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Comment by LightFog | Hacker News Reader

HN rules/ethos don’t agree but the lack of ‘politeness’ in these posts is refreshing. ‘Manners’ have long been a way to reinforce power imbalances and avoid scrutiny. Us plebs shouldn’t shy away from calling out corporate scumbaggery for what it is - what is more damaging, impolite prose or what this company is doing to our society?

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I'd say the latter. Though I do try and keep it polite when talking to people about my work. I think that more people should be more willing to talk about the powers that be and the way they're acting toward their users.

Indeed - well, thank you for the piece. Just like the Google Search one it’s clear that plenty of work has gone into digging through corporate docs and giving them some much needed daylight!

I think that we have some of the best investigative reporters in the world working in tech right now, but insufficient context behind things. I am obviously an opinion writer, and thus a little biased, but I think there is something very useful about saying "here's what I found and why I'm upset about it" with research backing it up.

It depends whether you want to facilitate insightful discussion, or not.

I think that when you put yourself in the mindset of writing something with the intent of facilitating discussion you're at times drawn toward making inferior content to satisfy an imaginary person (or group of people). Some people are good at it! I don't really get into it, as everything I write is personally-driven.

HN has insightful discussion? Very few people read the article and post anyway. And then its against forum rules to call that out.

HN has terrible insightful discussion.

> HN has insightful discussion?

Well that's the hope anyway. :|

Generally for HN the request for politeness is positive I think, but in the technology area and especially journalism I think there is an unhealthy aversion to calling people out for anti-social behaviour, leading to a chilling effect on discussing it.

yep. This article is about specific people who did specific things.

there's always r/technology if you wish to join likeminded folx and chant 'capitalism le bad' to your heart's content.

WHAT DO WE WANT? WE DON'T KNOW!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT? RIGHT NOW!

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