Comment by nindalf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nindalf | Hacker News Reader

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I agree with the parent's post FWIW. However, there is a strong tendency in mainstream thought to have great deference to "the People", however you define it. The voice of the People is the voice of God, in fact. So for a person to claim that well off people turned to radical thought out of boredom and ignorance might be correct, but would be considered not just outlandish, as you put it, but outright heresy.

It's not just the UK. It's the US and every other place. Trump wins 46% of the popular vote in 2016 and suddenly there's a deluge of think pieces about how people are hurting and what not. Yeah maybe. But there's a lot of folks out there who love voting for a guy who "triggers libs" and normalizes pussy grabbing. And we're not allowed to say this, because again, it's heresy in a democracy to imply that a large segment of voters could be ignorant or stupid or racist.

Another example, this time with vaccines. One person decides not to get a life saving vaccine because he was duped by misinformation online - he's an idiot. 30% of the population swallow the same bullshit - they have valid concerns that we need to empathise with and assuage. If they choose not to get vaccinated, we have to accept their choice. We shouldn't require vaccine passports because it would hurt their feelings and their ability to transmit diseases to their fellow citizens.

You touched on a lot of important things and I will try to respond to all of them without distracting myself.

I posit to you that 'people hurting and what not' are not merely think pieces ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy ). I remember driving through PA months before Trump's election and recall seeing some of the sadder signs you can read including "Save us Trump". It is not "triggering the libs"; it is genuine despair of no options other than triggering the libs. It is important to understand where it comes from, if one is to have a hope to counter it in any meaningful way. Just using that slogan is a mental shortcut that undermines our discourse.

I do not see that understanding. What I see is more targeted messaged intended to inflame pre-existing passions. I do not see discussion. I see bumper stickers.

As for democracy, there is an argument to be made that it relies on educated and engaged populace. I am not the biggest fan, because US has neither and a lot of ways to manipulate public opinion are well understood now. And yet, it is still a better option than benevolent dictator, monarchy or some sort of theocracy.

Now, we can quibble over whether US is a democracy, which in itself is a discussion for a couple of pages.

I do think you have a point with vaccines, but I want you to consider the question of choice, mandates and so on in regards to government imposing choices upon you. What is the lesser evil here?

And having elected Trump, what did they get aside from triggering the libs?

I see a fair bit of attempts at understanding. Liberals love to write books like "The Righteous Mind" and "What's The Matter With Kansas?", attempting to understand conservatives from a liberal point of view. I can't think of anything comparable on the right. Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives, and it feels like the only thing conservatives want is to make my life harder.

It could very well be that I'm just not listening hard enough. That seems to be the response every time liberals lose elections: "understand harder", because the problem is with me. But I'm starting to think that maybe I do understand: they don't want anything from me except someone to be angry at, and whatever despair they're undergoing is more about the deliberate induction of that despair than anything I actually do.

> Liberals every time liberals lose elections: "understand harder", because the problem is with me.

Conservatives every time liberals win elections: "let's make voting harder", because the problem is still with liberals.

>>And having elected Trump, what did they get aside from triggering the libs?

Just top of my head:

Well, there is an argument to be made from purely economical perspective, avg. earner did see some improvement. Regardless of whether you think tax cuts were a good idea, Trump tax cuts did have intended effects ( even though they also added to an ever increasing deficit ).

He did pull out of JCPOA, which some of his electorate actually wanted for various reasons.

I maintain that listening is important. I would argue that understanding is more than important. You want an absolution and an easy answer of 'they are just assholes so I can be an asshole back', but it is not that easy. The people you dismiss have rationale for what they do. And now that you know this, you have no excuse but to act on that knowledge. Or, at least, use it to your advantage.

> He did pull out of JCPOA, which some of his electorate actually wanted for various reasons

How's that worked out for them? People in Appalachia feeling pleased about the pain inflicted on the Iranian people? Or are they pleased that Iran stopped adhering to the deal and have resumed uranium enrichment? Or are they pleased about Iran's expanding influence in the Middle East?

It doesn't take much to to give people what they want. Pulling out of the JCPOA took only a couple of days. But it was not a good decision, and the fallout wasn't felt by the people who pushed for it.

That is on me. The example here was more intended to show that IAPAC got what it wanted out of Trump presidency.

You are correct to point out that people of Appallachia did not get anything of value out of that exchange.

