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Comment by badsock | Hacker News Reader

I agree 100% that the working class people in America have been screwed over. But just because they've been wronged doesn't mean that their solutions are right.

Dumb ideas deserve to be attacked. Ideas that are an affront to practically every positive development that dragged us out from under the rule of the oligarchs of the 19th century and the fear-mongering ideologues of the 20th, deserve to be attacked.

If that hurts the feelings of those who are promoting them, that's unfortunate, but it's the price of admission if you're trying to exert influence in the public sphere.

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> I agree 100% that the working class people in America have been screwed over. But just because they've been wronged doesn't mean that their solutions are right.

The problem is that no one is putting forward better solutions. "The left" is now run by educated elites, not the working class, "the right" might not represent the working class, but at least they don't ignore them.

A lack of better solutions of on offer (which isn't true by the way, but lets ignore that for a moment) doesn't excuse making terrible choices. The truth is that there are other solutions, but they're seen as troublesome for a number of reasons. Compounding that is the fact that people so dim they'd see value in the "solutions" offered by someone like Trump often aren't aware of the possible solutions that have been considered.

It's possible to be the victim of your own desperation, which is just what such people perpetually have been throughout history. Everyone sees that kind of person as a rube, Left, Right, and Center... it's always just a fight for their hearts and minds.

By the way the Right doesn't ignore the working class, but they actively hurt them. I somehow doubt that the working class wants that kind of attention.

If your attitude is to keep talking down Trump voters as being idiots don't expect any sympathy from me when Trump gets re-elected. In fact, the more you marginalise them the more radical and United they will get, before you criticize others for acting against their own self interest realise that you're doing the same.

> It's possible to be the victim of your own desperation, which is just what such people perpetually have been throughout history. Everyone sees that kind of person as a rube, Left, Right, and Center... it's always just a fight for their hearts and minds.

Yes, and the guy offering a bad solution looks better than the guy offering no solution.

>Yes, and the guy offering a bad solution looks better than the guy offering no solution.

People for whom a self-serving lie (what you call a bad solution) is better than no solution deserve what they get. It's just a pity that the rest of us are along for the ride.

Sorry about the edit, but I added this part: In fact, the more you marginalize them the more radical and United they will get, before you criticize others for acting against their own self interest realize that you're doing the same.

Your actions are just as self defeating as theirs.

ding ding ding ding

thank you for pointing that out better than i could have.

Hah, the party that actually tries to make healthcare available is ignoring people... Sure.

You're just clinically suggestible and have fallen for the "Only I know what you need" line. You might as well be a well-conditioned battering victim.

That sounds like a tragic and incorrect lack of personal responsibility to me.

They deserve better than to be just "not ignored". The whole game has to be changed so that everything isn't rigged toward the people who are already rich. That means rule of law, that means not fighting against your equally poor immigrant neighbour, that means getting your fair share of the benefits of globalization, not just trying to make it go away.

Trump and Co. is exactly opposite of that.

If the working class is holding out for great ideas so long as educated people don't propose them, I think that's an unwinnable game. The ideas that work against the concentration of wealth and power are the ones championed by academia, but they have been dismissed as "commies" not matter how unrelated their ideas are to Marxism, or as "elites" despite the fact that they have very little influence or money compared to the corporate class that just got installed in the White House.

Yeah, it's funny how so many people think all college professors are wealthy elites, when many are barely scraping by and have trouble affording health insurance.

Plenty of better solutions are being put forward. Nobody listens to them because they come from "educated elites" AKA those people with unique experiences and depth of knowledge necessary to come up with new ideas.

If you don't see better solutions, it's because you're actively avoiding them.

> If you don't see better solutions, it's because you're actively avoiding them.

Not sure exactly what you're talking about but I've long been a proponent of UBI for instance. But new ideas like this aren't being adopting by the mainstream left and probably won't for some time. You never get any progress without a firebrand to sell the message. The mainstream left seems more interested in playing identity politics as a wedge than coming out with a positive action plan.

That has nothing to do with the "mainstream left", and everything to do with the volatile nature of holding political office in a sound-byte culture. Stop listening to professional campaigners and start listening to professional thinkers.

The fact that you even invoked the term "mainstream left" here makes it perfectly clear that you're more than happy playing identity politics. You speak in terms of political labels, not in terms of mechanisms for solving problems.

> That has nothing to do with the "mainstream left", and everything to do with the volatile nature of holding political office in a sound-byte culture. Stop listening to professional campaigners and start listening to professional thinkers.

