I've been a HN member for 11 years and 11 months to this exact day (I joined Christmas 2009).
Since then, I've lived in 6 different cities, 5 different timezones and worked on countless side projects. But all this time, HN has always been my most visited month after month.
I can always count on this place to keep me up to date with the latest tech trends and read discussions between reasonable people. Thank you all and especially dang for keeping discussions high quality. Especially as the quality of content on the rest of the internet deteriorates in the pursuit of virility.
It's a testament to you all that place feels the same as it did 10+ years ago.
Hackernews is simultaneously the most cantankerous and, imho, highest quality response on average public forum on the net. I absolutely love it here and sincerely appreciate this place. I feel like I’ve grown up on this site in so many ways.
I am continually humbled by not just the consistent quality of content but also the comments. It’s a testament to the moderators that this site has maintained this level of quality for so long.
I am thankful and happy to use thanksgiving as an excuse to express that notion.
It's definitely one of the only places on the internet where you can ask a question or insult something, and have either the creator or most renown SME pop out of nowhere to explain everything. Never seen anything quite like it in any other field of interest I have.
Worse, at least in the government circles I work in, people pronounce "SME" as "smee." Almost like you're saying the first syllable of Smeagol. Good luck googling that.
This is the only platform I frequent where I read more than I comment and I learn a lot from people, too. I always come here to find interesting takes on things and I'm very rarely disappointed. A lot of times I delete my comments instead of posting because I worry ot might not be a good enough contribution and that I might sound dumb. That's very humbling.
Hackernews works. I respect the mods and appreciate their work keeping everything running. We're living in increasingly volatile times, and while a lot of us are stubborn and hard of hearing - myself included - and people like Jonathan Blow like to hate on that, I still think this forum is a bastion for real discussion and understanding on all kinds of topics.
It's bizarre how many times I've come across someone just randomly hating on Jon Blow. I don't know what this guy does to attract such attention considering his relatively niche space of work.
I'm not hating on him, I like him almost as much as John Carmack. I think he brings criticism on himself though because he's very negative on some topics, obviously not making friends. While he's doing his niche work he's shooting off strong opinions all the time.
Well, even if you're not in the industry it's still difficult not to have strong opinions on some fields of software developments; especially the shitshow that is the web.
That said, very few programmers today recognize or admit the atrocious quality of modern software. I think That's why people like Jonathan Blow or Casey Muratori are disliked by developers who see themselves as champions of "modern" software development.
Can often learn the most words from the magniloquence of cantankerous rejoinders.
I’m actually just as thankful for all the words I don’t have to learn here. This is often the first place I go to when I want to look for a distilled, “real” take on something by people capable of communicating with a lot of jargon but generally choose to speak simply and succinctly.
>> Hackernews is simultaneously the most cantankerous and, imho, highest quality response
In other words, exactly what the internet was and (for people like me) hoped it would continue to be. I don't think it's entirely the moderation (though that certainly helps) but somehow the conceptual integrity has been maintained and has a powerful shaping force.
I never completely agree with the content and opinions, but we all seem really well aligned with the rules of the game.
I agree on everything, but the moderation. Personally, I have seen very few times where their assistance is even needed.
I have seen them squash interesting debates.
I had one guy email me, and tell me at home to stop commenting so much. (Never forgot that one, and there are no TOS. I will probally pay for those last two sentences? Then again if HN is what it claims, maybe not?)
What makes this place special is there are a wide range of people here interested in many subjects. What I love most is cutting through the bull. I doubt there's a person here who doesn't know about The Scientific Method, or The Placebo Effect.
We don't automatically give credit to the wealthy boys unless they did something really spectacular in their lives, and we want to know exactly how much help the wealthy family had in the success. We don't let them pontificate ad nausium because they made money. We scrutinize and investigate everyone, and every idea. From the best in class PhDs to lost disenfranchised souls. Everyone has a chance to make their point.
