau in the late Obama years was followed by another steep increase once Trump took office. But in recent years some major players have slowed or even decreased their spending, suggesting that major corporations are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to wielding power on Capitol Hill.
It gets down to the definition of political which is basically anything that might have a human cost, including to the people here. I have many coworkers having to upend their lives, some can’t currently leave the country. This is not worthy of discussion, but an esoteric library update is. Paul Graham posts are not political topics for some reason, but H1B people is.
Technology, technology leaders, and technology companies are literally driving politics, buying elections, driving the whole US economy.
Saying what “political” topics are IS political - and it’s decidedly a right wing position. Only those with the powers protecting them get to avoid politics.
Well said. Even people with a lot in common can and should disagree often. In non-authoritarian systems, politics is supposed to be about managing this disagreement in civil ways. Politics seems unsavory to some, often because they find a lot of political manifestations to be vile or insipid. [1] I get that, but in a way this revulsion is backwards. The alternatives to the sausage-making of politics is usually worse: pretending there is no disagreement, coercion, violence, gaslighting. So when someone says "I don't like politics" I like to say "disagreement is to be expected".
The "hide" link is right next to the "flag" link. Using flag instead of hide puts more strain on the mods, and is not the right thing to do for "this topic doesn't apply to my interests."
If your problem is that you have no means to control what other people find important enough to talk about on a public forum, in their spare time, or that the means at your disposal to do so are insufficient to make other people saying things that make you uncomfortable go away... That isn't a problem that can or should should be fixed. Hell, the desire you've expressed could be uncharitably interpreted being contributory to part of the problem that has people around you discussing politics in the first place.
FWIW I agree with you and recognize that to be one of the reasons it frequently isn’t allowed.
I also think there’s very few places with the power to meaningfully dialog with and among people who build stuff in Silicon Valley. I have dozens of friends, coworkers, etc who are in FAANG or the newer big tech companies, and all of them are extremely well paid, and most will insist they work for positive reasons. I believe in that most of them believe in other people, and don’t want to build a surveillance society or one that concentrates all wealth and power in a few.
For this reason, I think that some conversations on here are important to have - the impact technology is having on people who are outside the tech sphere, the effect of leaders of our companies on the economy, geopolitics, and power generally. Mark Facebook is a powerful player on the world stage. So is Paul Graham, and Sundar Pichai. Davos just took place - leaders from major economies are seeking guidance from these people who many people here work for. Let nobody say they aren’t participating in politics. Where you work matters, what you build matters. It’s not tinkering around in people’s garages anymore - they’re building the infinity gauntlet and someone is gathering all the gems. The Death Star plans are on AWS.
To pretend otherwise is to deny one’s responsibility - in the short term frequently profitable. In the long term, the pendulum tends to swing back..
But it is the right thing to do for "this topic violates HN guidelines both in letter and in spirit, as well as predictably causing low-quality discussion threads".
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
To the latter point, hundreds of comments in, and nobody has even brought up the intellectual curiosity angle of this (what limits are in place to the Federal government using data from Federal programs for law enforcement purposes? and does it matter if the program is administered by individual states?).
Instead it's just political rage bait, including citing the Rev Niemöller poem as if we're talking about Nazis.
(It used to be part of Internet culture that the moment you compared something mundane to the Nazis, you automatically lost the argument and were mocked mercilessly. We should bring that back.)
You're past the time of saying that and not being seen as an enabler my friend. This isn't normal politics anymore. They are killing people in the streets. If you don't think that your tech toys have a lot to do with that, then you should grow up. This pathetic point does not apply anymore.
There are no interesting apolitical topics. Food tastes good sometimes, weather is doing weather stuff, yawn. I feel like we sometimes try to seek conflict out of boredom
No the problem is bootlickers with less self-preservation skills than animals who bend over backwards to reject actual reality because they think they're in the billionaire pedophilic ruling class in-group when they're not.
