PG: Ideologues realize that they're helping other side more than | Hacker News Reader

PG: Ideologues realize that they're helping other side more than

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17 pointsbilsbie31 comments

And as long as we keep focusing on idealogues of the culture wars, we can conveniently ignore the real sources of ill to the states, namely the concentration of wealth and power as a result of 40 years of anti-antitrust legal doctrine

And tax policy, and housing policy, and monetary policy, and trade policy, and healthcare policy.

Some of this stuff isn't about the "ideology", its performance. Kabuki dance for the audience to show what the sides are and give each side a chance to cheer for their affiliation. Real ideology is far less situational than the whirlwind of "proper language".

Given that we're all adults here I don't think these subjects hold much value outside of electorate manipulation. I mean what even is "the left"? I don't think its a meaningful term. Its no accident that certain elements of the press love to run these stories and we should try our best not to fall into the same trap.

Given how important _actual_ policy is, and given how there is a significant difference in policy between the two major parties in the US at the moment, I think its important for us to try to focus on policy. Perhaps it is worth trying to take subjects like these and find means to transform them back to relevant outcomes such as inequality, police brutality, fiscal policy, climate change and foreign policy.

Two-party system with generally benevolent parties is decently good. Two-party system with corruption in the center of both parties is not a real democracy.

I'd question if a two party system is ever good. Given the OP, this idea of "the left" is arguably a symptom of our simplistic electoral system bleeding into to our ability to rationalise about other people.

A benevolent king is also good. The challenge has always been how to create a system resilient to human nature, and the USA for a very long time was the shining example. Did the USA change, or did human nature change?

Was the US really ever a shining example of democracy?

This is the old scaretactic of "I would vote left, but since you started all this crazy stuff, I see myself forced to vote the right".

So if the "other side" moderates itself somehow, this demand is never going to stop.

> So if the "other side" moderates itself somehow, this demand is never going to stop.

The demands for change never stop in democracy, that's how it works. The point PG is making is that if the mean on the left keeps shifting then they are by definition excluding and making enemies of people that were previously allies. If they stopped doing that, they could actually gain influence and start effecting change on real issues. This pathological behaviour of the left eating itself is why they're still marginalized.

The other factor at play is that both parties in the US benefit financially from maintaining an almost equal balance of power. Each party holds up the other as the boogeyman to drive donations. Someone needs to get the money out of politics, at least via publicly funded elections. This is a left policy, and if the left could stop eating itself on other issues as described above, they could actually get it done.

> if the mean on the left keeps shifting then they are by definition excluding and making enemies of people that were previously allies.

Many of those are not allies and can be sabotaging the left, especially if they are vocal.

> If they stopped doing that, they could actually gain influence and start effecting change on real issues.

Don't kid yourself, those "real issues" would then get pushback too, and you would just have one slightly less conservative party.

The demands never stop, which is a good thing, society must adapt to changes. If one side is against that, then that's also legitimate. But I don't have to regard the feelings of someone who is actively in favor of current social unfairnesses.

> Don't kid yourself, those "real issues" would then get pushback too, and you would just have one slightly less conservative party.

Sure, but at least then social issues wouldn't get dominated and perverted by capital.

That’s just polarization for you. The Right with its Roy vs. Wade abortion law overturn displays similar shortcomings in their performance to attract the voters in the middle.

Billionaire founder of a large and influential private equity firm that has helped create a business environment increasingly focused on market power and monopoly rather than innovation notices his entire worldview is now aligned with the party that has made protecting the interests of people like him its one core non-negotiable value.

Clearly this is the fault of the hippies and angry working class people on social media.

I am pretty sure the angry working class people couldn't care less (and are actively disgusted by) the newspeak proposed by the radical/academic left.

Indeed. Which is exactly why the ruling class, who determine what's in the pages of the New York Times, or on their personal Twitter feeds, are focusing on this tiny fringe cultural issue.

Ideologues of all stripes hope to manifest a society that reflects their own values. The electoral process is one avenue for achieving this end, though it does generally require popular opinion to be on your side. The upside of these types of pressure campaigns is that it allows ideologues to achieve their ends without sacrificing the purity of their own conviction.

