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Comment by bserge | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, it's all cool when a mob punishes some person. But when it then happens to one of the people in that mob, oh no, wtf is this injustice, where's the law?!

I've had to listen to rants about sterilizing alcoholics, shooting immigrants at the border, deporting people, having one strong leader like in a monarchy (but somehow it's not dictatorship).

Idiocy runs deep. Walk on a busy street and look around, more than half the people hold some of these views. 3/4 I'd even say.

I do, too, I believe all drugs should be legal (even if I sign away all my other healthcare), the death penalty should be a choice vs life imprisonment for example. Is that as dumb as sterilizing alcoholics? I can't really tell since I'm me. I like to believe I stop at not dictating how other people should live their own lives.

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the problem is, many, very many people love to tell others how they should live, speak, and especially how they should feel. I have come to the conclusion that my own political preferences are not with the left, the right or any other particular pole. I just dislike people trying to force their opinion on me, and especially those who try to do it by manipulating my feelings. Doesn't matter what their beliefs are.

In war games, the only winning move is not to play.

I think it's important to be careful, when one identifies as "outside the system", that one is not actually advancing the cause of one of the "sides". In particular, when the status quo is unjust, saying that you don't identify with either the left or the right often means that you're OK with the status quo. I'm not saying this is an inherently wrong position, just that it's important to be aware of whose interests are served by you standing on the sidelines.

>In particular, when the status quo is unjust, saying that you don't identify with either the left or the right often means that you're OK with the status quo.

The correct answer to this view is "so what?" If I choose to watch cartoons tonight rather than evangelize about whatever causes on Twitter, does that mean that I'm "OK with the status quo"? I guess in some sense it does - but again, so what? If you want to cast aspersions on me for this choice, I would just say that you have unreasonably high expectations regarding how much people should care about your cause, and I'd strongly suspect you of being a hypocrite on the matter.

This reads like an overly polite way of saying "you're either with us or against us."

That's a little reductive. I just think it's important to be aware that you can't really escape politics, and in a representative democracy there is often someone who will benefit from your choices one way or another. In the US this breaks down into us vs. them because of the two party system.

For an example, consider how Nader is sometimes blamed for Bush's victory in 2000. And indeed, whether intentional or not, Nader's campaign probably hurt Gore's chances. But my point is not to condemn (in this example) Nader voters. Just that it's important to be aware of who is likely benefiting from your actions and not pretend that by remaining "neural" or "independent" you're somehow above the fray.

you can't really escape politics

Nah, I'm really tired of seeing this cop-out. It can't be escapted because people like you take joy in reducing every conversation down to politics so you can then steer it to your liking.

Just that it's important to be aware of who is likely benefiting from your actions and not pretend that by remaining "neural" or "independent" you're somehow above the fray.

I'd wager most of those voters voted for Nader because they wanted him to win, not because they were spiting Bush/Gore (while all the same being ignorant of the fact that 3rd party candidates don't work in first-past-the-post systems).

> I'd wager most of those voters voted for Nader because they wanted him to win...

Yes. I didn't say otherwise. But voting for Nader probably benefitted Bush as well. Something that's important to consider if you want to vote for Nader. To be clear, despite this, I think that the 2000 Nader campaign was a good thing.

I think the worst thing about "first past the post" electoral systems is that sometimes you end up voting "strategically" because of the above calculus.

I think he was just saying try to be less ignorant. Which sounds like good advice to me.

The problem is the idea that you can't be above the fray. It's clearly false as a literal claim - I've never met anyone who struggles to avoid discussing communism with their coworkers from China or Modi with their coworkers from India. In practice, whenever I've seen people say that it's impossible to be above the fray, what they mean is that suchandsuch issues are very important so they think everyone ought to be dragged into the fray.

Yeah. There needs to be a middle ground. Terrible things are happening around the world, and nobody has the time or energy to attend to all of them. On the other hand, if somebody is calling a co-worker some racist term, looking aside is pretty cowardly. Everybody should probably think this through for themselves and figure out what they can live with.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." --Desmond Tutu

No, you choose a side when you choose a side. The fact that, conceivably, you could have an influence on an outcome does not mean you are picking a side. That oppressor you "should" have opposed is the one oppressing. Even if you side with the oppressed in secret, there usually is a cost in outwardly aiding them. To demand that someone pay a price is to assert that one's life is not one's own. To voluntarily offer one's life may be heroic, but to demand it is slavery.

given that injustices are perpetrated worldwide every second of the day, doesn't that just reduce down to "everybody is an oppressor"? I'm not particularly active in the Sudan conflict, so I guess I must be passively helping out whichever side is the bad guys? Times that by a thousand for all the other conflicts I'm not involved in, and I must be just about the worst person there is.

I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I certainly agree with their post. My opinion is that people on the edges of the political spectrum, who have strong opinions and are active in politics, in fact do nothing to change society, and actually entrench the existing power structures.

The reason I have come to that conclusion is that politics is tribal, if you want to be part of a group, you have to have exactly the right beliefs, you cannot have an opinion other than the ones shared by the group, if you think a bit differently than the group, but agree with them on a large degree of things and are willing to work with them, the group will reject you. They do not want free thinkers, they want foot soldiers for their culture war.

