Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

npr.org

341–350 of 1001 posts

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#341
post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

Are they different realities or different people with different wants and needs?

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#343

Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…

If you don't get a lot of responses, it isn't because those with cohesive arguments don't exists; it's because it has become increasingly dangerous to express views counter to the mainstream narrative.

Downvotes are scary?

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#344

I don't understand how the same people who said we should defund the police are forcefully suggesting that we need a strong police response here? I'm not going to take any sides. All sides are so rife with hypocrisy that I just don't know what to say.

We don't need a strong police presence. There are armed people storming the Capitol building, this is absolutely the time for a military response.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#345

It is despicable how tepid the police response to armed rioters storming the Capitol has been compared to the response to BLM protests over the summer.

Other than political viewpoints, I don't really see much difference.

BLM they had military out in full force, even though BLM was non-violent protests. Flip side this terrorism event was known to be coming and they did very little to prepare for it. Nor are they stopping it with any great haste.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#346
post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

I think it's been a long time in the making but the real spark that lit the fire was the media's (and general population's) passive treatment of Trump's lying in the 2016 election period. During that time he was already telling whoppers, and the media sort of humoured it. You can see now four year's later that his version of reality is deeply embedded in a way that is nearly impossible to correct for - this make take a generation now to pass. Simply calmly stating that his words are "without evidence" or "unsupported by facts" etc etc isn't enough. When figures of authority depart from objective reality you have to stop it right there. He should never have been given another interview question other than to question his lies. But that was perceived as partisan at the time so they just let these things slide by.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#347

I don't understand how the same people who said we should defund the police are forcefully suggesting that we need a strong police response here? I'm not going to take any sides. All sides are so rife with hypocrisy that I just don't know what to say.

> But all sides are so rife with hypocrisy that I just don't know what to say. You apparently know how to both-sides insurgents invading the capitol so you’ve got that going for you. But here’s a hint: “defund” and “abolish” are different words with different meanings, and using one rather than the other is purposeful.

How would the police continue to operate without funds?

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#348

Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven't seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven't borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots/biases. I'd really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from a…

There are climate change deniers and, I'd wager, holocaust deniers here, so why not? I don't understand why people have such a hard time believing that just because you're in tech you're not immune to the cognitive biases shared by the entire human race.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#349

I don't understand how the same people who said we should defund the police are forcefully suggesting that we need a strong police response here? I'm not going to take any sides. All sides are so rife with hypocrisy that I just don't know what to say.

This is one of the few things it's critical to have a defense force for, but it's not what police are primarily used for.

I would love less counter-protest action in general, but it feels pretty reasonable to demand equal counter-protest action in comparison to other protests historically. What we see today is not the former.

Re: U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests

#350
post #72

How did we arrive to this point where a huge chunk of the population is in one reality and another huge chunk of the population is in another reality? Segregation of information sources? Politicization of media outlets? Self-reinforcing social bubbles? A combination of all of them and more?

As this is HN, I really believe that this lack of a shared reality is only possible with the Internet. Before the Internet, there were more conservative sources and more liberal sources, but never before could you completely surround yourself with your own version of reality. And more importantly, your version of reality is constantly reinforced by algorithms that are specifically designed to raise your level of rage…

Historically, lack of a shared reality has been the rule. The idea that we all inhabit one reality is a construct of modernity, with the rise of mass production, mass media, and mass culture. Before the printing press there was no way for ideas to spread far enough to create a shared reality across a whole nation; indeed, the concept of a nation dates from this time. The closest you got was religion, but religions had a knack for splitting into sects and then bitterly fighting each other - witness the Protestant Reformation and the Wars of Religion that followed. Those wars were specifically fought over whose version of reality (both of which seem very quaint today) was true: each believed that the other was an existential threat to eternity.

The Internet just ushered in post-modernism on a global scale, which undoes a lot of the thought-unification (some would say thought-control) that came with modernity.

Post reply on HN