Thank goodness somebody flagged this. All this commentary on the collapse of our democracy was really harshing my mellow.
PieTime · 6m ago
Meanwhile palantir is training AI models that assassinate journalist. Ethics are a major part of tech, we can make decisions that distribute billions in relief or execute millions.
LexiMax · 2h ago
I have been promoting the use of the active front page to my tech-minded friends and acquaintances that use this site.
Can someone explain what 'active' stories are? It isn't described in the FAQ
Tadpole9181 · 22m ago
IIRC ranked on interactions instead of score, includes flagged.
duxup · 56m ago
Oh very nice thank you.
morkalork · 1h ago
Been using it ever since another user mentioned it, the difference has been stark.
rchaud · 3h ago
plus it might divert eyeballs from all the truly critical news about which AI startup got how much in funding to do something 100 other companies are doing.
ta1243 · 36m ago
This is literally a news site for startup funding
rchaud · 21m ago
If that were the case there would never be any topics on HN about housing, healthcare, education, elections, war or tariffs, yet the "/best" page says otherwise.
Tadpole9181 · 9m ago
Out of curiosity, is there a way we can request a mod to manually unflag this? I see comments in this thread have been killed, so I'm not sure why this is still flagged 3 hours later when it seems clearly relevant to HN?
A military deploying to the capital of the richest country on earth where most tech giants reside is important for tech.
Jtsummers · 7m ago
Email them via the contact link at the bottom of the page. They're pretty responsive, though for political topics they're reluctant to unflag them because the discussions are often fruitless (just a bunch of people shouting at each other).
mdhb · 1m ago
The mods time and time again will tell you with a straight face that everything is going just fine and there is absolutely no coordinated campaign by anyone to flag anything and you should only ever assume that everyone is acting with pure motives at all times.
ath3nd · 7m ago
It's flagged for the same reason that posts describing the genocide Israel is doing in Palestine get flagged: the absolute intolerance of those in power to any dissenting opinions.
jacquesm · 4h ago
One way to now a chess match is about to begin is to see people place pieces on a chessboard. There is no thread of our possible history that is colored 'good' for the next couple of years that starts off with deploying the NG in Washington, D.C. As a pre-emptive move it is an overt threat and as a response to something that is actually happening it is complete overkill. Either way, trouble is brewing.
pohl · 4h ago
A staged "carjacking" that the police got lucky enough to "stumble upon" — the "victim" of which just so happened to be the DOGE employee known as "Big Balls" — isn't enough justification for the presence of the National Guard for you?
cookiengineer · 4h ago
Wait this seriously happened? Wtf is going on in the US :D
nosioptar · 3h ago
Yes, Big Balls allegedly got his ass beat by a couple of 15 year olds.
I'd like to see your evidence that it was staged. So far I have not seen anything that indicated that it was.
No comments yet
rdl · 4h ago
If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions, will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long.
Aside from street protests and rallies (which NG should scrupulously facilitate for 1A reasons; DC itself has been fairly bad about this in the past, too), I don't think most local policing is highly political. Yes, DC residents are losing some democratic control over their local policing, which is bad, but DC has also done a bad job with local policing for a long time.
(I'm broadly in favor of shrinking DC to the federal areas themselves; the parts where people live generally should be returned to the States.)
jacquesm · 4h ago
For me it doesn't really raise any interesting questions at all: things are statistically not 'bad' per se, besides, you could trade your democracy for an autocracy or a dictatorship and end up 'safe' from small crime but meanwhile have your whole country looted.
Maybe some people prefer that but I would rather have garden variety criminals and a trustworthy government fighting them than some kind of re-invention of the USSR, which didn't really bother with collecting crime statistics, and where crime was - so they claimed - very low (this really wasn't the case, especially not if you consider the behavior of lots of highly placed individuals, who could get away with just about anything, except of course stealing from their bosses).
skajzbxbbj · 3h ago
Our country is currently being looted (rampant political corruption - Ukraine, Gaza, big tech, etc) and becoming less safe.
The irony is you often get the best of both worlds. A government that is tough on crime is often so because they care about their people, and thus won’t let the country be looted by the larger criminals either.
That being said, these types don’t often win (because they’re at odds with the system that creates billionaires) and are painted in a terrible light by the media & history book writers.
ethbr1 · 46m ago
As with the parent, I prefer civil liberties and small amounts of crime to any alternative.
Which is why the playbook for authoritarianism traditionally starts with lying about how much crime there actually is, thus justifying a crackdown.
