Keep Your Identity Small (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#281

Post by greenail » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

If you can remove the participants who "want to be right" and keep the participants "who want to solve the problem" you might be able to have a more productive discussion of difficult issues. The "assume good intensions" mantra also would seem to help as a starting point.

This is also somewhat the root of representative government. Not many have the time or talent to really deeply understand these difficult issues and this is why we elect folks to do this for us. Imagine how much chaos would exist in a government where it is a true democracy and everyone's 2" deep opinion counts.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#282

Post by teachingassist » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #219

IncRnd wrote: post #77

Politics are _meant_ to be understood by the common person, especially in the US. The Declaration of Independence and the Consitution were intended to be understood by regular people. This is so that there wouldn't be a political class, who believes the common person needs to be ruled. Too bad we have that political class, anyway, along with regular people who believe politics should be inaccessible to regular people…

As far as I can tell, both the "political class" and the regular people aren't very good at understanding or productively participating in politics. The only decent and thoughtful political discussions I've ever seen have come from philosophers. Which perhaps could be considered an "elite" class, too, but IMO there's zero economic or status hierarchy that serves as a barrier to entry, unlike being a politician.

Can you name a poor philosopher?

If anything, the barriers appear to me to be greater.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#283

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

confidantlake wrote: post #259

IncRnd wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People committed evil actions 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, and people unfortunately commit evil actions today. None of that changes who should be able to understand and engage in politics. In fact that is an argument that politics should be accessible to all. That way we can guard against an evil cabal of a ruling class that oppresess everyone but themselves. You've changed the discussion from th…

The point is that you are trying to claim that they wanted to keep politics accessible to all but somehow despite their best efforts a political class emerged. Yet they didn't provide for direct democracy, enfranchised only part of the population, took the highest political offices for themselves, ect. Look at the first 5 presidents, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe. These were not some common guys off t…

[deleted]

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#284

Post by greenail » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

Ironically infinite intersectionality of identity leads to individuals.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#285

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #77

Politics are _meant_ to be understood by the common person, especially in the US. The Declaration of Independence and the Consitution were intended to be understood by regular people. This is so that there wouldn't be a political class, who believes the common person needs to be ruled. Too bad we have that political class, anyway, along with regular people who believe politics should be inaccessible to regular people…

> The Declaration of Independence and the Consitution were intended to be understood by regular people. This is so that there wouldn't be a political class, who believes the common person needs to be ruled.

This is simply factually untrue. The Articles of Confederation, and Constitution were written by and for the political class, and each addressed the immediate concerns of the political class (much narrower than the also narrow enfranchised class) at the time it was drafted and in the domain to which it was addressed. The Declaration was drafted by and for the needs of the same class but tangentially directed at the public in the US as a propaganda document, but it was even more directed at the British political class to create pressure for an immediate accommodation of the American political class (a task at which therr are some signs it might have succeeded had events on the ground not spiralled out of control as quickly as they did.)

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#286

Post by IncRnd » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #285

IncRnd wrote: post #77

Politics are _meant_ to be understood by the common person, especially in the US. The Declaration of Independence and the Consitution were intended to be understood by regular people. This is so that there wouldn't be a political class, who believes the common person needs to be ruled. Too bad we have that political class, anyway, along with regular people who believe politics should be inaccessible to regular people…

> The Declaration of Independence and the Consitution were intended to be understood by regular people. This is so that there wouldn't be a political class, who believes the common person needs to be ruled. This is simply factually untrue. The Articles of Confederation, and Constitution were written by and for the political class, and each addressed the immediate concerns of the political class (much narrower than th…

Yet, three of the founders wrote the Federalist Papers, which were distributed in newpaper form to people of New York.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#287

Post by Izkata » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #235

xyzelement wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// “I’m a dog person, not a cat person,” and other such bizarreness. Why are people seemingly so drawn to identifying themselves as anything at all? This is a powerful concept. When I studied yogic philosophy, the teacher pointed out how our language biases us towards identification. "I am hungry" in English reads like a statement of identity, whereas "j'ai faim" in French for example means "I HAVE a hunger". The hun…

>"I am hungry" in English reads like a statement of identity, whereas "j'ai faim" in French for example means "I HAVE a hunger". The hunger exists but it doesn't define my identity. >This identification is a lie. If you stop drinking coffee and start drinking tea, you are still 100% you, Your analysis of "I am hungry" is incorrect. In this case, the "am" is acting as a linking word and not about identity. See: https:…

This understanding is also closer to Spanish's "ser" and "estar" - both get translated as "am"/"is", but "ser" is for identity and "estar" is for state.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#288

Post by SyzygistSix » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

Geezus_42 wrote: post #222

IncRnd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it does, so long as one uses a sufficiently broad definition of religion (e.g. crypto, wokeness). Crypto and wokeness are not religions in the actual sense of the word religion. It's a shame that people redefine words in order to change their meanings to fit what they are saying.

That the evolution of language, it's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years...

No, it's a game of labels, where people like to slap labels on things to assume commutative properties of other things they have attached labels to in order to celebrate or condemn the people who identify with those labels.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#289

Post by SyzygistSix » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

Geezus_42 wrote: post #223

wernercd wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bring up tabs vs spaces or ;'s at end of lines or spaces as code (IE: Python) and watch the fervor over opinions fly. You may not call it "religion"... but deep held beliefs of the Only True Way come out and I'm not sure what else it should be called.

Zealotry?

I'd go with superstition.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#290

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #286

dragonwriter wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Declaration of Independence and the Consitution were intended to be understood by regular people. This is so that there wouldn't be a political class, who believes the common person needs to be ruled. This is simply factually untrue. The Articles of Confederation, and Constitution were written by and for the political class, and each addressed the immediate concerns of the political class (much narrower than th…

Yet, three of the founders wrote the Federalist Papers, which were distributed in newpaper form to people of New York.

> Yet, three of the founders wrote the Federalist Papers, which were distributed in newpaper form to people of New York.

The existence of a massive political propaganda effort to sell the document to the enfranchised class of a particular state (broader than the elite political class but narrower than regular people) does not prove (indeed, if anything argues against the conclusion) that the document itself was intended to be understandable too and responsive to the interests of even the enfranchised class, much less regular people.