What I see today on HN mirrors the processes I've witnessed in Russian speaking parts of the net during the 2010s. Despite the escalation of totalitarianism in Russia, the growing internet censorship and military operations in nearby countries, which left the posters on the same websites on the different sides of military conflicts, some sites have stuck to their "no politics" rule. Both to avoid upsetting people in power and out of their owners' naïve beliefs.
Reading them was like living in an alternate reality where nothing more notable happens than a release of new version X of a framework Y. Large portions of the tech community had exactly the same attitude that could be seen here and now - refusal to consider the societal implications of their daily work, adherence to technical solutions over the real world ones ("I'll just work remotely and use a VPN, who cares") and just simple willful ignorance.
It was around that time that I started to frequent English speaking discussions, which were much more vibrant and open. It saddens me to see the same kind of process repeat itself here.
Exactly. I'm watching this from the Netherlands. Until last year I always ignored political posts here but now it's become an existential necessity to be involved.
If it was only that... What I really take issue with are all the mentally ill trolls jumping in to defend ICE, lying through their teeth about the content of videos we all saw. But actually supporting murder isn't enough to get you banned in here.
That’s not happening though. If it was, you’d see it everywhere. ICE operates fine in Florida. It’s just cities with armed vigilante groups where problems are happening.
Maybe you should change the channel from Fox News, NewsMax and "apolitical" forums. It is happening everywhere dumpty and his goon squad decides to make it happen. Do you not realize these ICE agents are Federal agents? Sure, completely incompetent, racists that choose to join so they can go after immigrants (legal or otherwise) with cover, but officially sanctioned Federal agents nonetheless. Your ignorance and acceptance is sad.
Do you have reports of serious incidents between members of the public and federal agents in Florida as you allege or are you just on HN to insult people but not actually respond to their arguments? If so, what happened?
The one from Minnesota ICE Watch that drove into the cop and the other one from Kingfield Signal ICE Watch group that started a fight while carrying a gun, as you probably already know. There are PDFs of instructions for these groups which involve breaking a bunch of laws. You probably know that too.
Plenty of credible reports of ICE dipshits using force on peaceful protesters. Florida tools are just too busy licking boot to be out peacefully protetsing. Keep on licking, tool.
So it seems you agree, you just calls people interfering with federal law enforcement 'peaceful protesters', and then throw around the expected insults.
Why do you think the people violently trying to stop enforcement of the law the government was democratically elected to enforce aren’t the "boot"?
Anyone who believes ICE is legitimately trying to rectify illegal immigration is either too stupid to function or a liar.
Because I give the benefit of the doubt, I will assume most people are not that stupid. So, the only option left is they don't actually believe it, and it's just virtue signalling to their fascist overloads. Personally, I think that's a bit pathetic, not to mention naive. Nobody has any reason to think they will be spared, citizen or not.
Damn near everything on HN gets flagged eventually. Either get everyone to drop their biases as Silicon Valley tech VCs or make it so that flags can ONLY be used to remove clear abuse. Sick of it
I actually think it’s best that HN flags and removes them because we are quickly entering a stage in this country where you will be flagged by the government monitoring the internet. I would caution people to start using VPN and continuously flush your IPs. I would even go as far as to recommend removing face ID from your devices which basically offers zero protection once you’re detained (or have a quick way to disable it).
Let the flagging process be automated on what should be removed and wipe your hands of any wrong doing. I do understand that anything ICE-related at this current time will inevitably lead to heated political discussions that run counter to the HN ethos but it is unfortunate. It seems we can continue upvoting older EFF/Wired posts on ICE tech to keep the situation on the front page, though. Also seems increasingly bipartisan in the US that Alex Pretti's execution was not justified.
I am regularly reminded that this site is filled not just with tech enthusiasts, but bootlickers that would do the dirty work of Zuck, Musk, and the current administration, all for a pat on the head and a few crumbs off the fascist plate.
Tbf it happens both ways (both are regrettable). If somebody posts a link that crosses political ground and might also be interpreted as favourable to Musk or similar, its a likely candidate for flagging by the leftists on here.