All the culture wars have done is act as a set of wedge issues politicians use to divide their opponents base. When you become politically active, you become a tool for politicians. And somehow, very predictably, midterm elections are already bad for incumbent presidents parties, we always alternate between democratic preaidents and republican presidents, my cities local politics will always be democratic, my state will always be controlled by republicans. The people in power seem to be happy with this status quo, perhaps just because it is predictable.

> The reason I have come to that conclusion is that politics is tribal, if you want to be part of a group, you have to have exactly the right beliefs, you cannot have an opinion other than the ones shared by the group, if you think a bit differently than the group, but agree with them on a large degree of things and are willing to work with them, the group will reject you. They do not want free thinkers, they want foot soldiers for their culture war.

If a group is like that, then they're right - I'm not part of their tribe.

The OP said nothing about standing on the sidelines -- just that their views don't neatly fit one way or another.

However, if I witness a game where two teams are repeatedly smashing into each other at midfield, causing harm to themselves and making no visible progress, standing on the sidelines seems like a perfectly valid and rational choice.

Making the argument that I could have helped / hurt one of the teams by participating holds no water. I'll join the game when it makes more sense.

> saying that you don't identify with either the left or the right often means that you're OK with the status quo

To me, saying that you do identify with either the left or the right (or conversely, that you don't identify with both the left and the right, on some points) means you're OK with the status quo. They're both led by political machines that attract people's mindshare by talking about grassroots problems, and then transmute that support into the policies their sponsors paid for. There's no money to be made in solving the real grassroots problems, and doing so would actually diminish their recruitment.

Vote pragmatically all you want, but don't mislead yourself into thinking either political team is actually fighting against the status quo.

This is an underhanded way of saying, “If you’re not with me, then you’re against me.”

I had a number of extremely unpleasant conversations online that went like this on some well-known tech sites.

No room for nuance. Just a constant blast of attacks on character, strawman, and hysterics.

So far Hacker news readers don’t tolerate this but sometimes I wonder for how long.

You'll notice the post you're responding to never mentioned anything close to "standing on the sidelines".

A common tactic used by evangelist partisans is to paint centrists as 'undecided' on some issues and therefore just as evil as the enemy.

In reality these people are as opinionated as any partisan on individual topics.

Let's say I care about people more than politics. And let's say it plays out this way in my thinking: I'm pro-life, because I see a fetus as a person, or at least a person-in-the-making. And I'm pro-law-enforcement, because I see crime hurting people. And I'm pro-welfare and pro-raising-minimum-wage, because I see poverty hurting people. And I'm anti-death-penalty, because I see that as killing a person. And I'm anti-gun-rights, because I see guns killing people. (Note well: Not all of these are my positions, so let's skip debates about the specifics.)

In the great Red-vs-Blue battle, I'm on the sidelines, because I'm on Team People, not Team Red or Team Blue. Both sides have positions that I agree with, and both have positions that I disagree with. I can't be fully on either team, because neither is fully on my team.

But I'll get involved on individual issues. I'm not "undecided" on individual issues.

Why is that a problem? (I mean, I see that it's a problem for someone who's wholly sold out to Team Red or Team Blue, but why should the rest of us care?)

> You'll notice the post your responding to never mentioned anything close to "standing on the sidelines".

That's a fair criticism. I suppose I was responding to the attitude I perceived from the comment rather than the words themselves. I'll admit that what I said may not apply to the GP at all.

You can just say, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” It’s shorter, and less weasely.

If I wanted to say that, I would. Clearly I failed at getting my point across.

Out of curiosity, who do you think "us" is in this case?

us = the left or the right; the system; etc.

You're basically advocating that someone should be on one pole or the other. I think your premise seems dishonest:

First you gave an assumption about an 'unjust' system and explain why not choosing a side is bad, but then later on you say that not choosing a side isn't 'inherently wrong' to try to not seem judgemental. It comes across a little manipulative tbh.

The "us" is clearly the people inside the system you're referring to (left / right).

And for people outside the system, the "us" is often both the left and right interchangeably.

The status quo may be broken. That doesn't mean I agree with any given side's approach to fixing it. (And "we have to do something, this is something, therefore we have to do this" is stupid logic.)

If the status quo is bad, that doesn't mean we can't make it much worse by applying the wrong fix.

This is an underhanded way of saying, “If you’re not with me, then you’re against me.”

It’s toxic and intolerable.

What about people who leave you alone but try to push their opinion on others with less political power?

True, and this is an age old argument.

Here is the relevant XKCD, just with a narrow scope: https://xkcd.com/386/

>But when it then happens to one of the people in that mob, oh no, wtf is this injustice, where's the law?!

This has always been one of the more-grating aspects of cancel culture. When my tribe does it to yours, it's just "actions having consequences", "fucking around and finding out", "consequences culture", etc. When your tribe does it to mine, it's criminal harassment / death threats / bigotry / gaslighting / etc etc.

> Yeah, it's all cool when a mob punishes some person. But when it then happens to one of the people in that mob, oh no, wtf is this injustice, where's the law?!

Maybe this is just part of the maturing process that most of us go through.

There's a painfully large number of times in my life where I've been a total ass about someone else's beliefs, failings, etc., until something in my own life made me more empathetic on the topic.

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