Ask HN: Is HN (or the world) getting politically extreme? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is HN (or the world) getting politically extreme?

14 points_8j5035 comments

After ~2016 the US and the europe and elsewhere became more polarized than ever before.

But recently on HN and elsewhere I feel like it is impossible to talk politics without blindly consigning all your beliefs to one political extreme or the other.

What concerns and frustrated me is the fact that I can't imagine and don't know of any scenario where a democracy survives where civil discourse is not possible.

Is this just in my head or has anyone also observed this? What could be done to improve the situation? I mean, we are living in times when a congressperson calls out for a "national divorce" and hardly anyone bats an eye. I fear the wars and sufferings of the 20th century might pale in comparison to what is arounf the corner if we can't disagree and debate in a civilized way.

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Social media rules the world, engagement optimization rules social media, and it heavily rewards extremism. This trickles down to everything else, from "mainstream media" to the psychological development of children to organization reputation to terrorist group recruitment.

This is why the world seems so extreme. The most extreme content bubbles up to the top of our news feed, which gives actors incentive to make extreme content.

Here's my extremist view:

- Engagement optimization is literally destroying the planet, and should be treated like an armed nuclear weapon.

- Facebook, Google, Tiktok, Twitter and such should be treated as if they are criminal.

- Engagement optimization and/or targeted advertising should be banned, immediately and harshly, if humanity is to survive.

I agree with your points except this:

> Engagement optimization and/or targeted advertising should be banned, immediately and harshly, if humanity is to survive.

Not practical to ban it, maybe regulate it.

Is the world more polarised? I thought we've softened: PHP is regarded with less hate, JS is accepted as a language that can have a place server side, Python still receives undying love in its ever expanding scope, Lisps still Lisp and are left to be, once in a blue moon someone remembers APL curiously and sometimes a similar what-if is imagined, if for a fluttering moment, about Haskell ever becoming mainstream. We know to agree Rust is mostly safe until it isn't and that Java will outlive humanity. Browsers comply with standards, and if you want to run Linux on the desktop on a 2nd gen i3 everything even today will mostly just work.

In 1971 and 1972 the FBI recorded 2500 political bombings in the US.

In 1856 a senator was beaten nearly to death with a cane by another congressman. That representative received canes in the mail from his constituents in support of his violence.

These things seem inconceivable now but are just a couple of episodes in US partisanship.

We are no where near as polarized as we’ve been in the past.

In 1921 in one incident (triggered by attempts to prevent a lynching of a black man, of which there were 59 that year [0]), 75-300 people were killed, 800+ injured, and 10,000 left homeless in race-motivated mob violence, with the police actively intervening on the side of the racist mob, an attack which included, per eyewitness accounts, aerial bombardment by multiple aircraft.

In the same year, along with other significant acts of violence around racial issues, labor-issues related violence was so great that it involve Mingo County, WV, being under state declared martial law for months with battles between state authorities and armed miners, an invocation of the federal Insurrection Act and deployment of federal troops finally ending the fighting.

[0] While higher than any subsequent year, this was also not abnormal for the years from the 1880s through 1921.

I disagree with this. You are mentioning extreme events that were more common in the past but my concern is that the extreme views today are more pervasive and widespread thanks to the internet. If politically morivated bombings become trendy again it might mean mangnitudes worse than the 70s

> . You are mentioning extreme events that were more common in the past but my concern is that the extreme views today are more pervasive and widespread thanks to the internet

Extreme views are not more pervasive than ever (they might be up from a minimum in like the late 1980s/early 1990s, but not to some unprecedented level.) The internet makes views divergent from those of your immediate race/class/industry/goegraphy-defined subgroup more visible, and for many of the same reasons it makes cultural subgroups less defined by those categories than in the past.

> If politically morivated bombings become trendy again it might mean mangnitudes worse than the 70s

The reason they were more common in the 1970s is greater extremism, not fashion. Yes, if extremism actually got worse than the 1970s, then... it would be worse than the 1970s.

I don’t know about the world or HN, but what I personally experience is that I am loosing touch with my few very close friends. Way too often our conversations end up in politically related debates and it negatively affects relationships. The only way to stay out of it, is to not talk about current happenings at all, because as soon as somehow recent events or news surface, it almost inadvertently leads to politics, but its very difficult to be close friends with someone and yet never talk about things the surround us on a day to day basis. It is almost as if language itself became embedded with political narrative.