Hacker News is by far the best site for technical discussion.
(I do spend too much time here. It's my fault though. I don't have much of a life, and I am lonely. I am looking for new sites besides Reddit. Reddit would be so much better if everyone wasen't trying out for a SNL contract.)
Didn’t really read you post but this jumped out at me, “Hacker News is by far the best site for technical discussion.”
Indubitably true.
Frankly, even if I’m forever shadowbanned, I can’t think of a better place on the net. It reminds me of the old net, the best parts. The current fashion and culture change a bit over the years but not too much. It’s hard to not mess up a good thing but they do well to do that here, even if there’s a strong pro-CCP bias evident at times in some of the moderation.
I was recently in a meeting with a colleague about some recent craziness that just finished. A lot of hard work, not fun, but ended up just fine. Then a few minutes later, I find out her daughter is in the hospital, so she's been back-and-forth there a lot, and her life is exponentially more crazy than my own. I felt terrible for complaining about my dumb issues. Work's hard sometimes, but it's so small in comparison.
The upside of the conversation is that I've felt extra thankful this year- I have friends/family/coworkers going through sickness, abuse, divorce, coming out of the closet, and more, and it puts my concerns in perspective. My life is far from perfect, but I'm grateful for what I do have.
I know very little about any of you personally, but I hope you continue to share your knowledge, wisdom, dumb anecdotes, and opinions both great and terrible.
Citizen of the Earth, member of the Cherokee Nation - let us not forget the spirit of the day. Everyone viewing this post has something to be thankful for. Be humble, be kind. Happy Thanksgiving.
As an Immigrant to the USA, I did not get the whole thanksgiving thing. But then as I had a kid there, I warmed up to it.
Then now I've been living abroad for almost 10 years without returning home to the USA and if I did not see this post I would not even have remembered.
It's strange how we can so quickly adjust to holidays from different countries in just a few years -- while forgetting the ones back home so easily. And it's not because we were ingrained with them as kids, because while I grew up in Jamaica, I've totally forgotten the holidays there now.
I guess the main one is Christmas - it's hard to forget because of all the shopping - and that's kinda celebrated here in Asia too.
In the same boat myself. I immigrated from india to Canada many years ago and since then, Christmas is the only one I can actually remember and usually celebrate. The other traditional ones like Diwali, Durga Puja, Holi, Eid etc are all forgotten to me unless my family reminds me of it.
UK immigrant to the USA here. I heard about and celebrated Diwali for the first time this year (by going out for Indian food). I'm up for any and all holidays. Especially ones that involve food and no other commitments :) Happy Thanksgiving to all!
I can relate as I am an immigrant as well. I do not know if it is me getting older or the fact this year was especially eventful ( new title, first baby ), but, despite all the stuff going on in the world today, I feel especially thankful.
It is funny, because only few years ago I was more cynical about it and reduced all holidays to the 'feast' part.
Happy thanksgiving, HN! Hoping for a safe and happy weekend for everyone, and praying for anybody daring to brave an airport! Good luck, and reminder: take as much leftovers home as you possibly can. Stuffing a Hawaiian roll full of cold turkey and cranberry sauce and eating it over the sink is a godly act.
For those of you who have to work to keep this giant machine running, just be aware: legally you are allowed to have one drink at your desk at all times during the holiday weekend. I don't make the rules.
I’m from another culture and this is a FIRST thanksgiving for me :)
This place has been not only enjoyable and absolutely blowing away for me because of all the great people who participated in key events for our industry and provided first hand perspective on something I only remotely heard of before.
But the warm inclusive accepting and encouraging atmosphere here is totally something else on the internets nowadays, thank every single one of you for that.
And a cherry on top, one of the book recommendations here changed my life in ways I could not have imagined, so you’re all very special for me, hope to be a part of this big and warm community for the years to come, thank you for your precious time and attention!
