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0 pointsAlejandro9R21d ago0 comments

Me being a non-US reader, it’s honestly a bit frustrating to see how often people from the US forget that a large portion of HN readers are from other countries and don’t share the same context for posts like this. It ends up assuming US context as universal.

And don’t get me wrong. I agree that corruption is horrible. I live in a country where corruption was and still is rampant. Political discussions related more closely to, let’s say, AI companies such as OpenAI or Anthropic when it comes to the Pentagon do spark interest, since they are somewhat more directly connected to decisions we can make as tech professionals in other countries, whether for moral, ethical, or practical reasons. That is not really the case for posts like these, however. To your point, I would love to see the tech/hacker community come up with ideas about solving corruption, even if it’s just philosophical discussion.

If my point still doesn’t make sense, imagine seeing posts about corruption cases from any other non-US country being posted on HN. What would you think about those?

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kgwxd20d ago

When i browse sites based in other countries, i don't complain when there's a lot of talk specific to that country. I didn't know what Eurovision was until last week, but now LMNC is representing the UK. A lot of talk about how it should be boycotted because of Israel. How a bunch of people i never heard of are corrupt. i'm just there to cheer on LMNC, but i get why it's being overshadowed by the current politics.

Terr_20d ago

Well, when it came to news about Silvio Burlusconi in Italy, I was incredulous that any established democracy would tolerate such corruption.

Which is why I owe Italians an apology nowadays.

Natfan20d ago

given what we know about trump, "bungabunga" parties with consenting adults sounds positively pedestrian

danaris20d ago

I don't think the answer to that is to discourage posting US-centric stories about serious political issues. I think the answer is to encourage people from other countries to post theirs, too.

We need more understanding of each other and of each other's situations, not less. The more we tech people bury our heads in the sand about politics—every country's politics—the more likely we are to create more situations like the one we're in today.

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