> After ~2016 the US and the Europe and elsewhere became more polarized than ever before.

Depending on how old you are the "real" line is 2008, 2001, 2000, 1996, 1980, 1968, 1960....

> HN is intended for discussion of technical news....

Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum: its use by humans raises legal and moral questions. Part of the original hacker ethos was to challenge preconceived societal notions through the use of technology. Challenge, question, push boundaries -- but not a certain viewpoint.

When George W. uttered the "you're either with us or against us" phrase he was lambasted for ignoring the conscientious objectors, skeptics, and patriotic dissenters. Online debates quickly devolve into binary either-or dichotomies; I think the gray zone in between is where 90% of life happens and where we should devote the most time to listening with empathy and an attempt to understand rather than condemning out of hand what we don't agree with.

UPDATE: The fact that I was down-voted for stating the non-controversial obvious proves my point.

The weird thing is everyone I know feels this way, but it also seems that everyone else is the problem. My theory is that (social) media has caused us to feel in a constant state of being attacked, where we interpret the speech of others as aggression, we „defend“ ourselves which in turn gets to interpreted as an aggression, and the cycle continues.

Of the people I know that feel that way, many have reduced or eliminated their social media participation and consumption. And even outside the social media bubble(s), they still feel that way. May be that feeling will fade in time?

HN is intended for discussion of technical news, but social/political subjects of current interest often show up. Some people resent that, but those threads are obvious from the title, so you can just ignore them if you want. As for the discussion quality, can you think of any forum that manages to maintain a more balanced tone? As for society in general, I don't think the polarization is any worse than it has been in my lifetime.

Yes, I've been observing that development, too. A lot of it indeed is political, but from my point of view the sentiment extends beyond mere political opinion in the narrow sense of the word.

I'd rather describe the phenomenon as an identitarian mindset, pretty much what Paul Graham described in his 2009 essay "Keep Your Identity Small": http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

Everything seems to have become about identity, which in turn again often is politicised or weaponised even - in the sense that identity is used to build a political argument or define oneself or others along ideological fault lines.

In my opinion, identitarianism is a major current societal issue that has the potential to tear society apart.

I think you have a very good point. When people see arguments, they see an attack against their identity thanks to identity politics.

My 'mental model' is that people are getting increasingly angry , particularly in the US, and that extremism and polarization are downstream from this. Social media, high stress lifestyles, and unmet expectations could be contributing factors.

And yet I bet nothing will change, at least not in my lifetime.

The professionals working for state-sponsored 'troll farms' are working right now (here!) to make things less reasonable. You're seeing the results of their professional work. Read more about the scale and targets of their operations from your nation's intelligence service reports. Here's a start, from Canada's CSIS "WHO SAID WHAT? The Security Challenges of Modern Disinformation" https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2018/scrs-...

As for what we can do Citizens having the capability to freely and privately debate and govern amongst themselves without interference seems like a good start. Free and Open privacy and encryption technology development and advocacy seems important and immediately actionable on an individual and community level.

Yup. Paul Krugman suggests that there's a strong correlation between polarization and inequality.

Even if you only cared about the economy and not any individuals, inequality warps politics and breeds distrust, which leads to instability.

The opposite applies - when someone tries to grasp at power, they will blame inequality to rally others.

I think you have to look at context: I'm sure in the 1600s, 1800s, early 1900s, etc. when people were less educated and saying some things really could get you killed, people were more "politically extreme". On the other hand, I do think the mainstream news and comments are more polarized than they were in the 2000s and 2010s, when it seemed mainstream Republicans were more moderate/libertarian, and mainstream Democrats didn't literally take the position "all Republicans are racist" and "free speech is unreasonable". Although some of that is surely me getting older, learning more about politics and the people around me doing the same.

You also have to understand that the most vocal people and the most covered news is the most radical, and IME actual people (both in-person, and those who don't comment as much or get their comments upvoted as much) are still really nuanced and reasonable. I think it's good that you're concerned about extreme views, and the best thing you can do is to despite hearing all these vocal people avoid becoming extreme yourself.

If political parties are treated like religion then what else do you expect?

