Show HN: Weekend project, Political Screaming Match | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Weekend project, Political Screaming Match

politicalscreamingmatch.com

73 pointscykod24 comments

My question: How are you going to get well rounded debate? I can see modern liberals and libertarians in good numbers in the hacker community, but are there conservatives?

Specifically, are there New Right conservatives in the Tea Party vein? These are the people who have swept the House and won office around the country and are the loudest voice on the Right. The Republican candidate for office strongly supports most of their platform, making their platform arguably the most legitimate conservative view currently.

And I don't understand how you're going to get any of those voices, at all.

I think there are probably more conservatives around than you realize. Assuming the number from my random searching (http://www.quora.com/Hacker-News/How-many-users-does-Hacker-...) is even the correct order of magnitude, then even if only 1% of HN is conservatives, that's over 1000 people.

I think in general people tend to overestimate homogeneity (but probably fewer people than I think).

With a name like "Political Screaming Match," do you think he's after rounded, reasoned debate? This sounds like it's mostly for some laughs. I think it's a fun idea.

I think they exist, but most of them know how unwelcome they are and they keep their mouths shut.

Edit: That came off not sounding how I meant it to. I really mean they keep quiet on various political issues because they know they're underrepresented and will get torn to pieces. I don't think it's actually a hostile, unwelcoming environment otherwise.

I'm a conservative and have spent a good amount of time here and have been vocal periodically. I know how unwelcome my views are but that doesn't stop me usually, although I don't speak up nearly as much as I did for a while. And it's not just conservative views. Basically if your views don't match with the majority of urban, liberal, Apple-evangelizing, Silicon Valley, entrepreneur/MBA/developer elites, then you will be put in your place. It's too bad really, because so many here that don't share those opinions stay quiet. It is quite a bubble.

But back to the site at hand, I think it is a neat idea, but I don't have time to text with people I don't know about politics, because I work, have a family, and am old enough not to waste much time on politics. I wasted many hours of my life trying to convince others about the perils of fiscal liberalism, and the best I was ever able to do is to point people to the Peter G. Peterson foundation: http://www.pgpf.org/Issues.aspx

The Tea Party is a libertarian movement. Or at least, it started out as one.

I'm a pragmatic libertarian, which I suppose makes me a conservative.

The tea party started out as a libertarian movement. It is no longer. In particular, support for the following positions is typical[0] of tea party politicians:

Drug prohibition, interventionist foreign policy, restrictions on pornography, constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, banning homosexuals in the military, increased domestic surveillance.

All of these positions are in direct conflict with libertarianism and seem typical of American conservatives prior to the formation of the tea party movement.

[0] These seem to me to be typical, though I didn't conduct a survey. To help compile the list, I used http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Marco_Rubio.htm

What I would love to see is a system that validates claims made by those involved in townhall meetings and TV debates.

Nothing would please me more than to see a politician make a claim of coal only outputting X carbon, and a sidebar slide over that pulls in Wolfram|Alpha or some other empirical data with a giant FALSE. This way, they can't use showmanship to sway opinion.

You mean like if http://www.factcheck.org/about/ was instant?

From a user experience, it really bugs me that I can't preview the topics. I don't want to give you my phone # until I see what "debates" are available to discuss.

Agreed. Steps #1 and #2 should be reversed.

The Chat Roulette of political debates?

Hopefully with less male nudity.

Sooooo, no Anthony Weiner then?

Well that's boring.

Could you use this same technology to create an issue page e.g., SOPA and connect voters to their politicians?

Maybe people could get points from calling their politician through the site to vote on future issues?

What I've described is an idea I've been kicking around for a while.

I know, Twilio, disclaimer and everything looks ok... but still i do not feel entirely safe to give my phone number... Not that i do not trust you... but...i don't know...it feels strange, even if i use more email and mine is everywhere i am not totally ok with giving my phone around.

Use a Google Voice number or something similar?

I worried that might be the case - I just didn't get a chance to integrate the Twilio.JS API which would help solve that problem as it would all happen in-browser, but I wanted to see if anyone would even be interested first.

It's always weird to see someone execute on an idea I've had myself. My idea was through chat and email though. Talking on the phone is way too personal. But good luck.

I was expecting more some shouting match on who can scream his candidate's name the longest/loudest. Didn't expect that level of sophistication.

This is crazy, but yet amazing. I'm totally gona subscribe to the RSS feed. :)

I can't wait until your next app "Striking my hand repeatedly with a hammer".

+1 Twilio!

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