I like HN when it is leans toward "a place for everyone to talk about tech". Not so much when it derails into "a place for technologists to talk about anything".
You think tech is not going to be affected by this warmongering?
I think it's one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest, for US tech startups wanting to sell to customers outside of the US.
I don't consider myself very politically active, neither are my friends. But we are all looking to detach from the US and its companies. If you are a fledgling startup, in the coming weeks you might just lose out on many of your potential customers.
Exactly! Digital sovereignity is something we talk about a lot in Europe now since Trump is back and it's already causing german states to go full OpenSource and Microsoft-free. Chaos Computer Club called out the national "Digital Independence Day" this year, it's each month's first sunday (https://di.day).
It might not look like much but Trump is also making people realize over here how bad big-tech is for european values and how it's trying to undermine them for profit. This Greenland-thing is a step too much for Europe and seeing how close the techbros are to Trump, that is one thing where we can hurt them, take back our Data.
It is certainly possible that the US tech sector will be affected by the latest US president's brain farts… but I couldn't care less. Not my country. Not my scene.
I'm here for ASCII characters rendering pipelines, scientific breakthroughs, experimental filesystems, random wikipedia links, monospaced fonts, etc., not for silly politics.
I live in Europe and it's interesting to see intellectuals from the US and around the word that are primarily in the tech sector and known to have a broad knowledge of the world debate this topic. Since this could turn out to be the most destructive action of the century so far, considering world economy and maybe also the influence of big tech in europe, i think that is quite valid.
And moderators of big tech companies removing a political post from a front-page of an influential forum while it shows high interest, gratifies my intellectual curiosity even more!
But what to debate? Almost everyone agrees this is stupid, but nobody can do anything.
It's a bit interesting to read the best steelmans, then read how even they're flawed. Apparently the US not only already has a military base on Greenland, but is allowed to build more; and Greenland's resources cost more to extract than they can be sold. It appears there really is no benefit except to anger, scare, and annoy people. What other knowledge or insight did you find?
Surprisingly, there do still appear to be people (or at least one person) here on Hacker News who think America would win and that the EU would simply accept being invaded and do nothing. Like the EU would not decide "fight or die, we
choose fight", nor replace the US with China in trade relationships.
This insight is… the interaction felt like reading a history book, or a novel with an obvious villain.
Feels unreal, like watching 9/11 unfold on TV felt a quarter century ago. Except I get to talk directly to the Other instead of watching translations of their words being quoted on bulletins.
I agree. But when moderation is lenient and everything is allowed, you can't randomly decide to pull the plug on specific topics within a genre that's allowed.
I don't know whether these stories are pulled by HN moderators or flagged by lots of users but there is more than one motive for pulling/flagging stories.
One motive might be to avoid unproductive discussions - many of the comment threads on the Greenland story (which I voted up) were angry and very polarised.
More like the American timeline i.e. "that's the other party I don't like." There is this continual suspicion that if you criticise one lot you must support the other, as if there are only two shows in town.
> Despite his expertise, it's still a mystery how his anonymous persona was deanonymized.
The only explanation is that his OPSEC wasn't as rigorous as you think it was.
Reading the Wikipedia page, the most obvious gap would be the medical treatment he received in 2017. If he mentioned it publicly, then it was basically game over: finding him would have been routine police work at that point. The process that led to the interview by a German newspaper might have been leaky as well. There are so many opportunities.
As a rule of thumb, you can consider that while your OPSEC might _theoretically_ be the tightest in the world, you will eventually have to deal with other people and orgs at some time, who might not care as much as you do. In which case your OPSEC is really only as strong as _theirs_.
> Is it even possible to win a "battle" where you have to be perfect 100% of the time, while the adversary only needs to find one leak?
It is not. Simply because you can only control so much. A few years ago, there was a story about a mafia boss who successfully escaped justice for 20 years… until a Google Street View passed by while he was shopping groceries in a Spanish village. The guy certainly had the strongest OPSEC his money and relationships could buy, but it eventually amounted to nothing in the face of pure randomness.
All you can do is try to compartmentalize as best as you can for as long as you can, but something will eventually leak.
Also, it will be harder…
- the longer you keep it going,
- if it involves others,
- if you are married, have kids, etc.,
- if you have complicated needs (sex, drugs, health issues, etc.),
- if money is tight,
- if you are not geographically and socially mobile,
- if your public persona is too close to your real identity,
The shitty stuff rarely survives the race to the front page so you could probably start by avoiding "/newest". As of Sat, 03 Jan 2026 14:06:17 GMT, there is only one irrelevant item on the front page… and surprisingly little AI, which is quite refreshing.
I learnt the basics of vim navigation through it. I'm yet to finish it since I dropped it after the first chapter to start using it as a daily driver and picking things as I need. I will probably come back and go through it again at some point and by then it will be another mind-blown situation
Hmm. It looks like I forgot a pointer to the actual tutorial. I wasn't talking about vimtutor, which only covers very basic topics, but about the much more extensive user manual: :help user-manual.
