Hacker News Reader

There's no conspiracy necessary: it's just extra effort.

I've always been a proponent of mandatory rhetoric courses in public schools.

Hard to see how a democracy produces good results without learning Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Indeed. Nevertheless lack of a conspiracy (which means organized effort of many cooperating actors) doesn't necessarily imply it's not the case at the level of many individual politicians. So many of them actively use so much of the dark arts routinely, trying to trick and hypnotize people into supporting them, that honest rational rhetoric starts seeming obsolete.

I'd hazard you're giving politicians far too much foresight: 1.5 year timeframe is a stretch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com