Here is a very interesting observation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOgiTPllJe0

> After ~2016 the US and the europe and elsewhere became more polarized than ever before.

By what measure is this claim justified for:

(1) the US,

(2) Europe,

(3) elsewhere.

At least to my eye, in the US, political polarization seems less than in the mid-19th Century, or the mid-20th century (HUAC-McCarthy-Civil Rights-Vietnam-Watergate era).

The polarization is more aligned with the partisan divide than in the mid-20th Century (which was during the long ~1932-1994 realignment period, when the major parties were not coherently organized around the most salient political divisions), but the polarization itself doesn’t seem to be less.

> At least to my eye, in the US, political polarization seems less than in the mid-19th Century, or the mid-20th century (HUAC-McCarthy-Civil Rights-Vietnam-Watergate era).

There were divisions over certain topics but not over almost every single topic and people cared about truth to an extent. And there were many common grounds in the 60s it feels like, at least when it comes to supporting your country and the union. There was no fascist vibe on one end and kill rich people and change how democracy works vibe on the other end.

I can tell someone something is true and we can't even agree on basic underlying facts to talk it out. Before the interner you had tv and news papers as a source of some truth about politics. Anything is fake news and propaganda now

Easy Access to information with just a few keystrokes has dampened the ability to logical reasoning and critical thinking. Why think and logic through something when you can just google.

Upvote/downvote/likes/comments/followers/awards have become the coveted commodity that may lead to fame and richness. To stand out, you need to have more and more extreme views or actions. Nobody pays attention to moderates and crowd pleasers. Even your post highlights the extremist.

Internet has become idiot amplification media.

My friend describes himself as liberal and he feels the same way you do. My politics are more conservative. I have sometimes wondered if he feels this way because he doesn't like some conservative points of view. I will have to ask him.

Europe is much less polarized than it used to be if you look beyond the very short term. That's probably also the case globally.

HN seems generally level headed, although there seem to be a few more acerbic comments than there used to be.

Getting? It done been extreme.

> What could be done to improve the situation?

Nothing. Just wait, this is a temporary phenomenon that will correct itself. Something will trigger the correction. E.g. the coming scandal around Covid vaccines. Then people will start asking questions about other myths they are currently promoting with a passion.

>> "E.g. the coming scandal around Covid vaccines. Then people will start asking questions about other myths they are currently promoting with a passion."

I think these kinds of insinuations without any development into an actual point are a huge part of the problem. You strolled in, dropped a deuce, and moonwalked out leaving others to step around the mess.

Not sure what you mean. The development is all over the internet. E.g. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-mrnas-jabs-may-ha...

There's a reason why vaccines were suddenly "de-emphasised" lately.

(The language of your reply is aggressive)

From the Nature article selectively quoted by this link, “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination has been shown to be safe and effective in multiple trials1,2,3,4. Vaccine pharmacovigilance has revealed diverse rare side effects in the setting of population-wide administration5,6, including off-target cardiovascular effects, with the most well-characterized being myocarditis7,8”

Hardly a mass scandal other than in the eyes of antivaxxers.

>> "The development is all over the internet."

Like with conspiracy theory stickers plastered all over a 1994 Ford Ranger, one thing being covered in another is not an indicator of credibility.

Everything you disagree with is a conspiracy. That's exactly the topic of this thread.

Conspiracy theories are not the same as increased polarization. If you could wave a magic wand and remove all conspiracy theories from human consciousness there would still be plenty of room for polarization of thought.

I thought Pinewurst's ("From the Nature article selectively quoted ...") response to your comment about COVID vaccines was interesting. Rather than introducing the issue of conspiracy theories would you care to address his response ?

Thank you for the comment free of rude language and labels, This is a rarity nowadays. :-) (BTW, the notion of conspiracy was brought up not by me, I was just responding to the parent).

The quote GP cited is taken from the preamble. You have to read the whole article.

I was born in USSR and lived there for almost 40 years. Every essay, thesis, dissertation, and science article was supposed to contain the preamble where the authors had to declare their allegiance to the causes of the Communist Party. Even if the dissertation was about elliptic curves. In the preamble, you were supposed also to include some quotes from Lenin, Marx, and the latest Plenum of the Central Committee. And only then were you allowed to proceed to your treatment of elliptic curves.

Does this answer your question?

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