Comment by jesushax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jesushax | Hacker News Reader

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He probably didn't have the stat off the top of his head, so it was exaggerated based on assumptions. But the underlying intuition had a kernel of truth and applies to any political party, or any institution, really. For example, if an organization dedicated to the poor mainly draws support from poor people, they have a kind of incentive to subtly maintain poverty.

This theory that institutions kind of have a tendency to perpetuate the conditions that necessitate their existence was developed by Durkheim, and like most of the other early sociologists, I really recommend it over newer stuff. It's not conspiratorial, the idea is that organizations that do this outsurvive groups that legitimately solve the problems they are created to solve, and so through an evolutionary process, the longest lived and deepest institutions tend to be ones with behaviors ironically antithetical to their supposed mission (even if the members of the institution totally believe in and earnestly support the mission).

The typical example (at least when I was into this kind of stuff) is the Catholic Church earnestly helping the poor, but doing so in a way that societaly, will never actually alleviate poverty, or may even exacerbate it. Now days I tend to hear this line of thinking used about liberals supporting policies that "help" minorities but really perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

Whether you believe this is beside the point, I only mean to suggest that OP is wrong, but a steelman of his point is deeper than it seems, and deserves our good faith imo.

Yes you could definitely make an argument that democrats benefit from poverty, or that republicans benefit from illegal immigration. People in poverty receiving benefits vote democrat because they're afraid republicans will cut benefits. People who fear illegal immigrants taking their jobs will vote republican because they think republicans will be tougher on illegal immigration. If democrats actually solved poverty or if republicans actually deported 100% of illegal immigrants, a lot of people would lose their reasons to vote for those parties.

Arguably by the same reasoning, republicans benefit from legal abortion and their finally getting Roe v Wade reversed was terrible for their electoral performance.

>Arguably by the same reasoning, republicans benefit from legal abortion and their finally getting Roe v Wade reversed was terrible for their electoral performance.

You aborted your analysis too early. Getting Roe v. Wade overturned still benefits Republicans until such time as Legislation is successfully passed to outlaw abortion at all levels (i.e. State & Federal, though arguably we're talking Republican here, so one would think they'd content themselves with States). Only then would the "problem" be solved.

You are completely correct, I didn't mean to argue against the Dems, just noting that I hear this critique raised against them a lot.

>Arguably by the same reasoning, republicans benefit from legal abortion and their finally getting Roe v Wade reversed was terrible for their electoral performance.

Indeed, the far-right has raised exactly this criticism of overturning Roe v Wade:

>If you have limited energy and a limited number of possible wins, it is important to focus your limited energy on one kind of win: wins that make future wins easier. By definition, these are the kinds of wins that augment your power. These are real wins. > >There is another kind of “win,” wins which expend your power in order to achieve some result you want. These are sometimes called “Pyrrhic victories.” Pyrrhus took the battlefield, but after the battle his chances of winning were reduced. His tactical “victory” was a strategic defeat.

Source: You can only lose the culture war (https://graymirror.substack.com/p/you-can-only-lose-the-cult...)

This kind of thinking isn't partisan, I think it describes the a problem that occurs with institutions in any society. I'm not sure what the solution is, other than to be collectively vigilant against institutions succumbing to these tendencies. Which seems woefully inadequate.

thaumasiotes was saying married people vote Republican more often. pfisch was suggesting he was actually witnessing a separate correlation. Older people tend to vote Republican more often, older people are more often married than younger people.

I was suggesting that there are other things that go into even the age issue.

Religious people are more likely to marry than non-religious people. Religious people tend to vote more conservatively than non-religious people. Etc. etc. I was agreeing with pfisch that a lot of the reasons people get married often line up with reasons why people vote Republican.

And I wouldn't say the Catholic Church believes its mission to be to eliminate poverty. Or even alleviate it. They want to temporarily alleviate the superficial effects of poverty on people.

Same general idea: it's not in the dating apps' best interest to get their users into successful long-term relationships and out of the dating pool.

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