As someone who has been out of Java for close to 10 years now, you certainly could do without Mockito, but you'd be writing a lot of boiler plate code repetitively. There's also the case of third-party libraries that you don't control and Mockito has decent facilities for working with those, especially when you're working with a codebase that isn't pure DI and interfaces.
I thought Liquid Glass was cool & interesting when I first saw it in the Developer releases, but I find myself yearning to go back to Sequoia. Hopefully, Apple decides to go back to "simple" soon.
I've had similar observations with different behaviors in Safari and Finder. One would think the quality of Apple's software would be increasing with the usage of Swift over Objective-C, but the opposite seems to be true.
Spotlight is also slow and buggy now, on an M3 Pro no less. I loathe the feeling of being faster than my computer and having to wait for it to catch up, something that I haven't felt since the M1 came out.
This was my last straw that caused me to disable Spotlight:
Typing something into Spotlight, having it pull up the right result and highlight it, and me hitting the Enter key, and the search results suddenly updating after and highlighting some new result and then opening that instead.
It’s not just Liquid Glass. It’s bugs like these where I realized Apple software was truly rotten to the core. Whomever is running the show (Craig) can’t do their job.
I’m now noticing the same bug in the latest versions of Windows 11 when I hit the start button and run a search.
Apple software used to exhibit reasonable UX for “edge cases” just like the one you described. This was one of my main reasons for going Mac — they cared about the details. Sad to see that seems to be going away.
I think it's worse than that: we're now suffering being a "supported but deprioritised platform" for a cross platform GUI.
AppKit was developed for the Mac from the ground up. All effort that went into it was to make the Mac as good as possible. Experience from that went into making UIKit, which was made to be as good as possible for iPhone. Focus on iPhone made the Mac suffer somewhat from a lack of resources, but AppKit was still a rock solid foundation.
Swift UI is primarily made for iPhone. It's secondarily made for iPad. I'm willing to bet that almost all the effort that goes into it is focused on making iPhone and iPad apps better. And it is succeeding there, to some degree (though not without its own issues; especially now with iOS 26). Mac support, however, is clearly an afterthought. Yet it's now the foundation of everything in macOS.
It's not too dissimilar from what it would look like if Apple had decided to rewrite large swathes of the system in GTK when the GTK developers only really care about how well GTK works in a GNOME desktop.
> Swift UI is primarily made for iPhone. It's secondarily made for iPad. I'm willing to bet that almost all the effort that goes into it is focused on making iPhone and iPad apps better.
i think there is also another issue at play; i think with swiftui being "data based" for lack of a better term, you can easily end up with ui that matches underlying data models but doesn't match the users model/expectation... you can see this really clearly with the settings app vs the old preferences; its pretty obvious (imo) they are looping over underlying data and just spitting out endless lists and dialogs etc instead of mapping it to a presentation in a user-first way...
I still don't understand who actually use iOS/iPadOS apps heavily.
Everyone I know just try to do stuff with them and at some point go find a computer to actually get shit done, frustrated with how backward everything is on those platforms.
Now they want to make the Mac the same. What the fuck.
I completely agree. I saw the writing on the wall the moment they started boosting swiftUI as a UI library of the future where it was only half done and not even compatible with existing frameworks.
There are like a half-dozen blatant bugs I encounter between daily and weekly in Safari. Text input and textarea editing is buggy in a couple ways, Apple Pay has a positioning bug where sometimes its bottom button is about 1/3 off the screen, certain elements on a couple pages smear when I scroll (but only sometimes). Not even counting ways the keyboard itself is worse now.
I haven’t seen browsing this buggy outside weird niche Linux browsers in… 15+ years?
My issues with Safari have mostly been iCloud-related. The latest one being the iCloud tabs SQLlite database getting corrupted constantly and keeping stale tabs around that I have long closed. 26.2 seems to have fixed it, but it was around at least since Sonoma. I've had similar issues with Reading List, where again, the database gets corrupted and changes that I've made to Reading List get reverted. It is just little stuff like this that adds up and creates poor UX.