It’s Keith Johnston Improv. It really helped me to become friends with my subconscious, imagination, destroy some assumptions about myself, reframe my view of children, of course laid a stone into my decision to have a child (like this year as opposed to “eventually” or some day as I started interacting with children after reading the book), showed me a cool hobby and a new way to express myself as an event organizer. I have like 240 highlights and notes in it, more than in any other book by far, it was really a book written just for me at that point in life, you know? It also has a bit of a twist towards the end. Highly recommend! I’m 33 if this provides some context I dunno :)
Oh there’s also a TED talk by the man, you can totally see he is something else by watching it and comparing to other TED talks. Makes more sense of you read the book though.
Gosh, this was beautiful to read as an incidentally American person.
There's something truly healing in giving thanks, in calling attention to the countless small acts of kindness without which we wouldn't be where we are today. The holiday itself is so freighted with the weight of our history, but the premise seems good. It actually seems to me more humanist, less materialistic and less secular, than any other holiday on the Western calendar.
For sure, gratitude is healing both ways, holidays like this must really have a wide positive effect on communities and wellbeing of people. We need more of those :)
Goingaroundstreetsandscreamingiloveyouateachotherday anyone? :))
Thank you Dan Gackle for making this site my happy place, the only place on the internet that I read every day.
Thank you all for posting and upvoting the interesting stories. Thank you for replying to my comments. Thank you for upvoting them. Thank you for downvoting them, too. I come here to learn and be amazed at knowledge, creativity, and kindness.
Dang is a bloody excellent moderator. I personally love his more talkative and eloquent tone, instead of the "can you stop", "just follow the rules or fuck off" attitude other moderators seem to have. He's a bit of a role model to me, so I do tend to try and watch how he moderates and blend it into my own style.
For what it's worth, I still mentally pronounce it as "dang" (i.e. part of dang-it). I know it's not his name, but it's so perfect, I thought it had to be intentional, like a little joke.
dang does a dang good job. He’s corrected me a few times for posting unhelpful, snarky, or dismissive comments. His care and vigilance really makes this the best forum on the web that I’m aware of.
I always like how even when people are so cranky and rude to him because they're complaining about whatever they disagree with, he's always so respectful and thoughtful back. It's rather amusing to see a mod rule via benevolent kindness instead of like a petty HOA president :P
Knowing his name is Gackle I still suspect he is of Asian descent. Because Asians are cool. They have western names if they are mixed. Nothing at all wrong with that.
As someone who has been rapped across the proverbial knuckles by dang for making unnecessarily combative or snarky comments, I too want to thank him for making this a great place.
I’ll upvote that. Being a mod is a difficult and nearly completely thankless (but utterly necessary) job, he’s got a good attitude and consistent enforcement of the rules. Cheers dang!
Happy Thanksgiving. Please remember that regardless of the "difficulties" the western world is facing now, you have it better than almost everyone on the planet. I've been to some of the poorest countries on earth in war and peace. Never take anything for granted. Please be safe, and be thankful.
1) I'm thankful my elderly parents and in-laws are healthy and survived the worst of the pandemic.
2) I'm thankful new relatives are healthy and thriving (who doesn't adore babies?)
3) I'm thankful my immediate family is OK. Zoom-schooling and masking is not ideal but we adjusted and adapted.
4) I'm in awe of the medical professionals who withstood the brunt of the pandemic and continue to provide for our well-being.
5) And the technologists that support the medical professionals -- the those who build the tools, design the scientific instruments, operate the equipment, push the tech to incrementally do more -- all this seems like magic but is comprised of late night debugging, inspired insight, that blood-sweat-beers workpersonship that keeps society chugging along.
I am not American, but I give thanks today that USA exists. Because, for all its failings, it still is such an inspiration for how things can be great in the world and how a dream for a future in which we are so much more than we are today - can exist.
I am grateful for this platform, the moderators and all contributors.
Thank you Dan.