If you prefer to vote for politicians who want to physically harm other people and destroy the core values of your country because you don't like vocabulary guidelines, what are you? What are your values?

(See also: pro-gun "pro-life", Evangelists voting for a serial cheater, military voting for a draft dodger, etc.)

The left destroy language.

Meanwhile, the right destroy democracy.

And now PG has been drawn into the puppet show.

The real problem is the structure of American democracy. Extremism is rewarded. Centrist politicians can’t win primaries, even though they would usually win the general election.

Is this a problem of American democracy, though? The same thing happened in Brazil, where there are dozens of parties.

Personally, I feel it takes tremendous energy to position oneself outside the binary of left and right, so people just choose their team and start to accept whole package deal.

"The left destroy language"

"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us."

why is PG flagged? He created HN. This is interesting.

Because this is a lazy idiotic hot take that you'd maybe expect from a first year polsci student, not someone who's allegedly a "smart thinker".

You'll note that this accusation - that one side is being too outrageous and pushing its supporters to the other - only ever seems to apply to the left. Can't say I've ever seen someone accuse the right of pushing people to the left with their rhetoric - which you'll hopefully concede is much more extreme than this kind of "language policing". That's because the people who come out with these idiotic hot takes - the media, rich white old dudes, etc. - are generally on the right and like scolding the left.

Have you seen the meme of the man standing still, and the left wing person keeps moving further and further to the left - causing the person who stood still to become a conservative?

This is exactly how I feel. All of my core issues are the same as I held in 2000. Yet, I find myself conservative today. Personally I'm repulsed by "woke" or "replacement culture" - whatever you wish to call it. Its hard to define but I find myself being lectured about the dangers of cooking with natural gas (I love to cook). Its just so annoying. I wish I could change the channel.

Funny to claim that when in most European countries the centrist parties are objectively more right-wing than the self-proclaimed right-wing parties used to be twenty years ago. Like, this is not an opinion, look at anything from immigration policies to education, pensions, culture, health care, and other social safety nets, and what the party programs used to be and what they are now.

LBGTQ rights are about the only thing that haven't regressed. Yet. I'm glad that since 2014 my Dutch trans friends no longer are forced by law to sterilize themselves if they decide to come out and desire a medical transition, for example.

You just want to have your cake (privilege) and eat it too. Perhaps you want even a congratulation for eating it? Grow up and grow some balls, stop being a crybaby about it.

Going back to PG's initial point - the petty language wars really turn people off. Name calling does too. I really don't care about politics. I like what works. China has a fantastic high speed rail, the CCP was capable of building it and the Democrats in California can't manage to complete 30 miles over 10 years. So I'd say focus on results to earn votes. You lost me on issues related to "woke" or "replacement culture".

I didn't lose you, don't you get it? You were always lost, just pretending to be found.

You should definitely change the channel, because the one you're listening to is the right-wing trying to infuriate you. And they're succeeding.

Natural gas: actual report says there could be problems, but almost all of the problems were caused by a small subset of gas ranges, so they might be defective or improperly installed or using a particularly bad technology. One politician says "we might want to regulate that for safety". Everything else is the right wing amplification and fear-mongering.

Not true. It has real life effects. San Francisco and all over California, you can no longer install natural gas. This is literally a hill I will die on. I love to cook on a gas range, could care less about politics.

There's almost no chance your core issues are the same as they were 23 years ago.

I'm willing to bet you're dramatically richer, and you're certainly 23 years older and closer to death. Your views on real estate, music and culture, investment and taxation, and issues relevant to schools and the raising of children would almost certainly be unrecognizable to you in 2000.

Your brain now is trying to link them together, to argue that in fact your worldview has been consistent the entire time. That's something your brain wants to do to rationalize this.

But the reality is that the consistent worldview you've held this entire time is that you believe that people like you should get what they want.

It's normal, nothing to feel bad about, we all do it. But it's helpful to recognize what's actually happening.

As someone more articulate than me once said, we all saw things the same we just saw them from a different point of view.

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