What's also telling is how long the bugs stayed around, too. They were reported on Reddit and Apple's forums for awhile with various workarounds, like deleting the phantom entries from the SQLlite database manually and doing some other gymnastics like removing the other devices from iCloud in hopes that everything would sync up nicely. No one at Apple had the time or took the time to chase down the bugs. In a world of Claude Code or Codex you would think they would have at least tried a cursory "fix this".
On a related note, maybe one of these days iCloud will have a force sync option that tells the other devices to trash their copies vs having to remove all devices and re-add to get everything coherently synced.
The lack of a "refresh" option has been a problem with iCloud for years. Back in the iOS 8/9 days, I'd write in Pages on an iPad and then try to open the document on a Mac or the Pages web app. Pages itself was (and is) pretty nice, but iCloud sync was constantly broken. Things didn't appear when I needed them to.
Some designers say that refresh buttons shouldn't exist because the interface should always reflect the current state of reality. They're right, but until the day we get 100% bug-free bidirectional sync with perfect conflict resolution that instantly polls the network whenever it reconnects, refresh buttons are a necessary evil.
I gave up on the normal iCloud tabs for over a decade now. But the Safari Tab Groups implementation is by far the best I've used. If I need to share a window, I just open it in a tab group and those have synced flawlessly for me so far.
I have had Safari syncing bugs since basically 2016.
But now I can't be bothered to even use it, no matter how good it gets.
Chrome extensions, functionning ad blocking (without having to pay for a stupid Apple blessed extension) and just generally more usefull feature set is the real reason Google is winning.
Apple can't even be bothered to try making a cross platform browser, because he would cost them too much money or whatever (not that the pile of cash they are sitting on is getting a lot of valuable use).
I’ve highly preferred Safari on Mac OS for a very long time- the bugs and memory leaks are forcing me to Firefox at this point, it’s completely unusable on the betas I’ve been driving lately in the hope they fix the previous bugs.
If you switch Safari’s tab bar mode to bottom (i.e. restoring the sort-of-one-touch controls that existed before iOS 26), textareas become utterly and completely broken. It’s almost impossible to reply to an HN message, for example.
This bug is so blatant that I assumed my would have been fixed by now, but no.
Maybe the sharper edges of objective-C lead to a programming practice that was more careful, which has been abandoned under the impression of Swift's increase default safety.
Please stop repeating this incorrect corporate structure. While there are still 3 entities, they are all now owned by the same German holding corporation, L&O Holdings, which is owned by 2 German individuals. The holding company now includes Sig Sauer USA, Sig Sauer AG (Swiss), and Sig Germany.
I do agree with your assessment of quality between the companies, though.
It's unclear to me how much L&O Holdings actually does to bring the two remaining Sigs together (Sig Germany is defunct as of 2020). They do not sell each others products, do development cooperatively, produce cooperatively, etc as far as I've seen. Sig Switzerland issued that foot-in-mouth memo backing the P320, so there's clearly something happening between the two, but I think presenting them as separate is more accurate than claiming they have a close relationship because the same holdco owns them both.
That's not correct. Sig Sauer USA's VP of Engineering Adrian Thomele was originally an Sig Sauer AG employee, who owned a company that was acquired by Sig Sauer AG. There are other examples of engineering management propagating from the German/Swiss entities and sharing IP between one another. Secondly, Sig Swiss AG recently announced that they would be manufacturing the P320. The German entity was shuddered to decrease manufacturing costs and effectively offshore to Sig Sauer USA, who is now also offshoring more manufacturing operations to India. I think there is much less independence than you might think between the entities.
Some more history you might find interesting - Thomele & Mayerl designed the FCU and P250 that would ultimately be the foundation for the P320. Thomele then went onto some of the design work for the P365 from my understanding while the P320 was going through trials and having issues. He's been in numerous depositions along with some of the US engineers that report to Thomele now like Sean Toner.
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