This post was on the front-page for about 1-2 hours before disappearing from it. It had gained about 300 points in that time which is way more than most posts on hacker news that stay on the front-page for 1-2 days. Even if you go to page 2 or 3, 4 or 5, this post cannot be found!
This seems strange. Does YCombinator have any interest in this?
As for YCombinator - not sure about them specifically but lots of tech billionaires are for invading Greenland or at least coercing them. Joe Lonsdale (Palantir co founder) recently said in an interview that he views it as frontier land (rather than someone else’s sovereign state). Probably the rare earth minerals would help investors involved in chips or AI.
https://news.ycombinator.com/active
The link to that page plus others can be found in the 'Lists' link in the footer
Why discuss here? The (IMO and stated) purpose of HN is to gain knowledge and insight from reading posted articles and comments. Anyone who doesn't live under a rock already knows about the Greenland fiasco. In the time I've unfortunately wasted on it I haven't learned anything significant, if anything I feel dumber.
Trump is an idiot, and there's plenty of other evidence indicating so. I think it's extremely unlikely he'll invade Greenland: the US already has a military base and is allowed to build more (under an old treaty), and its natural resources are a net loss to extract, among other reasons.
But Trump constantly says outrageous things for attention and to annoy/scare his enemies. Why listen? Who will this post affect that everything else Trump has said and done hasn't? What comment will convince someone "now I realize Trump is unhinged" or "now I will do something about it"; and who would that someone be and what would they do? Otherwise, you're wasting your time and energy and I'm wasting mine, which is ironically what Trump wants.
To anyone actually reading this: ask yourself why you need to pay attention to the Greenland issue and others, and consider ignoring it until (if) the US actually invades.
There is an automated flame detection mechanism. Don't know how it works. probably some kind of count of downvoting of comments?
Users manually flag.
Most political stories are flame bait; the discussions are low quality.
Most politics is off topic, but if a story has been discussed and this one has for almost a year, posting more about the same story with little change won't add much to the conversation.
E.g. I commented about this story 10 (ten!) months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43212206 and do not feel the need to share my thoughts each and every time the story comes up again, although I did 5 months ago. Maybe in 5 months time I will do so again but not every day!
Users do not want to see the same story permanently on show for discussion - they want novelty.
Users tend to not like: Emotions. Propaganda. Accusations of conspiracy. Less thoughtful and more thought terminating comments.
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You can find better and more answers by the site moderator @dang on why things slip off the front page by using the search box at the bottom of the page.
I consider tech workers to be “my tribe” and am curious to know what others think about what’s happening in the world around us.