Since that is the case, would you accept Keystone Pipeline ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-administration-app... ), which was approved and, arguably, allowed for a lowering of energy cost across US?

< It doesn't take much to to give people what they want.

I do disagree with that statement. This is the hardest thing in politics.

You're absolutely correct that some of what I want is to make my own life easier and be lazy, but there's also a political calculus. Almost anything I do to cater to them helps split my own political coalition.

One possible way to look at 2016 is that the left wing of the Democratic party felt taken advantage of. The party put forth a centrist candidate (after 8 years of a President who wasn't nearly as progressive as they'd hoped). There was little enthusiasm, while the people you've asked me to understand voted for a candidate who was obviously awful in many ways.

So the political calculus can say, "It doesn't matter what they want. You can't reach them, as evidenced by their willingness to vote for such a terrible candidate. I need instead to lean in the exact opposite direction, doing things that they hate vocally, because they can't vote against me any harder than they already do."

That's my excuse to not act on that knowledge. I have only so many actions I can take, and I will spend them in the way that does the most good.

Note that I'm not committed to that, merely explaining the view as being something other than "they're assholes so I can be an asshole back". But I do believe that the time has come to consider making them chase me rather than the other way around.

Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives

Huh? Do you have any examples of this?

I think you might be generalizing too much what it means to be liberal and don't really understand who is or isn't progressive, even in the context of the US.

It sounds like by liberals, you are referring to the Democratic party at large. You have to understand, the Democratic party at large is barely liberal and nowhere near progressive. Outside of a small number of progressive politicians, they're perfectly fine to waste a majority in DC doing very little because the same corporate interests that back conservatives also back them. They behave like controlled opposition. You can do your part to vote for someone who truly is progressive in a primary election.

You're correct: I conflated liberals, progressives, and Democrats. There are definitely important distinctions, but I conflated them as all being roughly on the same side when it comes to politics and dealing with the opposition party.

As for "examples", take a look at those two books I mentioned. There are many more books, and many op-ed pieces every time Democrats lose elections.

It's only relatively recently that the more progressive wing of the party has said, "Hey, rather than try to bend over backwards to attract moderate conservatives, how about you garner more enthusiasm from your left wing?" Or at least, they've been saying it for a while, but were generally dismissed. I think 2016 made the proposition more thinkable: if they will vote for the Republican candidate even if he's obviously insane, maybe a new approach is needed.

FYI, progressives did not write the books you mentioned, so they aren't good examples of showing how "Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives".

You're correct. I should have said "Democrats", who are the party most closely aligned with progressives and the more progressive of the two parties, but not really very progressive. These books are written targeting centrist Democrats.

> the question of choice, mandates and so on in regards to government imposing choices upon you.

The government isn't imposing these requirements arbitrarily, it's your fellow citizens imposing it through the mechanism of government. For example, Big Government will outlaw and penalise littering not for the sake of it, but because that's what citizens want from their democratically elected government.

And as a citizen who fully supports restrictions in response to a pandemic - IMO the government can't require you to get vaccinated. But you can't demand to be allowed into nightclubs and cruise ships while unvaccinated. Fair?

> And yet, it is still a better option than benevolent dictator, monarchy or some sort of theocracy.

I didn't argue against democracy. I argued against putting the population on a pedestal. It's ok to criticise people's beliefs. And it continues to be ok even if those beliefs are held by a large group of people. If a large group of people think that vaccines cause 5G ... I don't think we should coddle them and think about it from their perspective and accommodate their idiocy just because they have plenty of company. Let's create rules so the damage they do is minimized.

> I didn't argue against democracy. I argued against putting the population on a pedestal.

Please note that democracy literally is the rule of the people. You simply cannot state that you are not arguing against democracy and in next breath say that people should not be on its pedestal, because, theoretically, people are its ruling class. If it is a democracy, people are on its pedestal. That is the main weakness of democracy. People, as a whole, are idiots.

Your issue appears to be with commonly held beliefs that are not your beliefs. But that is a very different discussion.

> And as a citizen who fully supports restrictions in response to a pandemic - IMO the government can't require you to get vaccinated. But you can't demand to be allowed into nightclubs and cruise ships while unvaccinated. Fair?

I have zero problem with that statement.

You've misunderstood and mischaracterised my argument. I'm done.

Excellently put.

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