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The Two Kinds of Moderate

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#301

Post by lobotryas »

tptacek wrote: post #244
throwlaplace wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Clearly, posting something to your own site isn't by itself a request to start a debate about it on Hacker News.

But whether or not it belongs here is just your opinion. People have reposted plenty of stuff from your site here that I thought “doesn’t clear the bar”, but everyone else disagreed. And while you are no Paul Graham, you’re a big enough member of the community to get support/upvotes just because of your name.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#302

Post by Vi0 »

tptacek wrote: post #244
throwlaplace wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Clearly, posting something to your own site isn't by itself a request to start a debate about it on Hacker News.

Very few people posting things publicly request people to start a debate about it.

Is your issue more that pg is a public enough figure that he can't not get attention for things he posts? Or is it that the attention he gets is likely to occur in a forum he views regularly and has an attachment to?

Lots of similar thinkpieces get posted on HN every day that people have all sorts of debates about without being invited to do so. And most figures with the wealth and visibility of pg can't really publicly post things without a group somewhere arguing over its content. A downside of having that level of fame I suppose.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#303

Post by [deleted] »

inimino wrote: post #283
tptacek wrote: post #206

It just can't be the case that this kind of content, which would never ordinarily survive on the front page if written by someone else, has a place here simply because Paul Graham wrote it. I say this as a moderate, of the accidental variety, myself! But if this would get shot down if it appeared in The Atlantic or The New Republic --- and it would, and should --- it shouldn't get a pass just because Harj Taggar and…

Obviously Paul Graham's essays have been hugely influential here, and it's going to be front-page news on HN whenever he publishes a new one, even if it's not world-shaking in content. I really don't see why this should be surprising at all, or why this deserves a comment complaining about it. Some things are notable to a certain audience just because of who wrote them, and that's just the way it is.

[deleted]

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#304

Post by modwest »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #285
tptacek wrote: post #206

It just can't be the case that this kind of content, which would never ordinarily survive on the front page if written by someone else, has a place here simply because Paul Graham wrote it. I say this as a moderate, of the accidental variety, myself! But if this would get shot down if it appeared in The Atlantic or The New Republic --- and it would, and should --- it shouldn't get a pass just because Harj Taggar and…

Why it should ? How that wouldn't be censorship? and if so how you justify it?

The burden on you is to explain why it would be “censorship,” a word with a specific meaning that does not have any relevance in this context.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#305

Post by modwest »

tptacek wrote: post #206

It just can't be the case that this kind of content, which would never ordinarily survive on the front page if written by someone else, has a place here simply because Paul Graham wrote it. I say this as a moderate, of the accidental variety, myself! But if this would get shot down if it appeared in The Atlantic or The New Republic --- and it would, and should --- it shouldn't get a pass just because Harj Taggar and…

Are you saying this post is being artificially maintained on the front page by moderator intervention?

edit: sincere q, I have no idea how these things are handled

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#306

Post by Thriptic »

morelisp wrote: post #173
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If your focus is on, say, trans rights, you're not spending that time focusing on working-class economics. 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…

Time spent on anti-descrimination policies is inherently time not spent on economic issues. There will always be policy focus opportunity cost. I can totally understand why working class people in the heartland who have never met any LGBT person, let alone someone trans or someone non-binary, would think that focusing on equality efforts for them is not a high priority issue and that legislators should focus on economic issues affecting many more people. People mostly care about what is affecting them and people they know.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#307

Post by michaelmrose »

roenxi wrote: post #187
asdfman123 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Has anyone cornered him and beaten him up for having moderate beliefs? Going again to the 'not actually reading the article' point, he has sneakily defined a moderate as someone potentially only holding extremest beliefs and probably as likely to be beaten up as anyone else. An extremist moderate, say. > I'm in favor of ... but I refuse to vote for Republicans There are good and bad people in every part of the spec…

If you don't vote mostly with the rest of the republicans you can't really be one. For one you will lose the financial support of the republican machine and for two you will lose primaries to your more "right" thinking brethren.

The Republican party as a block

- Wants to turn immigration from a constant source of innovation and vitality that has benefited our nation to a dead highway with a gulag for brown people and their children that want to live here so bad they are willing to sneak in even after the white people told them they weren't wanted.

- Wants to do nothing about the environmental impact of human beings because its more profitable to do nothing right up until its disastrous. Basically fuck the grand kids I want to be rich now.

- Wants to do nothing about health care until it becomes a rolling disaster for the bottom 50% while insuring that the reliably right voting blue hairs are taken care of.

None of these are inherently liberal or conservative positions. The fact that its framed as such is a testament to the truly bizarre world we inhabit. In the context of the extremist positions taken by the current Republican party the only safe bet is to decrease their power.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#308

Post by JoeSmithson »

zozbot234 wrote: post #49
remarkEon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The white working class part of their coalition, which tends to more socially conservative, are not a focus of the party anymore. It used to be a bedrock part of their strategy in the Midwest. At least that is the perception - forget for a moment if a) it’s actually true, that they’ve dropped focus, or b) that voting block was ever a permanent part of that party’s coalition or merely on borrowed time.

This is part of a generalized development in Western politics though - it even explains why Brexit and Boris Johnson won in the UK. The "left" is now explicitly the party of managerial, globalizing crony capitalism, pushing for maximum openness and free mobility for all factors of production - not of the working classes with their petty, localized concerns, or of traditional "business" classes with their long-time ap…

Your position is that the UK Labour party, led by life long socialist and eurosceptic Jeremy Corbyn, who's manifesto proposed nationalising several industries, is "explicity the party of globalizing crony capitalism"?

In a strong field this might be the weakest political take I've read in the last month.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#309

Post by vorpalhex »

zer00eyz wrote: post #269
tptacek wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Paul Graham should totally write things like this on his own site! He sure can, but having a platform and competence in one area doesn't mean your skill applies to another. This whole article is a fascinating example of the Dunning–Kruger effect. The idea, of two kinds of moderates is interesting. The framing is, at best weak and at worst very flawed, shallow and a gross oversimplification. The shots at the left, a…

> Rather it takes an insidious right leaning view

I mean, if you want to talk about partisan accusations...

Just because someone doesn't buy into your views doesn't mean they're secretly scheming to reinforce the other side. Someone can be the same side of the aisle as you _and also_ still disagree with you.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#310

Post by p_monk »

Neoliberals like PG love to pretend that their ideology - neoliberal capitalism - is not actually an ideology. It is ideological framework, just as much as Marxism.

The notion that neoliberals are above the fray of ideology and independently minded, might be comforting to them, but it's a lie. Across the globe, PG and his ilk fit squarely in the various right and centre-right parties.

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