I remember when I was new here. I was impressed and equally challenged by the achievements of people here. One of my first questions was how I could get a good remote job.
Dan replied and informed me about the Whoishiring account. He sounded very positive and even wished me good luck. I felt so motivated and eventually used it to secure a remote work that I really like.
Some people are both at the same time. You can be in a social group yet feel bitterly alone at the same time. That's essentially what I used to feel like.
First thanksgiving in the US. My wife and I have stocked up on some of the worst looking pre-made things from Safeway to easily make tomorrow so neither of us have to cook. Excited to have a long weekend :) Enjoy yours too!
The most important part of Thanksgiving is spending time with the people you care about, the food is all secondary; it sounds like you're doing things right.
That being said, in the future I recommend seeking out the best pies that you can, my personal favorites are blueberry and apple.
Thinking about all the folks on call for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday crush. They were some of my favorite days working in e-commerce but, then again, everything always went smoothly during my tenure. Thanks for holding down the fort for the rest of us!
I've been in that trench too. I'm thankful to be out of it, and able to enjoy the festivities without always having an ear out for that PagerDuty ringtone.
(EAS tones, I always used, the SAME FSK chirps followed by the attention tone. Wake the dead, that will. If you never want to miss a page again - and never want anyone in earshot to doubt it's important, besides - give it a try! Bonus side effect: you'll immediately be in the correct frame of mind if the real balloon ever goes up.)
Oh, I don't need to check, I looked it up ages ago while I was implementing my SAME encoder. It's definitely that frequency pair, and they're deliberately chosen to be exactly as unpleasant when mixed as they are.
Wow, SAME is very interesting. (I live in Australia and have never been exposed to a comparable system. I think the closest we have is an SMS-based thing.)
With the advent of wireless emergency messaging, EAS no longer has the ubiquity even here that its predecessor the Emergency Broadcast System did in my childhood.
With TV at that time offering in many places, my childhood home included, only about a dozen analog VHF and UHF channels many if not all of which participated in the system, you were all but guaranteed to see and hear a system test sooner or later - I might have been five or six the first time I did, and it frightened me so badly that I ran and found my mother.
As mentioned in the README to that project, there's a smallish and somewhat creepypasta-adjacent Youtube subgenre of fictional EAS messages, and I've wondered sometimes if experiences similar to mine are where that found its genesis. If video content hasn't all moved to VR by a couple decades from now, I wonder if we'll still see the like being made.
Thanks dang! Hopefully they'll give you a promotion soon, maybe some equity in YC companies! Maybe you'll even let us implement dark mode on Hacker News soon. ;)
Non-American but I do truly appreciate any holiday that puts emphasis on taking stock of what, and who, you are lucky enough to have in your life.
Keep on hacking and posting folks, and I'll remain thankful for many years to come!
Happy Thanksgiving all. I'm from Kathmandu, Nepal we celebrate something similar around October, called Dashain, the spirit is the same. Family time, good food and being thankful for what we have.
I may not celebrate Thanksgiving (not American) but I would still like to say thanks to hacker news. I don't remember how long ago I discovered it, but it's been an amazing journey. Let it never end. Thank you to this amazing community.
I am not a technocrat by any means. I don't even work any engineering company, much less software company. In last 5 years, I've stopped using Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. In my real life, I have absolutely nobody to talk about anything which is remotely intellectual or technology. Heck, I can't even talk about great movies, books and music. Have been suffering from depression practically all my life
While living such a life, HN is THE ONLY place where I get some sort of satisfaction. This is the only place where I find practically everyone smarter than me. This is the only place where people can discuss stuffs without any agenda, propaganda, hate or anything like that. This is the only place where comments offer better insights than the posted article. This is one of only two website (other is wikipedia) where people's positive efforts show up. This site has actually made me a critical thinker. People talk about stuffs, even about non technological topics, which people in my real life don't even have any clue about. This is the only place where I have to think thrice before commenting anything. I mean I can rarely add anything to discussion which is better than other posts. There is so much to learn here.
