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Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

I would like a parallel economy for people who have become averse to "culture war" pandering, because frankly my problem is that I'm tired of all of the empty soulless rhetoric wearing the skin of activism. I don't want "the other side" in this false dichotomy, I want less bullshit. Because I know it's bullshit, because I know that neither megacorps like Nestlé nor reactionary popups like Truth Social actually have any good faith intentions and are just cashing in. I'm sorry. It all feels like bullshit to me.

I guess the argument is supposed to be that even if corporations are being dishonest, it's okay if their dishonesty is progressive. Well, it doesn't seem to be working, to me. Seems like things are at best still a frustrating game of give and take, and at worst, people are as divided and unhappy as they have been in a while.

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Selling gimmicky overpriced stuff based on group identity really isn't anything new. "Patriot Mobile" is one of the most transparent examples - they're not building out their own network of cell towers, so "your money" [0] is still going to whatever big carrier(s) they buy service from. It's the red tribe equivalent of green washing.

The underlying open question remains how successful will media (social and otherwise) continue to be at keeping so many people's perspectives so focused on identity politics (both flavors).

[0] term from their radio ad.

The most interesting thing to happen politically over the last 20 years are "progressives" embracing big corporations and endless war.

What endless war?

It happened a lot earlier than that. Progressives embracing corporations is neoliberalism which got big in the 80's.

liberals (classical liberals who support capitalism and free markets) embracing corporations is neoliberalism. progressivism generally doesn't support ideas like small government or privatization or deregulation.

"neoliberalism" is a right-wing philosophy.

Democrats are the party of the educated elite. As the percentage of college educated increased they become a big enough block to take control of the party from the blue collar group. Big corporations have served the well educated population of this country quite well in general.

this never happened. one of the central tenets of progressivism is that capitalist markets allow giant corporations to become unaccountable to the people and that big business generally shouldn't exist.

Really ?

To me the biggest wtf is “party of Reagan” Republicans rooting for Russia

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool old school Socialist who once subcontracted for a "Christian Web Services" company, and yes, speaking from the example that I interacted with, it really was shysters all the way down. We ended up racking up a ton of hours because, well, the Venn diagram of "people who know what a scroll wheel does" and "people who insist on only using Christian Products" looks like a map of a very small solar system. That's probably different now - the Dark Enlightenment type kids are pretty savvy.

The guy who ran the joint was the most stereotypical Jewish guy I have ever met (he actually joked about this), and he insisted on only hiring outwardly-gay-appearing graphics people (which admittedly could just mean a slim good-looking guy with a lisp, which . .eh. . did result in some confusion).

I've never seen such scorn for a customer base outside of working in the Defense industry, where "scorn for the customer base" is more or less where profit comes from.

Having said all that, it was sort of a lot of fun, but it was also sort of soul-destroying. Making a living off of scorn does that, I guess.

Keep religion and politics out of the workplace is old fashioned.

What’s old is new again?

I just want a normal life for my family. I tend to tune out all the cultural war stuff as much as possible.

That's great. I applaud keeping out of it as much as you can.

Just be aware that some people can't tune it out. If one of your children were trans, for example, the culture war would come for you, whether you want it to or not.

Like I said, it's best avoided as much as humanly possible. Just spare a thought for those who can't, and remember that it hurts. Not something you necessarily have to be aware of all the time, but there are times when it matters. Such as at voting time. The political positions in the culture war may not affect your family, but there are many others for whom it does.

I personally find making things and learning how to make things and where they come from to be more interesting than worrying about what corporations are doing.

If I want global or at least local societal change then I need money to fund campaigns; rather than spend money on certain products.

I can get money by making something novel or by investing in learning how to make someone else more money.

If I don't want to give my money to businesses that use it in a way I disagree with then I invest more time into researching businesses and where their products come from.

The biggest hurtle for me was to lose my emotional attachments to commercial products. A thing has value to me because it serves a purpose, it is a tool. I've been taught in general you ought to buy the best tool that you can afford. "Best" may include attributes like 'aesthetics' and 'moral supply chain' along with 'quality' and 'bang-for-your-buck', etc.

Are they equivalent though? If all companies that are "neutral" eventually become corrupted by subversive influence, then the only immunization is to be actively opposed to it. Which "side" as aggressively pushing their BS on you, and which one is being open about its motivations and building new things rather than attempting to corrupt existing things? These two "sides" are not the same. It's politically expedient to claim to be aloof, or beyond the partisan bickering, but more and more people are coming to the conclusion that there's no ability to avoid the conflict.

EDIT - While writing this comment the article story got flagged. Who is trying to make sure you can't see stories like this? Eventually a "side" must be taken because one of those sides is determined to not allow you to decide for yourself.

The "two sides" in the false dichotomy are definitely not equivalent. That said, I don't really buy the idea that it simply must be this way, either. Corporations will always be corrupt to some degree, and I don't think that this really plays into that very much; I think that most corporations are very happy (and actively engaged in) doing one thing and saying another. So the truth is, the only positive externality that I think could come from all of this posturing is if it helped in shifting the societal view (And to an extent, it probably did, though I think eventually, if it hasn't happened already, that trend will go backwards.)

I also don't really understand why this article is flagged; I think a lot of articles where the discussion is bound to go sideways get flagged just in anticipation.

Which side is which?

"one of those sides is determined to not allow you to decide for yourself." Is this the side where elected officials block construction projects of a company because they don't like the speech expressed through their publications or is this the side where some students prevent non-conforming speakers to speak on campus and teachers get fired for reading a quote in a historical context that includes the N-word?

> "Who is trying to make sure you can't see stories like this?"

The side that has read the HN guidelines (linked at the bottom of the page) and knows that politics stories are explicitly declared to be off topic for HN.

Corporate America hasn't been "corrupted" by social concern politics. Rather, the social mores of the US have moved on. A corporation advertising with a rainbow flag has the same value-free profit-seeking connotations as advertising with an American flag in the 1980's.

What has actually changed is that the right wing has anchored their viewpoints to the social mores of the 1950's, making them no longer conservative but rather reactionary (as laid out by Moldbug himself). From that perspective, every day regular society ends up seeming increasingly hostile. What has happened is that they've moved into the position of activists. And like many newly minted activists, rather than doing the slow work of convincing others of the value of their beliefs, they're merely asserting things should be a certain way and then playing the victim when they aren't.

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