171–180 of 382 posts
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> 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.
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.
> anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity
The article is more about phycology than politics, IMO.
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> 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?
There's only so much time, attention, and energy. If your focus is on, say, trans rights, you're not spending that time focusing on working-class economics. And even if you can do it all, there's only so much attention the voters have. If all they hear about you is on trans rights, they don't perceive you doing anything about their economic problems. The Democrats' central message used to be "we care about the workin…
This is a bizarre statement since most trans people I know are either working class, precariat, or working poor. The trans rights they want beyond extremely basic anti-discrimination protection are things like easier access to university and universal health care. These are things that benefit all workers, not just trans people. (Three of the Google employees fired for union organizing were trans! Don't try to feed me some line that there's some conflict between trans rights and workers' rights. The claim is just some shit-stirring by capital for its own ends.)
It is also a bizarre statement given the indifference or even slight hostility to trans rights by DNC frontrunners (Biden, and previously Clinton). The DNC doesn't care about trans people, and trans people know it. To the extent they support the party, they do so uneasily, outside the DNC, and for largely economic reasons.
> 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. I think this describes my own political opinion to a tee. I agree with some stuff on the left, some stuff on the right and the moderate/centrist opinion on some others, and it probably equals out as centrist. Still, I'm not sure I'd say this is a rare thing by any me…
People tend to believe whatever they hear.
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> 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.
What more does a moderate need to know?
It is so peculiar that anyone believes the United States possesses a "far left" as a force in politics. This requires one to ignore political science and ideology, not to mention the practical politics of the rest of the world, and simply place people on a continuum and draw a line near some perceived median.
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…
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 it is a mistake to place people on a left-right distribution based on their positions and call the people in, for example, the first quartile the "far left."
> 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
The problem is, applied universally this approach of quantifying things would make it appear as though every place possesses the same diversity of political thought, whether you're talking about Europe, the United States, or North Korea. This is simply not the truth.
edit: another problem is that it can cause people whose views are much closer together than, for example, socialists vs fascists, to view each other as being on opposite ends of an ideological spectrum and combatants in a bitter ideological struggle, even though that's objectively ridiculous. Remind you of anyplace?
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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. Diverse, yes. Meaningful, maybe. Look at Israel right now. 17 parties with seats in the Knesset, none with over 30%, and, after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up.
> after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up. Parlamentary systems without the option to call re-elections is an attractive alternative. The politicians just can't keep asking people's opinion until they get the answer they want. Then there will have to be compromises, and even the smaller parties can get some of their important causes through.
Have an elected parliament sit for at least two years, maybe four, will go some way in making them work out their differences.
There is no far left in America, the "leftist" candidate is campaigning on radical ideas like universal health care and free public education, things that every other first world country already provides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers...
https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/policies/is-beginning-seco...
Having polar opposites that are both "in the middle" seems to be a clear illustration of why the left vs right analogy is lacking.
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My takeaway from this comment is that you didn't really read what he wrote. An accidental moderate, by his definition, could hold zero moderate opinions. E.g. it is possible all of their opinions are 0 or 100 on a left/right spectrum. It requires courage because they cannot join any tribe, because enough of those opinions would be heretical to a given tribe to prevent acceptance.
Tons of people out there "can't join any tribe" because their belief systems are sufficiently different than those of people around them, and the way this is written suggests that it's almost a novel idea to Paul Graham. Has anyone cornered him and beaten him up for having moderate beliefs? And having beliefs across the political spectrum hardly makes him novel. I'm probably a classic left leaning liberal. I'm in fav…
Clearly you're not on Twitter.
Every day I see people deriding moderates for being moderates. So this post is an attempt to de-conflate people who don't subscribe to one of the parties and people who just want to be as inoffensive as possible.