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The Two Kinds of Moderate

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#151

Post by eanzenberg »

slumdev wrote: post #133
namirez wrote: post #114

> For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise them as backsliders. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological than the far left. Or perhaps that they are more confident, or more resigned, or simply more disorganized. I just don't know. This is a typical complaint by the so called moderates who feel unappreciated by the left (whatever that is). But I yet to…

The far left in the United States mostly doesn't exist. The corporatist center-left has given up on meaningful economic policy change and mostly just panders on abortion, gay marriage, and gender identity.

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Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#152

Post by aspaceman »

hindsightbias wrote: post #138
namirez wrote: post #114

> For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise them as backsliders. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological than the far left. Or perhaps that they are more confident, or more resigned, or simply more disorganized. I just don't know. This is a typical complaint by the so called moderates who feel unappreciated by the left (whatever that is). But I yet to…

[flagged]

> Yet Hillary and Bernie are Marxists today.

Huh? Not even a little bit. Neither one has quoted a single like of Marx, ever. Bernie identifies as a democratic socialist, which aint Marxist. The conflation is misinformed as hell.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#153

Post by coldtea »

bovermyer wrote: post #76
coldtea wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While "I met a guy, didn't like him, I think this is why" is a bit too dismissive, your dismissal of a desire for factual data is disturbing. I find the over-reliance on second hand ("factual") data, charts and figures, disturbing. People have to learn to observe, think, and understand themselves. Not just passively consume pre-made charts and statistics (which are the easiest thing to manipulate). And learning how…

You keep saying charts and figures. Repeatedly, ad nauseum. As if that's what I was getting at. Quit talking about them, that's not relevant to this discussion. Comparing two data points will always yield better results than having just one. Data points don't have to be literal points on a graph. They can be discussions with people. Study historiography or journalism.

>You keep saying charts and figures. Repeatedly, ad nauseum.

Actually I've said the exact phrase twice in this subthread. And considering its the main subject of the subthread (whether those IMO are enough/mandatory or not) it's not really surprising.

Perhaps you don't want like to hear it, so you're extra annoyed anytime I mention it, which makes you overcount? Maybe you need some charts and figures of how many times I said that expression.

>Comparing two data points will always yield better results than having just one.

Which is neither here nor there. A single person could collect 1000s of data points by observation, talking to different people, etc.

You don't need a team to do that, or some official citation.

There could be bias in said person? Sure. Same way the team/paper could have bias, be non-reproducible crap, be written to make some government body look good, be written to make someone money, etc.

It's almost as is critical thinking by the person receiving the single person's anecdote or the, can I say it, charts and figures, is still required.

>Study historiography or journalism.

Oh, the irony.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#154

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

urs wrote: post #3

I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.” I think another way to slice this is, if you think of the Overton window shifting along the axis of time, the “accidental moderate” does not shift their opinion by the same factor as the ends of the window shift. The “accidental moderate”, in fact, shifts their opinion independent of the s…

> I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.”

I can think of one possibly valid reason to do that: When you first begin to accept the foundational beliefs of some ideological group, you initially haven't had time to think through the logical implications of those beliefs. Tentatively adopting that group's set of secondary beliefs could make sense while until you have time to think things through yourself.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#155

Post by coldtea »

morelisp wrote: post #89
coldtea wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not convinced there are any intentional moderates. Well, I know tons of those. People in journalism, and other high profile public related posts, are often such. They don't want to offend any side, and reap the benefits of both. Some politicians are also like that. I know people in media personally who have more extreme positions in private talks, but their public opinions are carefully calculated to advance th…

> someone who has lived in one for 5+ decades Graham's sale of Viaweb essentially exits him from the society most of us live in; he achieves a level of wealth that lets him ignore most aspects or truths he finds inconvenient (good or bad, small or large). As he's now writing in absentia for over 20 years, I don't think we should assume he knows anything about how the world works for most people today. > and paid some…

>Graham's sale of Viaweb essentially exits him from the society most of us live in

Sure. On the other hand, it gives him access to a part of society most of us don't live in.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#156

Post by robbrown451 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #111

I know that the dictum to keep politics off of HN has been a dead letter for some time- especially since tech has become overtly non-apolitical in the last few years- but it's still funny to see pg himself breaking that rule.

I would argue that politics is ok to talk about if you are talking about in in the meta sense, as he is.

If people were all "accidental moderates," there would be no need to keep politics off HN. The problem is that people pick one of two tribes, and discussions get ugly. If people weren't tribal like that, less of a problem, it's just a bunch of people with opinions all over the place.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#157

Post by TOGoS »

pjc50 wrote: post #69
jaspax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increased focus on racial and sexual minorities to the exclusion of working-class interests (which has been going on for decades), spilling over into outright contempt of lower- and middle- class whites (which has mostly become prominent in the past 10-15 years).

> Increased focus on racial and sexual minorities to the exclusion of working-class interests Are these actually in conflict? Are they also not part of the working class? What sort of policies do you think should have been enacted against this?

Democrat [poltiicians] represent the ruling class just as much as Republican [politicians] do (evidenced by the fact that except for a few exceptions such as Bernie Sanders they go about fundraising in the same way: primarily from large donors). Given that, taking a more moderate stance regarding minorities is one of the few ways to differentiate themselves in a way that looks good to their base. In their ideal world 5 CEOs still own 95% of the country's wealth, but 3 of them are black, and maybe one's a lesbian.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#158

Post by lukevdp »

elyobo wrote: post #140

> Whereas an accidental moderate's opinions will be scattered over a broad range, but will, like those of the intentional moderate, average to about 50. This is only the case if left and right are equally right and wrong, which is unlikely to be the case. The average place of an accidental moderate could be anywhere, even to the left of the left or the right of right right.

You are not a moderate if you are “left of the left” or “right of the right”.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#159

Post by robbrown451 »

elyobo wrote: post #140

> Whereas an accidental moderate's opinions will be scattered over a broad range, but will, like those of the intentional moderate, average to about 50. This is only the case if left and right are equally right and wrong, which is unlikely to be the case. The average place of an accidental moderate could be anywhere, even to the left of the left or the right of right right.

It's not about whether they are equally right and wrong, but if they are equally far from the median or average viewpoint.

And I'd say it is very likely that they are. Almost by definition, in the sense that right and left are relative terms.

That being the case, I think PG is correct that accidental moderates should tend to average in the middle. In general.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#160

Post by hindsightbias »

“Or more precisely, you have to be independent-minded about the ideas you work with. You could be mindlessly doctrinaire in your politics and still be a good mathematician. In the 20th century, a lot of very smart people were Marxists — just no one who was smart about the subjects Marxism involves”

I’m wondering if all the science heroes from that era were pro-Eugenics from a science or political position.

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