Democracy can have many forms, some more authoritarian than others. And it being able to morph into a different form as the conditions change is very much a feature, not a bug.
Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, from dēmos 'people' and krátos 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state.
I would go so far as to say few of our so-called democratic countries are actually so. But one thing is for certain, a democracy can't be authoritarian by definition.
The problem with this etymology based political argument is twofold:
demos in Ancient Greek demokratia were blocks of assigned citizenship, so it is operationally closer to an electoral college than some idealistic "power to the people" interpretation of the term
who are the people? in Ancient Athens, "the people" ruling the demokratia were the male land owners... about 60% of the people in the city were excluded, most of them being slaves
Democracy now is a hugely complex ongoing negotiation, not some simplistic "dictionary says" naïvité. Go read Democracy in America, Aristotle is a bit outdated.
One thing that's worthwhile to understand, but very difficult to mentally reconcile, is the way in which Americans have the ability to redefine words to meet the need of branding.
In a very real and genuine sense, to most Americans "democracy and freedom" is simply whatever the USA does. This sentiment is then, after the fact, stitched into acceptability by these sorts of intellectual deflections.
It is understandable. The Netherlands is democracy to comes closest to ancient Athens. Twenty different political parties represented in parliament. A people who for 500 years have never agreed upon anything.
> Americans want a strong leader. It is understandable.
Is it? It seems incredibly stupid to me. It's putting 'strength', or intensity and effectiveness of action, above whether the action is a good idea or even makes sense. It seems to make competence secondary.
If Athens is legitimately a democracy then I am confused how you can come to the conclusion "one thing is for certain, a democracy can't be authoritarian by definition."
Athens killed Socrates using an authoritarian law after all.
I think we're using two different meaning of authoritarianism. It means both "undemocratic/rule of the few" (my statement) and tyrannical (your position).
Any state, democracy included, can be a tyrant (i.e. cruel and oppressive) against its perceived enemies.
This makes no sense. Why can't a population democratically vote for authoritarian laws? As long as the people have the ability to freely vote, the laws actually passed are irrelevant.
Second, only men could vote in Athens. Do you consider that to be acceptable in a democracy?
It's commonly taught in grade and high school civics classes that, since the Declaration of Independence, the US has a tradition that certain rights are unalienable. It's a direct statement that there is no way to separate or sever those rights from a person.
It's a whopper of a run-on sentence, but it's in there: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Athens itself killed Socrates for violation of speech laws and yet they are considered a democracy. This would be a violation of the First Amendment which would be considered an unalienable right that the Declaration of Independence was talking about.
There is an interesting point, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". If the governed consent to an authoritarian law, why would they cease to be a democracy? If 100% of voters voted to ban wearing the color green, they wouldn't be a democracy?
I think you are basically saying democracy means good policies and authoritarianism means bad policies so you cannot have authoritarianism and democracy, but that just isn't the definition of either of those words.
Yes governance power can take many forms but when it changes, it's no longer democracy.
If anything a better analysis comes from the book Logic of Political Survival. The selectorate and the winning coalition are much smaller than previous generations because of the massive accumulation and consolidation of wealth. So they dont have to do jack shit for the majority of people because theyre irrelevant in gaining or holding power. The majority of Americans hold and wield absolutely no political power in placing anyone in power. And then are surprised when they get wrecked. Or maybe theyre not surprised because they simple dont know how much theyre country is getting looted
In principle I agree that change is possible and good under democracy, but your comment seems wildly out of touch in the present context.he change that I see happening in the USA now does not seem like a change of democratic form, but a move away from democracy, because a lot of core rights/freedoms/structures are under threat: freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, right to protest, and maybe we'll see free and fair elections get weakened too before this process is done.
You can have the core things you mention in other political systems and you can have democracy without them. Those are characteristics of the particular form(s) of democracy currently in place in most of "the west", not of democracy itself.
> maybe
I know, it's more exciting to play the worst scenarios in one's head, but… _maybe not_?
> I know, it's more exciting to play the worst scenarios in one's head, but… _maybe not_?
I don't know where I read this recently that russians never believe that something good can happen and americans never believe something bad can happen. It feels so real these last couple of years. You are obviously having democratic backslide and going into a bad place, but the absolute inability to realise this (at least from a large segment of the population) looking from the outside, is bordering on the absurde. There have been many dominant empires that fell. It is the peak of hubris that it can't happen to you.
Very satisfied owner of a (smaller) PRW-30Y, here (with a matching after market "oyster" bracelet).
Always on time, always charged, always precise, highly readable, packed with useful features… that thing went through a lot without any issue whatsoever. It only leaves my wrist when I feel like cleaning it.
First new word of 2026. Thank you.
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