And Dang, you are a great moderator. You are taking good care of this beautiful garden called HN.
Thank you HN and all the members. You guys don't realize how much change you bring in lives of people like me who have no direct connection to 'intellectual' world.
Agree. As much as this place drives up my anxiety and displeasure everyday, it is still my #1 source for news that I care to hear about. Kind of a low bar, but hey, still above the bar =)
I am very thankful for being alive and for getting to experience this world, no matter how cruel it may be at times. I survived 4 years of war that begun when I was 9 years old in the 90s. There is plenty to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving! Hackernews has been a godsend for me and my success as a software engineer is owed in part to this forum.
I grew up the son of an English teacher. As a kid, I was always encouraged to look up words I didn't know in the dictionary. I do the same thing here, just replace words with topics and the dictionary with Google. The sheer amount of topics that I now know "enough to have a conversation about" is insane.
On posts about new versions of libraries, frameworks, languages, services, etc, it is not uncommon to see members of the teams that built them chatting about it in the comments. Hearing from developers directly rather than release notes or marketing dribble is so refreshing.
The holy wars that go on in comments sections are also always entertaining. Honestly, those are probably my favorite part.
I've never found a board/community online that is as high quality, informative in topics I care about, or entertaining as this one. I'm thankful for HN, the mods, and the community here.
Today, I am thankful for all of the technologists who made the greatest tool of all time: the computer. And here's to the greatest language of all time: VBA. Haha just kidding, it's obviously Rust. Or is it? Hehehehe.
Just getting my snarky comment practice in before the family dinner. Alright, I'm off to bake a sweet potato souffle!
I am thankful for the recent Ask HN thread where the guy mentioned he feels dumb and lazy. I found it very relatable and it caused good introspection on my part as well.
Yes, absolutely, I want to say this also. Hacker News / Ycombinator is very fine and excellent. Thanx for running this site. It is unique, the format is genius simple, and I learn and discover things here I would otherwise have no knowledge of. We are in rural location in Canada, coming in via Starlink now. The internet is critical for us. It is our economic, social and scientific link to the world. Sites of the quality of Hacker News are rare now. If we ever manage to get to and live on Mars, I hope we can have satellite relay link to HN. Happy Thanxgiving to everyone. And best of luck for everyone's future projects!
Happy thanksgiving HN. I'm living in India and recently got the US company offer through HackerNews. It's truely one of the best forum that I recommend to my friends and families. Stay safe!
I am thankful for this community helping largely stay off normal news sources and providing me with healthy discussion to jog my brain in some long ass Austrian lockdowns.
Happy for some. We're only allowed to have gatherings of six people. Up to twenty for funerals. Sadly, our beloved family pet turkey passed away yesterday.
Pretty much the only place on the internet where the comments are as intelligent and informative - or more so - than the articles themselves.
Actually, that’s probably a much higher bar than needs leaping over - it’s pretty much the only place where the comments aren’t just a bunch of hate filled bile.
We recently learned our friend's 9-month-old was diagnosed with leukemia.
I have a two year old daughter, and cant even imagine the pain they are going through.
This year, I am thankful for being healthy as a family, and i am praying for the kid.
In terms of Hacker News specific gratitude, I am thankful for the deep and diverse level of experience lots of people on here possess, and the moderators who enable these voices to rise to the top.
I've butterflied turkeys for years and the results have always been great. Evenly cooked, juicy meat. Crispy skin. Less time. (You can also cook the bird atop a layer of stuffing.)
My 10th year on HN after several years lurking. There is no better place on internet. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Stay healthy, be kind and count your blessings.
I am thankful for this site, and the awesome comments from users. I'm really thankful for comments with sources and that a lot of users follow the guidelines [1]. It makes for interesting reading. Thanks for a place I can read something new on every day.
