Hacker News Reader

Comment by gwatch | Hacker News Reader

This won't happen today in San Francisco city, because of decrease in social capital. I live downtown and I will not anyone's kids to wander around like that. First, you'll be lucky if MUNI driver is even remotely friendly, then there are druggies on the street, and so on. Illegal immigration, homelessness fueled by liberal/leftist policies, crime, gangs, drug trade have turned the city into a place quite unrecognizable compared to 1960. Leftism is a cancer, and a road to third world culture, paved by good intentions.

View on HN

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

> We ban accounts that use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle, regardless of which politics they favor.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> because of all these problems caused by the cancerous lefties!

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Yeah. Cancerous lefties indeed.

Do you have a source for that quote? I'd be very interested in reading the rest of whatever that is.

Interview conducted by Dan Baum for an article in Harper's from '94: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

>Illegal immigration, homelessness fueled by liberal/leftist policies, crime, gangs, drug trade have turned the city into a place quite unrecognizable compared to 1960.

Sounds like something that should be backed up by a data point if you're looking to contribute something to the discussion.

>Leftism is a cancer, and a road to third world culture, paved by good intentions.

You've given exactly one point, with no references. When you jump to extreme conclusions such as the one you're making, that undoubtably creates a 'cancer' you're speaking of because it puts down any intelligent discussion. Without that, how can you or I be informed? I would argue that extremes such as that are what contribute to a political climate where its more important what party or political idealogy you belong to, than what you're actually saying.

> Sounds like something that should be backed up

Why? People state their opinions and experiences on HN all the time without such a requirement.

Because this one vilifies a large group of people based on their political preferences; and politics is basically a battle to see whose opinion will be reflected in reality.

"language X is better than Y" is an opinion we accept at face value without sources, since it doesn't affect users of language Y, and has limited impact if it's wrong. Comparing a political stance to a disease does affect the users (implies they're 'sick' and need treatment) and has a big impact if it's wrong (and the non-leftism policies get put into place).

Compare "Perl is better than PHP" to "PHP is the brain tumor of server-side web languages".

Plus: there's no indication of which policies have caused this situation, so it's presumptuous to claim they're caused by leftism.

> vilifies a large group of people based on their political preferences

If I say Marxism is evil, aren't I also vilifying subscribers to that philosophy? That's fine, since it's a choice; both to take ideological criticisms personally, and to subscribe to it in the first place.

> Comparing a political stance to a disease does affect the users

I can't see how.

> If I say Marxism is evil, aren't I also vilifying subscribers to that philosophy?

Yes, and I would not be surprised to see people challenging that statement/asking for facts.

> > Comparing a political stance to a disease does affect the users

> I can't see how.

See my example from the post you quoted. Does it make sense? Try to put yourself in the shoes of a professional, successful PHP programmer who is aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the language & is comfortable weighing up the various trade-offs.

> I would not be surprised to see people challenging that statement/asking for facts.

Then we disagree. I distinguish ideology from person.

> Try to put yourself in the shoes of a professional, successful PHP programmer

I'd say that programmer has too much of their ego invested in their choice of language. The question is not of being merely unhappy about criticism, but being personally affected.

Would you happily say the same wrt criticism of a belief in flat-earth?

> I distinguish ideology from person

So do I? Bit of a non-sequitur…

> Would you happily say the same wrt criticism of a belief in flat-earth?

Happily? What a loaded question.

Would I expect a flat-earther to respond to claims which criticized their point-of-view by requesting evidence? Yes I would.

edit

> The question is not of being merely unhappy about criticism, but being personally affected.

People are affected by criticism simply by receiving it. Feeling unhappy because of criticism is being personally affected. Words can harm and kill.

> So do I?

Do you? you said you agree that "X is evil" villifies subscribers that philosophy.

> Feeling unhappy because of criticism is being personally affected

Not really, there is a difference between "I am a bad person" and "I subscribe to a bad ideology". The difference is you can un-subscribe if persuaded.

> Words can harm and kill

that's a non-sequitur..

You seem more interested in scoring points than in a genuine discussion.

> Do you? you said you agree that "X is evil" villifies subscribers that philosophy.

It does. That's what those words mean. I didn't say I would find them evil (which is what you're claiming I meant). You haven't asked me how I feel about any particular economical-political theory.

