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Comment by pdwcyl | Hacker News Reader

I find that the opposite is true. Most comments are emotional, and I have to search for controversial comments to find anything objective/worth reading. Like Reddit, this site is biased to the political left (USA). I wish we could just avoid all politics in tech.

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I don't think it's possible to avoid politics in any profession. Teachers care about education reform, which is a political subject. Doctors care about the healthcare system, which is a political subject. Civil engineers care about building codes and safety regulations, which are political subjects. Accountants care about tax laws, which are an incredibly political subject. Social workers care about welfare programs, which is also a very political subject. You might not talk about it in the realm of politics while at work, but it has an impact on your work as well as the lives of the public.

You could even argue that being "apolitical" actually means that your political opinion is that the status quo is acceptable, which other people may disagree with. For instance, some people believe that selling water is unethical because it's a basic human need which you should always have free access to -- saying that the status quo is acceptable means that you don't think that for-sale water is unethical. There's nothing wrong with that opinion, but it is an opinion (and a political one at that).

I don't express my political beliefs here because I think I would be massively down voted. I think that's true for lots of other users.

The way it's presented makes a huge difference. People are obliterated for any political opinion if presented in a way that treats politics like a game instead of something that affects everyone.

Make a polite, clear-headed enough argument for something like eugenics and people will upvote you. It's troubling, but I can make a pro-socialism post under the same conditions. It's an uneasy peace.

> You could even argue that being "apolitical" actually means that your political opinion is that the status quo is acceptable

I agree with this. I see Cultural Hegemony (domination-justification stories) being very strong in unexpected places. Family members or close friends who indirectly benefit from the artificial scarcity mechanisms (in SV especially Intellectual Property) that make up the various social class realities of rentier capitalism [1]. What seperates me and a mother of three in Bangladesh, who is getting paid starvation wages making the designer clothes I wear [2], is that I was lucky enough to have been born in the global North, in an upper-middle class family. I was able to grow up on the inside of the fort, and benefit from a rich inheritance [3].

[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGp5_Sfbss

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGnDDhco4gw

I'm starting to increasingly appreciate comments like this, because they appear regularly on both sides of the ideological divide, helping me keep my binary tree fresh and balanced. A few that go the opposite way:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22706668

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22705507

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004

Sorry if that sounded snarky—I don't mean to pick on you personally, and I don't disbelieve you. But the perception is explicable by the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

I think people often mistake bias in the moderation for bias in the moderators, ignoring that much moderation depends on flagging, which in turn is influenced by the bias of the people who were attracted to the conversation.

People are political animals. The only way to avoid politics is to avoid people. Not exactly a workable proposition if you want to change the world with a billion dollar unicorn.

So, if we can not avoid politics it is ok to encourage some views while discouraging the opposite views?

How can we know for sure we are right or even on the good side, whatever "good" means?

First we'd need to establish a general frame of reference, a perspective, which could be a human one.

From that perspective, the lowest common denominator is that bad is what harms humanity, e.g. by disregarding human rights. Human rights then becomes the new frame of reference, meaning that something can't be good if it's not within that frame.

Power struggle then becomes what are rights, and who owes them to whom? Who gets what rights and how are they enforced is pretty much the core of political struggle.

Power struggle based on immediate and future system relevancy takes place within that frame (innovation), in a democracy that frame (human rights) shouldn't be broken because it damages the belief in the system itself. An informed society acts in its best interest, if it doesn't the education system or entire system is corrupted and broken.

Perhaps it would be better to assume (until clear otherwise) that everyone has good intentions, but a different persp ctive? Then we can try to work together, as partners, to understand each other's perspective and position, rather than thinking of others as opponents to be defeated.

I think that's true, but it's also true that the distinction between curious conversation and ideological battle is a useful and actionable one, and that's basically what the site guidelines are staked on: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

> this site is biased to the political left (USA)

when you're the USA, the world looks biased to the political left ...

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