They do say that reality has a left leaning bias... Personally I find these quadrant visualizations a bit misleading (regardless of where you sit) because the "centre" is not so much a neutral point as it is the centre of the "Overton window".
I am not even sure how to interpret that. In the US, at least, politically people leaning left and leaning right are about even. I would definitely say that during my time in academia it appeared to me that more were left-leaning than people I knew in my non-academic life (ie. work, etc.) The fact that they have to spend so much time "re-aligning" these models seems to indicate that maybe the general public does not have a left-leaning bias at all.
Google the phrase "reality has a left leaning bias" and you will find a variety of explanations as to what it means.
Navigating life expecting to understand everything without first having to learn the things is... unreasonable. The burden is not exclusively on the one sending the message: the one receiving the message shares his part of the burden.
> I did Google it and got Reddit telling me that anyone that does not have a left leaning bias is just ignorant of science
That's directionally better, but it's definitely not what I mean and is not how I would put it. This is why you need to look at multiple sources. Not just for this, but in life in general.
>reality has a left leaning bias
If not political leaning, what other "left leaning" bias might it have? I believe that you are simply wrong in your interpretation and even more wrong calling me out. If you think otherwise, I am willing to be educated on how this can be explained without a political bend.
>Navigating life expecting to understand everything without first having to learn the things is... unreasonable.
Not if you are being preached to or someone is implying that you don't understand something but they have "secret" knowledge, typically using an appeal to authority. If you call someone wrong, is it not better to explain to them what is "correct" in a way that they can understand and pass it on to others to make the world better and more "correct"?
>That's directionally better, but it's definitely not what I mean and is not how I would put it. This is why you need to look at multiple sources. Not just for this, but in life in general.
I mean this in a academic sense, not as a personal attack, but this is just a pretentious and arrogant way to interact with people.
I notice from your bio that you have a graduate degree, which is an odd flex to put in your HN bio, but you earned it so whatever, I guess. I also have a graduate degree (undergrad organic chem. with double minors in math and comp. sci., MBA with area of concentration in finance). It seems though that the difference is that if I speak to someone that I (perhaps erroneously) believe is not as educated as I am, I would never belittle them, insinuate that they are stupid, imply that they have not thought it through, or appeal to authority. And of course I check sources, although in this case it appears to me that you may not have. (I was having a bit of fun with you regarding the Reddit thing, sorry about that.)
Additionally in my academic experience and especially in social sciences, saying "all experts agree" on anything is about the dumbest thing you can say 99% of the time and usually is not even true. This can many times be true in hard sciences (sorry soft science folks, no offense intended) but isn't even always true there.
So, while I appreciate your life advice, I would offer some to you as well -- maybe don't assume things about people and if you know some useful knowledge, share it! It can and will make the world a better place! Also there is a very tiny chance, that you might be wrong and learn something new, which is always nice as well! This happens to me all the time ... but so far not in this case.
That’s just one example off the top of my head. Overton window just keeps people from voicing right leaning opinions in polite company, even when thoroughly backed by data.
(Not going to argue about #1, that seems pretty well established, just pulling it out as a claim for clarity. #2 is what I'd argue against, and would want to actually see your example so that it's possible to do so in a constructive way)
> That’s just one example off the top of my head
It's not an example until you provide enough for information for us to find what you're talking about ourselves; ideally, a link.
I don't really know that that's true anyway. It doesn't seem to be a frequently discussed topic IME. There are related topics like "should divorce be available" and "should people be encouraged or discouraged from pre-marital sex" where I think they are extrapolating "if you support extra-marital sex then you also support single-family households and must therefore believe that they have no disadvantages" but I think that's a larger logical leap than I would personally make. It also doesn't seem to account for support for access to abortion which arguably counter-acts the support for experimentation with pre-marital sex...
The general "left leaning" mood is also to provide services that help single-family households to mitigate issues for children anyway, so I think it's much more of a nuanced "lesser of two evils" position to support things like divorce being available.
Yeah, one of the reasons I'd want to actually see an example is because I imagine those policies make the situation better but not good; like you say, they're mitigations; the causal arrow is bad situation -> policy, not policy -> bad situation.
That's a good way to put it. In contrast, the right leaning mood would be to strengthen social cohesion, increase support that people have from families, neighbors, and so on, and decrease the impersonal, systemic "services" provided by some bureaucracy.
Not arguing, just describing. I see virtues and problems in both approaches.
In the American right all of those things are often promoted with heavy doses of religion; IMO this is the core crisis of American politics on the right: how to promote fixing those things through non-governmental, pro-Evangelical religious measures while also preserving the freedom to not embrace that religion? Or even to follow the religion but choose a less fanatical strain?
Huh. Not the impression I get from what I see around me, not at all. What I see (from my bubble) is forced conformity and a systematic destruction of every form of support structure. Although, notably absent from my bubbles are religious support structures, so.
But even beyond a specific policy proposal, there is a viewpoint in right-leaning circles that atomized individualism has caused lasting damage to the fabric of society and needs to be reigned in.
(NB: I can't speak to whether the claim that kids have better outcomes because their parents are married is actually true, as there are obvious confounders there)
I am so confused by the right. Aren't they usually in favor of things promoting freedoms, like freedom of association?
Definitely not in a general sense. They place more importance on some freedoms than on others.
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[1] Given the irrelevance, I don't think it's even worth verifying.
I'm finding more and more that it has become more like a Mandelbrot Set and on any given day I'm not sure if I'd be considered Left or Right by any random other person who I also can't identify if they are Left or Right. It is almost like Left and Right are so confused now, that they have lost all meaning. Except when they vote, but they can't explain why they voted the way they did.
I understand all of these words individually, but I do not understand them in that sequence.
Strangely apopos in a thread about computers generating undesirable text.