Hacker News Reader

Comment by manmal | Hacker News Reader

Very thoughtful comment, thank you. What do you refer to as „grade level“? Political knowledge, personal range of power, personal sense of empowerment, or psych. ability to deal with hardship?

View on HN

It is probably a reference to nuance and the fact that the real world is complicated, with multiple competing interests and perspectives. Children learn history in lessons that often have an implicit good-guys/bad-guys story hidden beneath it, while educated adults tend to be able to handle stories that have fewer good guys and bad guys and mostly just a bunch of guys pursuing their own self-interest within a particular environment that provides a specific set of available options. The problem is that the latter sort of lessons involve more cognitive effort and do not lead you to easy answers that make you feel like you are a part of 'the good guys.' John Oliver, much like Rush Limbaugh, tells simple stories of the former variety; stripped of nuance and complications that are intended to lead the recipient to a specific and obvious solution or outcome.

I'd relate it to the strong emergence of rage politics. Rage seems to transmit and spread much faster than any other type of meme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

This sounds presumptuous to me. People sometimes think that their perspective is better/more mature/clever/correct, while it is just.. different. They divide people into levels/classes in order to put themselves into the highest class. Given the high complexity of the world, any model falls apart if you look at it hard enough.

As an avid listener to both, Limbaugh is quite a bit more manipulative. I say that as a life-long Republican.

Edit: I should add that Limbaugh demonstrates an ability to use logic and analyze topics that makes me think he is being intentionally deceitful, mostly by leaving out relevant facts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com