actually I've been detecting a sharp increase in US rightwingness and nationalism comments on HN. I was wondering if it was just trolling or HN was now on some bot list or if there was a real change in sentiment in the US?

I doubt there has been much change in numbers, those on the right are just willing to be a little more visible now. It helps that HN is for the most part an anon. site.

There is a real change in sentiment in the US. Note the last election results.

But also there has been an increasing amount of polarization to both the left and the right from the center. Likely in part due to social media filter bubbles.

Kind of an odd move to pepper the HN thread on Dick Cheney’s death with non-sequitur comments about “the left”

Agreed. Besides, "left" and "right" are particularly meaningless in this context.

Cheney spent his last years being openly embraced by the same people who spent the last few decades playing the part of opposition.

The OP I responded to specifically mentioned the difference responses to the deaths of well known people. Mentioning Castro and comparing to Cheney.

Current right wing propaganda utilizes a strategy of "flood the zone", based on the "Russian firehose" approach.

This means injecting all talking points all of the time, and disrupting any criticism anywhere.

LLMs make this easier and more effective, and HN is absolutely, 100% owned by bots. And in like a literal sense, given who YCombinator funds and is headed by.

couple of points. 1. I'm not a bot. I'm just politically right, we are around, we just hide because its still career suicide in tech. I know you don't see the right as human but most of us are people just like you, not LLMs

2. I just like to chat on HN, there is no right wing mass organized process for people to chat with others, or at least none that I am a part of. To think that everyone you disagree with must be a bot or part of a conspiracy is both dehumanizing and just... an odd way to see the world.

3. The OP I responded to specifically mentioned the difference responses to the deaths of well known people. Mentioning Castro and comparing to Cheney. That was the context of my response, not sure how this has now veered into organized conspiracy theories

Really? The VC ecosystem and most of tech leadership is pretty alt to hard right now.

IMO that is different than rank-and-file. My theory is that once you make a certain amount of money you run a high risk of becoming divorced from reality.

Most of tech leadership blows with the wind, they have no firm beliefs. Whatever drives shareholder value. See Zuck. Although I do agree those more to the right have been emboldened to speak up a little more. I think the vast majority of the rank and file including managers are still on the left

I think it's useful to separate "tech" from "the VC ecosystem" and "most of tech leadership", the former being a huge range of people, while the latter two being a small group comparatively.

Not to mention HN is yet another sub-section of the "tech" ecosystem with a small cross-section of VC and startups, although that was indeed the focus on the beginning, I think the scope of HN has grown quite a lot since its beginnings.

I disagree but I also find it funny that people will spout off their respective political ideas then get butt hurt that others don't like them.

Maybe keep it to yourself. Keep it all to your self.

I think any article that espouses a political slant will have political comments which I welcome. I enjoy hearing from people with different leanings and discussing them. I just get frustrated when they are based on emotion and not reason