If Trump wants to cite excessive crime as his reasoning, then he should provide statistics, not the unsubstantiated off-the-cuff insults he has thus far.
burkaman · 4h ago
> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC
I don't know how you could measure this, since DC saw a very significant reduction in crime last year without any interference from the National Guard. If there are further reductions this year, that would be a continuation of a trend, not a new phenomenon.
It’s nice to be data driven but that isn’t really possible in our low trust society.
burkaman · 3h ago
If you don't trust the stats, then again, how would you know what effect the National Guard has? I can give you my subjective assessment as a DC resident, which is that crime is pretty low and it's a great place to live, but that isn't very useful to anyone who doesn't know me personally.
If you don't trust the stats then the Guard is being sent in for no reason and there will be no way to determine what impact they have. That is a terrible situation for everyone.
> It’s nice to be data driven but that isn’t really possible in our low trust society.
I don't think these concepts (interpersonal trust vs. accuracy of government statistics) are very related. For example China has one of the highest levels of interpersonal trust in the world (https://ourworldindata.org/trust), but notoriously unreliable government statistics.
Goronmon · 9m ago
That is a terrible situation for everyone.
It's not terrible for everyone. It's great for people who control the National Guard as well as has the ability to control what people are told about their impact.
toomuchtodo · 4h ago
> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions, will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long.
Though I guess the loop hole here is that the National Guard would in this case be acting under "state authority" given that typically state-like actions for DC are deferred to Congress. The open question being whether the Executive branch could act independently, or whether they still need explicit authorization from Congress.
normalaccess · 4h ago
From the Wiki Page:
"The Act does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard (under the Department of Homeland Security) is not covered by the Act either, primarily because although it is an armed service, it also has a maritime law enforcement mission."
It's confusing because DC does not have a governor so it looks like an edge case that has not been tested before.
ratelimitsteve · 4h ago
the DC national guard is under the direct command of the president. The law may use the words "state" and "governor" but I'd take the other side of any bet that says that will be interpreted to mean that the president doesn't have the authority to deploy the DC guard in DC because of the posse comitatus act.
baggy_trough · 4h ago
"One set of troops, the District of Columbia National Guard, has historically operated as the equivalent of a state militia (under Title 32 of the United States Code) not subject to Posse Comitatus Act restrictions, even though it is a federal entity under the command of the President and the Secretary of the Army."
Herring · 2h ago
To be fair, he's right. In a well-functioning judicial system, he'd be in a tiny jail cell right now.
jihadjihad · 4h ago
We’re only ~1/7 of the way through this administration. There is so much more time left on the clock for shenanigans.
It’s hard to imagine three summers from now being anything other than a hellscape. I hope to God I’m wrong.
toomuchtodo · 4h ago
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
doom2 · 2h ago
Why is the current level of crime in DC worthy of deploying the National Guard, but January 6 wasn't?
hopelite · 1h ago
I don’t mean to be mean or maliciously or anything, but just as I tell every commoner, regardless of what team they think they are on; if at this point you still have to ask that question you are willfully ignorant or have no business thinking about anything related to politics or government and should stick to whatever you may do well.
The information is all available. What is your excuse for not knowing it?
zekrioca · 22m ago
"Only idiots answer a question with another question."
fnordlord · 15m ago
As a software engineer, I'm offended. I thought our only two options for answers were "what are you trying to do?" and "why do you want to do that?"
conorcleary · 16m ago
null statement
wffurr · 4h ago
Washington DC should either be made a state or given to Maryland except for a small federal district. What a load of crap.
For transparency: NYTimes live stories have dynamic headlines. I've updated the title to match the current headline as of ~12pm.
josefritzishere · 3h ago
Reminds me of the Gleiwitz incident.
drivingmenuts · 4h ago
Is being homeless now a violation of federal law?
dragonwriter · 2h ago
Law as something distinct from the immediate whim of the executive backed by military force is under (both figurative and literal) attack in the US right now.
It directs the executive agencies to seek to loosen any restrictions on non-consentual admission to psychiatric facilities and to force homeless (and people with mental illness) into them.
It also aims to end drug abuse recovery programs and says that not having physical space for patients shouldn't stop them, IIRC.
cowpig · 4h ago
If crime is at a 30-year low, what is the purpose of this? Is it to bring media attention away from the Epstein controversy?
rchaud · 3h ago
To continue the pattern of throwing the military into regions of the country that don't vote for the regime.
jacquesm · 4h ago
It's a threat. What surprises me is that these people are all still following orders. They know there is no emergency - yet.
