While I disagree strongly with the parent, and believe the tone is unwarranted, I think there is secondary value from the post. It raises the question: What kind of audience is Hacker News?
Obviously the audience at the surface-level is most likely connected to Ycombinator or has interests related to Ycombinator, but then not all posts are related to tech. So what kind of readers does HN target?
I think that the formation of Hacker News as a result of tech has brought together people who are knowledgeable in tech, but these people are incidentally more open-minded than the average forum and interested in thought-provoking content. It also helps that dang moderates against bad posters strongly.
I can tell that there is still room for improvement for diversity in Hacker News. We don't have enough artists, economists, chemists, biologists, healthcare, service people, etc., made apparent by our overwhelming use of CS metaphors or lack of knowledge in non-tech fields (the other day, someone was looking for a resource to "learn biology for computer scientists" which I found amusing that someone thought that there could be a way to learn plain biology through a CS foundation rather than just... learning biology the regular way). But our interests don't conflict with these "other" fields. A lot of us like to read "interesting" articles. "Interesting" is a very vague and uncertain qualifier, but HN seems to have a pattern of what it finds interesting. Most of the time it is tech-related, but sometimes it isn't and the tech aspect becomes orthogonal.
I think the audience of Hacker News is a very interesting metatopic in and of itself. I'd like to know how other members acknowledge our tech biases (or lack thereof).
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
A few days ago I posted a bit of new from CNN about a student spotting a dagger/sword that was 5000 old. I really enjoyed spending some time going that rabbit hole (like that girl that found a sword on a lake etc.)
Absolutely nothing to do with tech. Absolutely amazing stories that made the mind wander.
This is a not a tech forum. (imho) this is an "open minded/interesting minds" people forum. I spend more time reading the comments (than the 2-3mins to read an article) as it opens my mind, activates me, motivates me, educates me. It is perhaps the best forum I've ever joined and I hope we all stick around for many years to come and enjoy the intellect!!!
EDIT/addition: I was very pleasantly surprised a few days ago when a bartender commented on a threany/article on the unemployment due to COVID. It felt good to know that we got all sorts of skills/ professions contributing in these discussions.
