Historically Hollow: The Cries of Populism | Hacker News Reader

Historically Hollow: The Cries of Populism

econlib.org

29 pointsmhb7 comments

“If we’re talking about the year 1900, I’m afraid we’ll never really know. Yet what I’ve seen with my own eyes during the last fifteen years has done much to cement my out-of-sample confidence.”

If the author alleges that populists have their heads in the clouds, he must have his head in the sand. Because this article is as full of rhetoric and bereft or facts and figures as he claims them to be. All emotional appeals, no real analysis.

Isn’t that the same as the privacy populists who obsess about data, most of whom lived in advanced democracies in which the data isn’t used for serious assaults on people, where most of the harmof theoretical, imagined, or hasn’t happened yet (eg your insurance company gets your social networking data and uses it to deny you coverage)

There certainly is a reason to have rigorous privacy and principle of minimalism, especially if you live ina police state without civil liberties, but a lot of arguments you are on HN are emotional and hyperbolic just like the OP. It seems the more privileged someone is, the more their hierarchy of needs is met, the more they catastrophize things.

The data isn't being used, yet. As safeguards continue to erode and storage becomes more massive it's impossible to think it wouldn't be used improperly. I'm no fan of trump, but what would the Mueller report have looked like if every site he visited and phone number he dialed and text message he had sent since he was a child was stored in a US govt server they could've just walked into. If you don't see this is a system that will destroy our advanced democracies through perfect surveillance and blacknail, then I question the amount of thought you've put into this area.

>the same as the privacy populists who obsess about data, most of whom lived in advanced democracies in which the data isn’t used for serious assaults on people

This observation betrays a serious misunderstanding of the way democracy functions. The reason these assaults don't happen (or rather, don't happen more, because they do happen) is there is a robust public discourse that is critical of these moves and keeps them in check. Democracies don't magically grant people rights, they must be fought for.

Im not sure if this is satire...

It sure sounds like one. Be that as it may, it's definitely not worth reading.

I don't think the article is satire. The website seems to be a right-libertarian website, meaning that it promotes laissez-faire capitalism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com