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The Two Kinds of Moderate

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#231

Post by halfjoking »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #150
simonh wrote: post #16

As a British moderate conservative, the differences between US and UK (arguably European) politics are fascinating. What moderate means is so different. For reference I’m a lifelong conservative voter that grew up under Maggie Thatcher. We do have a middle of the road Liberal Democrat party, but to my mind they maintain their position in the middle ground by dodging the hard issues. They are intentional moderates in…

US politics has devolved into a series of ideological purity tests. Neither the bigoted, dated ideas of the GOP or the magical, fairy dust ideas of the progressive Dems have anything to do with actually solving problems. Most US voters are forced to hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils.

I have to say... the only political candidate trying to solve problems pragmatically is Andrew Yang - and that's why he's my guy.

Even if you think his solutions are horrible, you have to admit he's bringing new ideas to the table and focused on measuring the right metrics and solving problems.

UBI might seem like a pipe-dream but when you break it down it's way more realistic than "amazing government jobs for everyone" or "break up the big companies into little pieces."

The economy is shifting due to automation and the exploitation of workers through the on-demand gig economy. We need major changes and big ideas. I want someone who innovates and uses data to back up his political stances - so Yang has my vote.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#232

Post by m_ke »

jturpin wrote: post #218
asdfman123 wrote: post #109

Ah yes, the old "No one thinks for themselves except people like me" argument. > openly being an accidental moderate requires the most courage of all If he thinks that having middle-of-the-road opinions requires the most courage of them all, he has had an extraordinarily easily life in which he is used to be hailed as brilliant. It seems as though due to his comfortable position in life he has never faced any signifi…

> I cannot imagine how you'd come to the conclusion that holding moderate viewpoints requires any real courage at all. Expressing moderate opinions on the internet will cause a lot of people of accusing you of being a "fence-sitter" or siding with "the enemy", as well as accusations that you are a coward by people who are agitated that the opinions they hold in such high regard are not shared and are even challenged.…

Expressing liberal or conservative opinions will also get you a ton of accusations of being a communist or a fascist, that's how the internet works.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#233

Post by opportune »

slashdev wrote: post #195
asdfman123 wrote: post #109

Ah yes, the old "No one thinks for themselves except people like me" argument. > openly being an accidental moderate requires the most courage of all If he thinks that having middle-of-the-road opinions requires the most courage of them all, he has had an extraordinarily easily life in which he is used to be hailed as brilliant. It seems as though due to his comfortable position in life he has never faced any signifi…

As an accidental moderate myself, it does take courage. You don't belong on the right or the left. I'm too liberal for conservatives, and too conservative for liberals. I'm not even part of my parent's political or religious tribe. An accidental moderate means being tribeless. It doesn't surprise me that those kinds of people would be more impressive, since anyone who describes themselves as right or left, democrat o…

I really hope this post is satire

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#234

Post by throwlaplace »

tptacek wrote: post #223
glangdale wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PG quote that leads the essay on the topic of PG's extra-curricular rangings ("Dabblers and Blowhards") seems apposite: 'I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. This sort of thing happens to a lot of people, and I would really like to avoid it' https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm Edit: the essay its…

I want to be careful not to criticize the post on its own terms. Paul Graham should totally write things like this on his own site! It sucks having to be careful about what you because of what other people will do with it, and the weird debates you'll be forced into as a result. I'm just saying, to the extent this post is political, it's political in a totally routine way that doesn't clear the "interestingness" bar…

I don't understand this. if you don't want people to engage with your ideas then don't publish them; there's a very well known medium for this kind of expression/exercise called a private journal. the obviousness of this fact proves that published ideas are intended to be engaged with.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#236

Post by antepodius »

justin66 wrote: post #176
robbrown451 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think drawing a line near the median is really the only thing that makes sense. These concepts are relative by nature. Generally, when speaking of how far to the right or left someone is in the US, I think of it as relative to other americans, not to the rest of the world, and especially not relative to some absolute concept of right and left (which falls apart quickly if you give it some thought, as norms change o…

> These concepts are relative by nature. Okay, the concepts are relative by nature (arguments about the two-dimensional nature of the left-right axis notwithstanding). In that case, place the concepts (or perhaps the individual ideologies that bundle the concepts) on a distribution and draw a line near the perceived median. That's the sort of thing you see in some poly-sci texts, and it makes sense. My point was that…

They are locked in a desperate struggle, though- the struggle for votes.

They're competing for the same resource. That's why they're hostile towards each other. Actual political differences are icing on the cake.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#237

Post by friendlybus »

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…

>The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk

It's not true. An ideologue has committed to a single idea or system of ideas.

Acquiring in bulk and picking and choosing is the antithesis of an ideologue.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#238

Post by Apocryphon »

sampo wrote: post #229
CameronNemo wrote: post #99

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. >The effect of a system based on plurality voting is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distri…

> Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Most European countries have proportional voting systems, yet can anyway fairly well be characterized by the left-right political axis.

But not as tightly coupled as in FPTP systems. There's a greater variety of platforms under proportional representation. European countries have Christian democratic parties, which are mildly socially conservative coupled with mildly economically liberal. They have Liberal parties that actually win seats, which would be roughly equivalent to being mildly libertarian in an American sense. They have far right nativist populist parties that are xenophobic yet are pro-social safety net. They have more single issue groups like animal rights parties, and stronger green parties. They also have populist movements that attempt to appeal to the politically apathetic by being post-partisan, such as the 5 Star Movement in Italy.

Overall their adherence to the left-right dichotomy is less rigid than in the U.S.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#239

Post by alexandercrohde »

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.

Sure. A more mathematical description would be "standard deviation of beliefs across numerous issues predicts thinking for oneself"

Of course, thinking for oneself might not correlate with being correct. I can think of numerous issues where those who challenge the status quo are more likely to be wrong (e.g. medicine).

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#240

Post by totalZero »

robbrown451 wrote: post #156
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.

All politics is meta.

Eking out a decision from the great power jumble requires self-awareness about the forces that gyre and gimble therein.

Not all politics is tribal.

PG explicitly establishes two different cohorts, each with its own way of thinking, from the outset. His argument reifies tribalism.

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