I think this stands without being a reference

Non-tech people read this site too. What % of the general population knows what sudo is? My auto-correct changes 'sudo' to 'Audi'. The real problem is that the xkcd reference doesn't explain what sudo means.

This is tech site. If you are see something you don't understand, you should just google it.

As a tech person I encounter things every day that I don't know about, and I google many of them.

Why should "non-tech" people be protected from the chore of googling ? Isn't that why people come here – to encounter things that they don't know about ?

Not trying to "protect" anyone. Thing is, even googling sudo doesn't give someone who has never sudo'ed the insight behind the comic. So, yep.

You're right that a tiny portion of the general population would know what sudo is, but surely among HN readers there is a huge base that would understand, or at least grok what it is after a quick search.

Not advocating that HN isn't for non-tech-people, just saying that neither the reference nor the xkcd were out of place for this audience.

There's a site dedicated to explaining various xkcd: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/149:_Sandwich

we shouldn't be explaining something using the xkcd which doesn't illuminate the topic at all and further needs to be explained.

Oh boy. Turtles all the way down.

It's not really a reference. It's just the same joke. I am pretty sure I have saw "sudo <real life action>" as a joke around the internet long before xkcd did it.