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Comment by slooonz | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think most rationalists would consider themselves leftist

Yes they do.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5FqX6XBJlfOShMd3U...

A naive observer would look at these numbers and say “wow, I am unsurprised that this movement is made mostly of straight white American male tech workers”.

Anyone reaching that conclusion though, would be a fool! For they would have forgotten to apply Bayes Theorem.

liberal is not leftist

It says liberal “as in US Democratic Party” at 35% and social democrat at 2nd with 29% and Marxist at what looks like 2-3% so an easy majority (for this survey at least) the rest are libertarian, then Neo reactionary, and alt right in descending order

1.6% Marxist

Did you confuse Liberal with Leftist? Liberals are anti-left

Some portion are Libertarian but there's no distinction between so-called "ancap" and libcom so that one is murky or more often coded for the former (the Libertarian party in the US is anti-left)

Just in USA Liberals are considered leftist

> Just in USA Liberals are considered leftist

Well, for a period of time liberals were the left. In the last decade or so the illiberal left has come up in opposition to the illiberal right, the latter matching the former’s hypocrisy in false promises of equality (while driving division) with false promises of freedom (while expanding the rulebook).

That’s just Culture War terms. And identification according to others (illiberal this or that) is often agenda-driven.

Self-identification is confused enough but identifying others is even more muddled.

> Culture War terms

Sure. The Culture War’s belligerents are all, generally speaking, illiberal. And notably, most people steeped in it reject the term. Even those on the left.

So what are they supposed to do then. The right makes a mountain out of a molehill. That happens to target some group, like a minority. Those on the left who reject the Culture War argue against it since they think the right’s focus will hurt the minority. They argue that the right is making a mountain out of a molehill. And yet they are now participating, begrudgingly.

What are they supposed to do.

The original definition of left and right came from the French Revolution. The liberals were the left wing. It is only in modern times that some people have rejected the original definition.

Does it really matter? Nazis called themselves socialists.

no true scotsman

North Korea is a democratic people’s republic.

I regret saying this as a joke since I don’t know enough about North Korea. Even to make jokes about it.

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