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Comment by AntiImperialist | Hacker News Reader

Well, most HN commenters have found success one way: by being a wage slave in one of the tech giants. You should not take any advice from them. If you are safely doing that while pondering how to start a side thing without taking any risk or spending any time on it, you represent the HN crowd.

Also, Bitcoin draws libertarians... and HN is full of modern liberals. So, it doesn't sit well with them.

Having said that, it is understandable that most people won't invest in something completely new or risky. One would not be able to build wealth like that. They'd be taking too many risks and that could most likely work against them.

So, a good balance needs to be maintained. If you most of your money in safe assets and try out small risky things once in a while, you are relatively safe while opening up to being lucky.

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Really don't believe you know HN very well. Compared to most popular forums, HN has to have one of the higher rates of self-made/startup employees/entrepreneurs. I don't see how bitcoin and modern liberalism would be at odds, both are pro free market.

Sure. But the vast majority of hn commenters are still as the Op described.

The fact that you think employees belong in the same category as entrepreneurs and the self made proves the point he is making.

Seeing as how $SNOW employees are going to be able to walk away with millions from stock I'd disagree.

Sorry to be ignorant but what is the difference between a Libertarian and a modern Liberal. I thought they were the same thing?

They are as different as two sides can be in a political scale.

Its odd the name sounds so similar

You are technically correct. The distinction lies in the way the followers of these ideologies understand their philosophy. Libertarians in America are all about liberty from government. For them ideally government is super-limited. Liberals are better understood in terms of traditional thought. Conservatives wish to conserve the “traditional way” of thinking, living, and organizing society while liberals want to “liberate” humans from the those “traditional” ways.

>Conservatives wish to conserve the “traditional way” of thinking, living, and organizing society while liberals want to “liberate” humans from the those “traditional” ways.

Your statement is true but Democrats, who call themselves liberals, are not that. They are the most conservative party. They're much more conservative than Republicans on most issues. For example, ideas about "science" or "nature" for example.

Who let the troll in?

There are two types of freedoms under liberalism, the "freedom to", and "freedom from". Libertarians are mostly concerned with the former (e.g., minimising laws which stop their ability to do something) whereas modern liberalism takes a more balanced approach (for example, making racial discrimination illegal reduces someone's freedom to be racist whilst improving another groups ability to partake in society without experiencing discrimination)

The american definition of "liberal" basically means socialist.

In 2020, "liberals" in america have very little to do with the original meaning of the word which meant "in favor of freedom".

If there is one thing the liberals in the US have very little care about it is preserving freedom.

It's the main reason they got spanked by trump in '16.

It has very little to do with the European understanding of "liberalism", which is what americans call "libertarians".

That's a caricature of liberals you'd expect to find being pushed on people to elicit an endorphin response to confirmation bias.

> If there is one thing the liberals in the US have very little care about it is preserving freedom

You can't spend more than 2 seconds researching modern liberalism without civil liberties coming up.

> That's a caricature of liberals you'd expect to find being pushed on people to elicit an endorphin response to confirmation bias.

Funny :D

>You can't spend more than 2 seconds researching modern liberalism without civil liberties coming up.

Civil liberties != individual freedom

They actually are more often than not antinomic.

"Patriot" is another term that seems to have mutated in modern US politics.

> The american definition of "liberal" basically means socialist.

No, it doesn't.

Though it overlaps with a common American use of “socialist” to mean anyone outside of the far-right. Most American “liberals” are center-right corporate capitalists, which is also the narrow sense of “liberal” in much of the world.

> In 2020, "liberals" in america have very little to do with the original meaning of the word which meant "in favor of freedom".

This is false, and even more than just being liberal in this vague sense, most American “liberals” and a great share of American “conservatives” are adherents to ideologies which evolved fairly directly from 18th century classical liberalism, differing largely in whether they view the immediate goals of 18th century liberals as having been terminal or steps in the direction of the desired goal.

American politics have terrible naming schemes.

Those two are words whose meaning morphs over time and every person seems to have their own pet definition so the terms are essentially meaningless and become whatever anyone wants. I've heard people to the left of Sarah Palin being described as liberals after all. These two terms are heavily misused.

We're pretty much in a double-speak world right now.

You must be British.

I am ! How did you know

Damn dude, the haters are having a downvote fest. Thanks for speaking truth.

> Bitcoin draws libertarians... and HN is full of modern liberals.

It kinda sucks that there are no libertarian-ish forums with HN's intelligence level. Bitcointalk was this for a very, very short time (like, until 2012). I miss that.

The politics of HN comes from where the users live. Most of the HN users live in tech hubs which are cities where most people who move there absorb the political views which helps them fit in.

Need to fit in is much more important to people than acknowledging the truth... mostly because the fear of being ostracized is one of the strongest and deepest human fears.

The only problem with downvotes is the rate limiting that HN applies to users who are frequently downvoted. Otherwise, I don't mind. I know these people are not downvoting me because they think I'm not adding to the discussion or violating guidelines or anything like that. It's precisely because I'm saying things they know is true but they have shadowed it in themselves and managed to convince themselves with other ideas just to try to fit in. So, when they see it out in the open, they feel very uncomfortable and want it to be hidden. I hope some of them will be inspired by by actions and see these things in themselves.

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