I actually find stuff and learn stuff on here that's relevant to both my personal and professional development.
Stuff I've learned here includes: how to manage my own time better and make better decisions, how to do better code testing, lots of pro- and anti- crypto stuff, and a ton more. I've also discovered things like Svelte JS, CUE Lang, and a ton of other tools I use daily.
Thank you hacker news commentors for being more thoughtful, insightful, and well-spoken than people commenting on Reddit! Always enjoy and appreciate the discussions and threads on here and love finding interesting articles and thought-provoking commentary.
Additionally, truly appreciate the text-based interface!
Happy Thanksgiving! There is no Thanksgiving in my country, but I have been reflecting on my work life as we approach the end of the year and I'm really thankful for having gotten to spend 14 happy years working with a bunch of different, interesting tech stacks.
Can’t say I agree with the downvote. Nevertheless, even though Thanksgiving is a US holiday, the spirit of Thanksgiving is to invite and include everyone. You don’t have to be a US citizen to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Happy thanksgiving, thanks to everyone who makes this an informative and interesting place and especially thanks to Dang for the usually thankless job of moderating tough discussions!
> is it a specifically Christian thing or is it secular?
As far as the US holiday is concerned, it's secular, by which I mean it is celebrated by pretty much everybody regardless of religious persuasion (or lack thereof).
It is Christian in origin, albeit a minor local Christian tradition (developed in the US) rather than a major near-universal one. Like many Christian traditions, it has been secularised, just as Christmas has been. I think the big difference between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is the Christian origins of the later are much harder to forget. That’s why relatively few Jews (for example) are willing to celebrate Christmas even in a wholly secularised form, whereas the majority of American Jews have no problem with celebrating Thanksgiving-Christmas is still identified with its Christian origins in a way in which Thanksgiving is not.
That said, not all American Jews do view Thanksgiving as acceptable. Among ultra-Orthodox Jews, the belief is widespread that celebrating Thanksgiving violates Jewish religious law against observing non-Jewish festivals. Likewise, some conservative Muslims (Salafis in particular) view Thanksgiving as haram for parallel reasons. You might say these Jewish and Muslim objectors are paying more attention to the festival’s Christian origins than most Americans do.
Thanksgiving isn’t the only example of a minor American Christian tradition being secularised - the same is true of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Unlike Thanksgiving, which is rarely observed outside of North America, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day have spread to most of the rest of the English-speaking world, even if not always on the same date. Many cultures have indigenous traditions of festivals to celebrate motherhood and/or fatherhood, going back centuries or more; but in Anglophone countries, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are generally American in origin, and only date to the 20th century, not due to one of those older traditions.
> It is Christian in origin, albeit a minor local Christian tradition (developed in the US) rather than a major near-universal one.
It is Christian only in the sense that the people who celebrated it were Christian. The events that led to the festival were purely political in nature, and not necessarily wholesome either.
Thanksgiving, as a consistent national holiday formally observed every year, was established by Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863, which declared it a day for “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens”. Clearly religious in nature, although no doubt Lincoln had political motivations as well - the two are not mutually exclusive. 1621 was in itself a one-off event; the fact that it was later cited as justification for a regular observance says more about those later times than about 1621, and how 1621 was presented at those later times (such as in 1863, but also various earlier times too-it was observed at the state/local level, and intermittently nationally too, before Lincoln made it a regular national observance) is more important than what really happened for the purpose of determining whether it should be classified as religious. Abraham Lincoln appears to have not believed in Christianity personally (his personal beliefs are obscure, but he may have been some kind of deist); but when he made that proclamation I think he was expecting most Americans to understand it in Christian terms and most Americans at the time in fact did.
Interesting. Money in the US has "In God We Trust," and it's not inherently religious. So I'm not sure the proclamation makes Thanksgiving religious. The origins might, though. I don't know enough about it to tell, and I'm not sure I care enough to research it. I don't really celebrate it as other than a day off from work though. Travel is a nightmare at that time, and, although this may sound like humblebragging, I try to be grateful at all times anyway.