No comments yet
drivingmenuts · 4h ago
It doesn't matter. What Trump believes (in his broken little mind) is all that matters. That and Plan 2025 or whatever it is.
AnimalMuppet · 2h ago
That is not wise. (I'm ignoring the question of whether it's legal or constitutional or justified. Those are important questions. They matter. But for this comment, I'm ignoring them.)
Trump just made himself owner of the crime rate in DC. Every crime that occurs there is now Trump's failure. That is not something that he's going to want.
Tadpole9181 · 1h ago
As if that matters. He never takes responsibility for literally anything. Blames other people for his appointees and laws. All negative consequences are always someone else's fault.
https://news.ycombinator.com/active
A military deploying to the capital of the richest country on earth where most tech giants reside is important for tech.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/19-year-former-doge-worker-assault...
No comments yet
Aside from street protests and rallies (which NG should scrupulously facilitate for 1A reasons; DC itself has been fairly bad about this in the past, too), I don't think most local policing is highly political. Yes, DC residents are losing some democratic control over their local policing, which is bad, but DC has also done a bad job with local policing for a long time.
(I'm broadly in favor of shrinking DC to the federal areas themselves; the parts where people live generally should be returned to the States.)
Maybe some people prefer that but I would rather have garden variety criminals and a trustworthy government fighting them than some kind of re-invention of the USSR, which didn't really bother with collecting crime statistics, and where crime was - so they claimed - very low (this really wasn't the case, especially not if you consider the behavior of lots of highly placed individuals, who could get away with just about anything, except of course stealing from their bosses).
The irony is you often get the best of both worlds. A government that is tough on crime is often so because they care about their people, and thus won’t let the country be looted by the larger criminals either.
That being said, these types don’t often win (because they’re at odds with the system that creates billionaires) and are painted in a terrible light by the media & history book writers.
Which is why the playbook for authoritarianism traditionally starts with lying about how much crime there actually is, thus justifying a crackdown.
If Trump wants to cite excessive crime as his reasoning, then he should provide statistics, not the unsubstantiated off-the-cuff insults he has thus far.
I don't know how you could measure this, since DC saw a very significant reduction in crime last year without any interference from the National Guard. If there are further reductions this year, that would be a continuation of a trend, not a new phenomenon.
It’s nice to be data driven but that isn’t really possible in our low trust society.
If you don't trust the stats then the Guard is being sent in for no reason and there will be no way to determine what impact they have. That is a terrible situation for everyone.
> It’s nice to be data driven but that isn’t really possible in our low trust society.
I don't think these concepts (interpersonal trust vs. accuracy of government statistics) are very related. For example China has one of the highest levels of interpersonal trust in the world (https://ourworldindata.org/trust), but notoriously unreliable government statistics.
It's not terrible for everyone. It's great for people who control the National Guard as well as has the ability to control what people are told about their impact.
Trump says crime in D.C. is out of control. Here’s what the data shows. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/10/trump-cri... - August 10th, 2025
Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low - https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... - January 3rd, 2025 (My note: Published by this admin's DoJ in January of this year)
DC Metro Police 2025 Year-to-Date Crime Comparison - https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance
Though I guess the loop hole here is that the National Guard would in this case be acting under "state authority" given that typically state-like actions for DC are deferred to Congress. The open question being whether the Executive branch could act independently, or whether they still need explicit authorization from Congress.
"The Act does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard (under the Department of Homeland Security) is not covered by the Act either, primarily because although it is an armed service, it also has a maritime law enforcement mission."
It's confusing because DC does not have a governor so it looks like an edge case that has not been tested before.
It’s hard to imagine three summers from now being anything other than a hellscape. I hope to God I’m wrong.
The information is all available. What is your excuse for not knowing it?
Let's hope it doesn't have the same effect (ie the eventual fall of the republic)
[1] No military weapons were allowed inside this boundary of ancient Rome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomerium
No comments yet
It directs the executive agencies to seek to loosen any restrictions on non-consentual admission to psychiatric facilities and to force homeless (and people with mental illness) into them.
It also aims to end drug abuse recovery programs and says that not having physical space for patients shouldn't stop them, IIRC.
No comments yet
Trump just made himself owner of the crime rate in DC. Every crime that occurs there is now Trump's failure. That is not something that he's going to want.
And his base gobbles it up.
Heck, even it did get attributed to him - it doesn't matter. 47% of conservatives said they'd still support Trump even if he raped children with Epstein: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-47-republican...