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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

The UK has just had an election where many people voted for the party which has been in power for nearly ten years and been an utter disaster.

Because they want change.

Condescension has nothing to do with it. It's empirically observable that a proportion of the electorate doesn't vote in its own best interests.

It's also empirically observable there's an entire industry of media outlets, think-tanks, journalists, bloggers, TV presenters, radio commenters, online commenters, and other influencers which is paid huge sums every year to make sure this doesn't change.

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> It's empirically observable that a proportion of the electorate doesn't vote in its own best interests.

I'm not sure that's true (that it's empirically observable without bias). The trouble comes from an assumption that by giving up X (that you value only a little) to achieve Y (that you value a lot), that those other people would be better off, when they simply value X a lot more than you do (or Y a lot less). When they consistently vote to prioritize X over Y, you empirically observe some outcomes, apply your own weights to each factor, and conclude they're acting against their own best interests and cite your evidence as empirical proof, ignoring the judgment you applied when determining the weights.

I don't think people exhibiting this bias (unconscious or conscious) are intending to be condescending, but it comes across that way quite often.

Some people prefer to live in a society where the government has minimal power/influence over citizens' daily life (X) while other people prefer to live in a society where government power and influence is strong and consistently exercised to protect the most vulnerable (Y). They're different choices.

The 2019 election - just like the previous 3, subverted the popular vote by way of First Past the Post. Nationally, the pro-leave side only secured a minority of the vote.

And unfortunately a major problem with proportional representation is there's no one single best way to achieve PR - any campaign to achieve PR would be stymied by splitting the pro-PR faction between STV and IRV, for example.

Plenty of other countries have managed to get PR. So, this is a hypothetical objection only.

> The 2019 election - just like the previous 3, subverted the popular vote by way of First Past the Post. Nationally, the pro-leave side only secured a minority of the vote.

Labour's official position is to negotiate a deal and then hold a final referendum. [1]

So there were three positions in the election (leave, remain, vote again) and leave won the largest share of the popular vote.

1:https://labour.org.uk/page/labour-brexit-plan/

But even so, the largest share were not the majority.

The majority of the country doesn’t want the Tories to negotiate the withdrawal. But that’s what is going to happen.

I don't think proportional representation would fix that.

PR would probably lead to even more parties with each having fewer votes and none ever having a majority.

I think that would a feature at least as much as a bug. If the national government becomes focused on doing the most essential things and is forced to build broad-based, cross-party coalitions to accomplish that, it seems that causes the people to be better represented than if a majority party can cram through their point of view without worrying about trodding over those (temporarily) in the minority.

Isn't the majority of the UK media supporting the party that lost?

No, most of the UK media supports the party that won.

There was a lot of negativity around Corbyn in the newspapers that tend to flip-flop - only the definite left-leaning papers (The Guardian, etc) maintain their support for Labour and the LibDems.

My observation of the BBC's coverage was that while they at least didn't put a positive spin on the Tories, it felt like they were doubling-down on anti-Labour and anti-LibDem negativity. I still don't believe the BBC is in any way biased towards any particular political party, but I feel there's a feedback-loop somewhere in the media system. Once the meme "Corbyn is unelectable" becomes a meme and people don't stop to question it - or it becomes self-referential ("Corbyn is unelectable because the people believe he's unelectable") then we have a problem.

(Disclaimer: I would not actually vote for Corbyn myself - just saying).

No, you’re just upset they didn’t vote for your preferred party.

Benedict Evans, though he lives in SV, would not have voted for Corbyn if he lived in the UK. Does Benedict Evans not know which political ideology is good for his own self-interest?

How do you explain away people who didn't vote for Corbyn because... they would prefer a non-anti-semitic leader? I have a hunch. You might say, "Well these people were duped. He isn't IN FACT an anti-semite." But, now the goal posts have changed and the discussion moves to whether certain claims are true, not whatever is in someone's best interest.

The thought that people you disagree with are simply fools because they don't know what is in their best self-interest, is not only arrogant, it's patently just not how the world works. Like always, it all comes down to whether your position or their position actually maps to reality. And if you think that you can't be wrong, or that it isn't likely that you get at least some things wrong, then your position is already hosed (not to mention lacks epistemological humility).

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