> Money in the US has "In God We Trust," and it's not inherently religious
US currency in itself isn't inherently religious, but the decision to put that phrase on the currency was religious, and so is the decision to keep it there today. Now, it is not just religious, it is also very political, but the two are very often intertwined: it is a form of politicised religion, or religious politics.
> So I'm not sure the proclamation makes Thanksgiving religious. The origins might, though
I think to most Americans in the 19th century and earlier, the idea that Thanksgiving was a religious festival would have seemed obvious–it was about giving thanks to the deity, assuming a Judaeo-Christian conception of deity. Now, no denying that it became quite secularised through the course of the 20th century, and to many 21st Americans it is an entirely secular occasion, and if "thanksgiving" is anything more than an empty word, it is thanks directed at one's friends/family/colleagues/acquaintances/community/etc, maybe even at the cosmos, but not at God in whom one quite possibly doesn't believe.
As I said in my original comment, other religious festivals, such as Christmas, have also become highly secularised. But, even though many celebrate Christmas in an entirely secular way, people still remember its association with Christianity, which makes many non-Christians feel uncomfortable celebrating it even in a secular form. Thanksgiving was never so explicitly Christian, so Jews and Muslims and others feel more comfortable in celebrating it.
interesting. So its an American Settler Christian event thats been, as usual typically watered down for the mass marketability.
We dont have it here in Australia (except apparently on a small island off to the side of the mainland). We don't really have any sort of festival or celebration that is comparable.
I think the equivalent for the majority of Australians really is Christmas. Americans tend to see extended family on Thanksgiving, whereas Christmas (for those who observe it) tends to be a smaller affair more likely to be spent with immediate family only. By contrast, Australians are much more likely to see extended family at Christmas. Also, our traditional equivalent to the Black Friday sales is the Boxing Day sales, which is another way in which Australian Christmas = American Thanksgiving. Very many secular Australians celebrate Christmas in a completely secular way, with no religious component.
Of course it is not entirely equivalent, in that Thanksgiving is a more religiously inclusive holiday than Christmas is. While there are people with a religious objection to both, there are many more with a religious objection to the later but not the former.
Day after Thanksgiving when stores reopen having been closed the day before. Traditionally called “Black Friday” because it put retail businesses books back into the black.
I think this recent adoption of Black Friday in Australia is dumb, for two reasons:
(1) It makes zero sense given we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving
(2) Given the term’s historical association in Australian culture with mass death (1939 Black Friday bushfires that killed over 70 people, 2009 Black Saturday bushfires that killed over 170 people), using it for sales could be seen as disrespectful and culturally insensitive
Much further away from the equator, you can't really do agriculture to harvest stuff. Closer to the equator you can often do multiple harvests a year.
Mentioning this not just to be pedantic (though I enjoy that), but also because the connection between our physical surroundings and culture are endlessly fascinating.
If @usnectus1 asked this here is because they wanted to initiate a conversation about thanks giving in this very light-hearted post (which, gasp, happened). It's not like they are spamming or cluttering a technical post with an "easily googleable question".
This year I'm thankful I don't have to deal with that kind of behaviour outside the internet.
I was actually curious of the personal views on this.
Sure I can google and delve into different non-authoritive sources. But HN is a community i value their points of views (mostly).
The only thing that comes to mind about my knowledge of Thanks Giving is from the Addams Family Values film... I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be taking that revision of a historical event too seriously.
I hesitated to leave my comment here because I'm part Native and aware that it's complicated. The kind of comment you left is not the best way to broach such subjects.
I would like to see more articles about Natives generally without focusing overly much on the victim narrative. I think I'm alive in part because of my Native heritage, for which I am also deeply grateful.
