5 ms·

Really interesting, shocking quote from the original article, but the Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News, IMO. Th

by bendotc 15y ago

Really interesting, shocking quote from the original article, but the Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News, IMO. The original Wired piece is great, though.

jswinghammer 15y ago
I'm probably the biggest libertarian you'd meet (that doesn't live in his or her mom's basement) and I feel like HN is pretty friendly to my thinking.
- bendotc 15y ago
  I agree. And I have no problem with people having their opinions. I know it feels like my own beliefs are in the minority here, and I don't have a problem with that, but Hacker News is always a better site when it sticks to what it's best at: hacking, technology and entrepreneurship. The politics and religion discussions here are always huge distractions.
- davidw 15y ago
  Maybe he means the guidelines: "off-topic: most articles about politics". Anything from Cato is going to be politics.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    How is any article about public schooling not going to be about politics? The public school system is inherently political by definition.
    - davidw 15y ago
      That's why it should should be flagged, killed, and left for other sites to debate.
      - hugh3 15y ago
        But the question "What's the best way to teach children?" is very relevant, so I'm inclined to allow it even if it does meander into political questions on occasion.
  - thisuser 15y ago
    Everything is politics. But reactionary free-market worship is too simplistic to be allowed here. Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable, not because they have any insightful analysis.
    - maxharris 15y ago
      too simplistic to be allowed here. Allowed by whom? Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable And this is somehow not simplistic?
      - thisuser 15y ago
        Allowed by the commenting community. There's a difference between simple and simplistic. Simplistic is pretending the only incentive force at work in a national scale institution is the profit incentive. Simple is acknowledging that a small institution with the mission statement to advocate for profit incentive as the singular organizing principle of our economy probably believes in its mission statement and operates for the purpose of the private profit of its owners. I've seen a few _interesting_ notes from CATO, but nothing I would call subtle or anything but free market fundamentalism. They tend to pick up every single news story and view it through a free market, shrink govt, give an individual the profit lens. Which is why they can only write a short, generic paragraph of comment on an interesting story about Khan Academy. OP should have been a link to Wired.
    - gdfsnob 15y ago
      I think you might be experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect. The CATO Institute has 10 Nobel Laureates in Economics associated with it. http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - thisuser 15y ago
rmc 15y ago
Agreed. It just quotes something from the original article without really adding anything new.
gdfsnob 15y ago
"Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News" As if Hacker News is somehow more qualified on economic issues than Cato, which has 10 Nobel Laureates? F. A. Hayek Milton Friedman James M. Buchanan Robert Mundell Edward C. Prescott Douglass C. North Vernon L. Smith Gary S. Becker Ronald Coase Thomas C. Schelling http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html
- bendotc 15y ago
  You seem to be arguing against a point I didn't make. I didn't say that "Hacker News is more qualified on economic issues than Cato" as you put it. I said that I found the case made in this blog post to be questionable and that this political content is not well-suited to Hacker News. I was not impeaching the intellectual output of the Nobel laureates associated with the Cato institute, but I do have to note here that none of them wrote this blog post, nor is there any indication that any of them reviewed it. I could further debate your name-dropping, but I've wasted enough key-strokes on this as is.
  - gdfsnob 15y ago
    "the Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News, IMO" Sorry, but you dismiss Cato because of its "free-market spin" and then call its main thesis "questionable", when 10 Nobel Laureates, who probably know far more than us on economic issues, are associated with Cato. I'd also note that Paul Krugman, Delong, and Sachs -- all very prominent Democratic supporters -- are very pro free market as indicated on the links you'll find on their Wikipedia pages.
  - fleitz 15y ago
    If politics is not suitable for HN then why do we have lots of articles about 'open source', patent reform, privacy issues regarding Facebook,Twitter, articles about wikileaks, lulzsec, the FBI, etc. These are all primarily political and non-technical issues that affect our industry just as the Khan Academy affects our ability to learn in the politicized education industry.
- 15y ago

by bendotc 15y ago

jswinghammer 15y ago

I'm probably the biggest libertarian you'd meet (that doesn't live in his or her mom's basement) and I feel like HN is pretty friendly to my thinking.

bendotc 15y ago
I agree. And I have no problem with people having their opinions. I know it feels like my own beliefs are in the minority here, and I don't have a problem with that, but Hacker News is always a better site when it sticks to what it's best at: hacking, technology and entrepreneurship. The politics and religion discussions here are always huge distractions.
davidw 15y ago
Maybe he means the guidelines: "off-topic: most articles about politics". Anything from Cato is going to be politics.
- Alex3917 15y ago
  How is any article about public schooling not going to be about politics? The public school system is inherently political by definition.
  - davidw 15y ago
    That's why it should should be flagged, killed, and left for other sites to debate.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      But the question "What's the best way to teach children?" is very relevant, so I'm inclined to allow it even if it does meander into political questions on occasion.
- thisuser 15y ago
  Everything is politics. But reactionary free-market worship is too simplistic to be allowed here. Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable, not because they have any insightful analysis.
  - maxharris 15y ago
    too simplistic to be allowed here. Allowed by whom? Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable And this is somehow not simplistic?
    - thisuser 15y ago
      Allowed by the commenting community. There's a difference between simple and simplistic. Simplistic is pretending the only incentive force at work in a national scale institution is the profit incentive. Simple is acknowledging that a small institution with the mission statement to advocate for profit incentive as the singular organizing principle of our economy probably believes in its mission statement and operates for the purpose of the private profit of its owners. I've seen a few _interesting_ notes from CATO, but nothing I would call subtle or anything but free market fundamentalism. They tend to pick up every single news story and view it through a free market, shrink govt, give an individual the profit lens. Which is why they can only write a short, generic paragraph of comment on an interesting story about Khan Academy. OP should have been a link to Wired.
  - gdfsnob 15y ago
    I think you might be experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect. The CATO Institute has 10 Nobel Laureates in Economics associated with it. http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - thisuser 15y ago

rmc 15y ago

Agreed. It just quotes something from the original article without really adding anything new.

gdfsnob 15y ago

"Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News" As if Hacker News is somehow more qualified on economic issues than Cato, which has 10 Nobel Laureates? F. A. Hayek Milton Friedman James M. Buchanan Robert Mundell Edward C. Prescott Douglass C. North Vernon L. Smith Gary S. Becker Ronald Coase Thomas C. Schelling http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html

bendotc 15y ago
You seem to be arguing against a point I didn't make. I didn't say that "Hacker News is more qualified on economic issues than Cato" as you put it. I said that I found the case made in this blog post to be questionable and that this political content is not well-suited to Hacker News. I was not impeaching the intellectual output of the Nobel laureates associated with the Cato institute, but I do have to note here that none of them wrote this blog post, nor is there any indication that any of them reviewed it. I could further debate your name-dropping, but I've wasted enough key-strokes on this as is.
- gdfsnob 15y ago
  "the Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News, IMO" Sorry, but you dismiss Cato because of its "free-market spin" and then call its main thesis "questionable", when 10 Nobel Laureates, who probably know far more than us on economic issues, are associated with Cato. I'd also note that Paul Krugman, Delong, and Sachs -- all very prominent Democratic supporters -- are very pro free market as indicated on the links you'll find on their Wikipedia pages.
- fleitz 15y ago
  If politics is not suitable for HN then why do we have lots of articles about 'open source', patent reform, privacy issues regarding Facebook,Twitter, articles about wikileaks, lulzsec, the FBI, etc. These are all primarily political and non-technical issues that affect our industry just as the Khan Academy affects our ability to learn in the politicized education industry.
15y ago