Why? The greatest mind in the world might solve poverty tomorrow but unless they can convince the public they may as well keep it to themselves. Let's also not forget that professional thinkers are often incorrect and disconnected from reality. Support for communism was quite high amongst professional thinkers. Not to mention that professional thinkers these days includes the like of feminist studies professors that are about as regressive as they come.

I'm not sure why you feel inclined to dismiss the analytical value of historians, doctors, economists, and scientists because they might take seriously the opinions of feminists and communists.

So, yeah. Let's forget that. Because it's juvenile and petty.

PS: You're talking to a feminist and communist. I'm not sure why you'd imagine I'd object as you do to the points you raise. I doubt you've ever read any communist or feminist literature, or that you'd care enough to understand it if you did.

> PS: You're talking to a feminist and communist.

Your the intellectual elitists that Trump voters (and myself) hate. You're influence on the left is why they are losing elections and why there are very few left wing parties I would vote for these days.

You know nothing about me, and I certainly have no influence on the left. You do realize that you're talking to some random person on the internet, right? And I certainly don't give a shit who you'd vote for. I'm not surprised that I am hated. US Republicans have been sucking on a hate-spewing propaganda teat for almost a decade. I'm only asking that you understand the consequences of that. You'll suffer them either way.

But whatever. You're petty and can't avoid identity politics. And I would rather talk about actually relevant ideas, so have a good life.

> Nobody listens

How much time, money, and effort was spent actually educating people so they can make a properly informed decision? Suggesting a new idea is only the first step. Having "unique experiences and depth of knowledge" doesn't mean anything if you can't explain the new idea to everyone else.

Why should anyone listen to your new idea if you aren't explaining it in a language[1] they understand?

[1] http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just-resi...

> AKA those people with unique experiences and depth of knowledge necessary to come up with new ideas.

Statements like this make it sound like you believe that the middle American working class is not capable of coming up with there own solutions, or that there solutions are totally without merit. An even more uncharitable reading would imply that they cannot even enumerate the problems they face.

I don't assume you mean this, but so much of the division we face is due to the otherization that happens on all sides.

Middle America assumes that the coastal elite stopped caring about their problems and proposes actions that have negative consequences for them. This is definitely not intentional on a large scale. However if you look at the state of middle America's economy you can't argue that the is a huge room for improvement and the divide between them and the coast has become a chasm.

I'm not really talking about the middle American working class. They are certainly capable of coming up with solutions. But when someone says "nobody is providing solutions" I can only imagine that they live under a rock with a community of people who are incapable of coming up with solutions.

Those same individuals have warped, sheltered, and idealistic views/ideas. Just a thought, and as coming from someone that outright rejects a multitude of "ideas" from such "educated elites", have you considered that we actually "don't want" or "don't like" the ideas that they put forward? Some of them have natural consequences that we don't like, and some are based on premises we find incorrect.

Edit. Grammar.

That isn't the problem. In the US Sanders put forwards better solutions and in the UK Corbyn does.

>"The left" is now run by educated elites

The left is under constant and savage attack by the elite ruling classes from all sides, which is why when voters seek out an alternative they are left with the elite's 2nd choice - the far right.

The same dynamics occurred in Weimar Germany, who were, much like the UK/US establishment, both relatively socially liberal and incredibly economically repressive, and vicious towards the 'alternative' left wing (KPD).

Heard of a guy named Bernie Sanders?

Dumb ideas like requiring candidates given H-1B visas to be payed well?

no, that is a perfectly reasonable idea. However, an example of a dumb idea is trying to bring back the coal industry to give people back the jobs that they lost, when things like renewable energies are more cost efficient in the long run and better for the environment.

I mention H1Bs because it's a direct parallel to the broader immigration issue, yet many people have different opinions on the two.

People sponsored for H1Bs by sweat shops are to educated American tech workers as "illegal immigrants" are to American manual laborers: competitors for the same jobs willing to work under worse conditions for much lower wages.

That's your opinion of a dumb idea. Can you accept that other intelligent, informed, well intentioned people might disagree with you?

I can, but that means I'm either not intelligent enough, lacking information or not well-intentioned, because why would there be disagreement otherwise? Only one of these can be fixed, and that is by exchanging information.

Or in other words: Yes, but you need good arguments to make me change my mind.

Not at all. Most political disagreements come from perfectly reasonable fundamental disagreements about the way the world ought to be.

No, dumb ideas like building a wall thinking it will keep out immigrants.

> just because [the working class has] been wronged doesn't mean that their solutions are right.

Reminds me of:

"...the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid." -- Chesterton

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