Is there something I could say that would cause you to reconsider your stance? If there is not, then please consider if this is the most productive use of your time.

> You seem more interested in scoring

I disagree. Care to back up that personal insult?

> Is there something I could say that would cause you to reconsider your stance?

Same to you.

Why? People state their opinions and experiences on HN all the time without such a requirement.

Because we're literally talking about an article about how fact-free policies are a bad thing.

That's the opinion of the article, yes. What has that got to do with HN?

Reference to some comments which back this claim up?

The attitude of accepting the status quo, blaming someone, and proudly doing nothing is far more politically "cancerous" than any misguided policy. Can't you think of ways to increase the "social capital"? Don't you share the good intentions that, as you admit, inspired a long period of "leftist" Californian governments?

Just checked your other comments. You really seem to HATE "leftism". You really should think about the fact that you are calling the political direction of many other people "cancer"

That's pretty common on both sides of politics these days, sadly.

both sides

I think that's a big part of the problem right there. Politics doesn't have two sides; it's got far more dimensions and nuances than that, but in some cases it's been turned into a brutal, hatred-prone "us and them" of a ridiculously simple and inflexible two tribe system.

Translating parent comment and playing devil's advocate:

What did happen in the western world that made parents not allowing their kids to wander around?

He proposed one explanation in a contrived way: leftist politics. Instead of mindless downvoting, how would you explain it?

Plenty of countries in Europe are way more leftist than the US, yet we still have kids wandering around. Seems like a very poor correlation.

Which ones are you thinking about?

I know mostly in Portugal and Spain, but I've lived in Brussels for a few months and saw plenty of kids walking to school as well. I seem to remember the same in Budapest, but it was a short stay.

I always bike to school on my own since I'm 8 or 9 years old, I think. Back home during lunch if my parents are home and back again. It's only 1 or 2 km but still. Every kid just biked to school.

Even in the UK, which is rapidly approaching US is many cultural aspects, there is absolutely no issue with kids walking themselves to school or playing outside without supervision. I'm not saying there aren't cases where someone overzealous gets authorities involved because they think kids are in danger, but in general you see loads of kids walking to school and taking the bus/metro on their own.

> rapidly approaching US is many cultural aspects

I think environmental difference are more important than cultural.

A small percentage of what used to be 30 years ago though..

I guess that's mostly due to the fact that more people have cars nowadays so it's just easier to drop your kids off than it was 30 years ago. Especially if you drive to work anyway, you might as well drop them off and pick them up after. It doesn't feel to me like it's because people feel less safe for kids to walk to school, it's just that driving them there is a lot more viable than it was few decades ago.

According to my point of view, in Western Europe urban areas only the poor kids wander around and just because their parents don't afford to control them. However in Eastern Europe, nowadays not correlated with leftist policies, kids wander around..

> in Western Europe cityscapes only the poor kids wander around and just because their parents don't afford to control them

wat? Well, since I can only speak for the country I grew up in.

Switzerland: Definitely not the case. Letting kids wander around alone is the norm here, and no, that's not because everyone is poor.

Do or did you live in Western Europe? My experience may not extend to most countries, so I'm curious to know where you've seen that.

General increase in risk aversion. Same reason there are seat belt laws, helmet laws, firecrackers are illegal, you have to take your shoes off to get on a plane, lawn darts are banned, and people fear second hand smoke. To tie it back to the parent comment, there is data that shows more individualistic people take more risks, so perhaps it is tied to the decline of individualism, and religion. Regarding kids specifically, people use to have more, so they would learn that they are pretty durable after raising a few. When you only have one, all your eggs are in one basket, so there is a greater tendency to overprotect.

Doesn't your explanation corroborate the parent comment? Individualism and traditional families are more correlated with right-wing policies.

Parent, or parent-parent? I'd put "safety" laws on the left side of the political spectrum, so decline in individualism & religion would correlate to more safety laws.

Aren't individualism and religion opposing philosophies? Most religions demand conformity.

Conformity and individualism aren't exactly the same, though there is clearly overlap. Religious people might conform more in terms of things like dress, but at the same time be more open to individual rights. Go back to Declaration of Independence and the idea mean are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." It's not a coincidence that Communism is an atheistic political philosophy.

> Instead of mindless downvoting, how would you explain it?

Or how about don't feed the trolls?

I would say your fears are the real problem here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com