I appreciate your comment. I guess I am frustrated because I grew up with the colonizer mindset, that the Europeans who came here were nice people that did nice things and everyone had a big party together. I did a school play when I was a kid about making friends with the Natives.
It wasn't until after school that I learned what was really going on, and now when I see celebration for this day I really do just think of genocide. Probably not the best way to approach this but I was surprised at how strongly users are flagging any comment that mentions it. It makes me feel like people want to keep up their cognitive dissonance, and it feels like that mechanism is what allows our nation to continue harming first nations people to this day.
Clearly you touched on a very sensitive subject. I was also surprised that my link was flagged by this much people, as it was a very informative blog post about the fact that some First Nation tribes might have a different point of view about what Thanksgiving actually means to them.
I did email dang and asked if he can take a look at down votes in this thread. But either way, keep up the good work and don't get disappointed by the sheer amount of injustices!
Just to be blunt: because eventually nobody wants to hear it anymore.
This has been an extremely brutal couple of years for everybody, and by most estimations the brutality is going to continue. People want something to be happy about, and the idea of sharing things they're thankful for is that. You don't need to take that from them.
People don't want to deal with an Ebenezer Scrooge saying "bah humbug" after a year of lockdowns and not seeing families. Interesting topic but maybe one for after the holidays.
Users flag and I would assume I mostly associate the holiday with genocide. did it. Then you have the wrong association given the current tribal views on the holiday. This view doesn't help anyone and actively hurts the perception of the tribes. Can we just have one day where we are thankful and get along?
I work at a TCU and we gathered canned items as a staff to distribute to the less fortunate. That's the actual spirit of Thanksgiving.
4/20 is also traditionally celebrated as Hitler's birthday by white supremacists, but that doesn't mean all the stoners and hippies who celebrate cannabis on that same day are also celebrating Hitler trying to exterminate the Jews.
Decent people have reclaimed the day 4/20 and number 420 for better purposes than celebrating Hitler's birthday, the same way "queers" have reclaimed that term as our own and use it in the acronym LGBTQ+.
So let's please not let the white supremacists who celebrate American's genocide against the original natives maintain their exclusive claim on Thanksgiving, which literally means giving thanks, which is a good thing for everyone to do in general.
While Thanksgiving is indeed partially a celebration of the yearly harvest, to say "Thanksgiving is just about giving thanks" really misses the point of what people are rightly complaining about - which is that much of the folklore relating to the holiday amounts to a celebration of collective denial around the historically dismal and dishonorable ways English settlers behaved towards the natives. And the controversy about Thanksgiving is not even new: Mark Twain acknowledged it as early as the 1920s! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)#C...
>“I can choose how I feel about this day, but it is a choice. I can either let the holiday claim me, or choose to reclaim it.”
>If I could ask one thing from my non-indigenous fellow Americans when it comes to Thanksgiving, I would ask that you refrain from teaching the romanticized version of the holiday. Read to your children about what it means to be thankful, what it means to heal and be a family. Learn as a family about the tribal nation that is local to where you live. Take time during dinner to recognize whose traditional lands you give thanks on. Take this holiday into your own hands and understand that not every Native will have good feelings about this day, and be accepting of that. We can all choose how we feel about this holiday, but it is always our own choice.
Sure, but the portions of his autobiography where he had remarked on this were only published in the 1920s. So these remarks were not known prior to that timeframe.
They never had an exclusive or even a meaningful claim on Thanksgiving. I grew up on rezs and have never heard such. Thanksgiving has always been a celebrated holiday that shows Native American generosity.
Since then, I've lived in 6 different cities, 5 different timezones and worked on countless side projects. But all this time, HN has always been my most visited month after month.
I can always count on this place to keep me up to date with the latest tech trends and read discussions between reasonable people. Thank you all and especially dang for keeping discussions high quality. Especially as the quality of content on the rest of the internet deteriorates in the pursuit of virility.
It's a testament to you all that place feels the same as it did 10+ years ago.