Hacker News Reader

Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

A big hidden in plain site facet of this, is few are willing to put forth the work within the existing system.

That is, going to town halls, writing senators, and running for office are all standard parts of the system people are complaining about. And they are offering the complaints, largely, as stand in complaints for whole hosts of problems that they actually think are there.

So, agreed, few are willing to ignore their general nebulous complaints and get into the system to work with it. They dream that there will be some magic shift of everything away from their complaints.

My only twist is I think this is ok, as long as people stay grounded in the rest of their life. It is perfectly fine to dream. Is mostly fine to complain. No need to dirty the water where people are getting things done, though.

View on HN

I don’t know, it wasn’t until the pandemic and a layoff that I had time to actually sit and think.

There’s a reason that most of the voters (and protesters in my area) are retired, and it isn’t apathy. I don’t have time to educate myself on these topics in any real depth.

And I need to educate myself because the push information is all bullshit. Digging into policing in Seattle, the official and public conversation was all culture war while the actual problems looked like simple incompetence from a system analysis perspective.

I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this kind of fumbling on every topic, and I’m realizing that my parents didn’t live in a low-trust society like I do.

We don't disagree? But this is part of the problem of many complaints. The cost of entry into any system is non-zero. That people with more resources are involved is not at all a surprise.

Which is why I have my "twist" there that this is not necessarily bad. I'm fine letting people dream. I'm fine with people having general complaints. I have to be fine with people being wrong, as it happens whether I'm fine with it or not.

What is getting dodgy is how many people accidentally find themselves hijacked in the delay that is inherent in understanding systems to think that they can win with a culture war.

"Willing to put forth the work" is where we differ. The collapse of the fourth estate alone meant the end of the broadly informed citizen.

I've been professionally trained to monitor my own thought process and review my notes for signs of bias, and I've spent decades absorbing new domains well enough to build testable models. When I look at understanding political issues the people I rely on to help me "put forth the work" are gone, man. The effort I need to put in on one subject well enough to make decisions now is immense.

I'd wager I probably violently agree with that. The collapse of the fourth estate from people that were willing to hold government accountable to people that are chasing ratings and payouts has been an unmitigated disaster.

This thread has been useful to me, thanks to both of you!

> how many people ... hijacked in the delay that is inherent in understanding systems ...

That sounds a lot like the anarchy that I put a lot of unpaid time into. Decision power does not come from elections, it comes from being credible in meetings and ad-hoc conversations. It comes from thrashing out issues in dialogue.

Anarchy is boring. Anarchy is living with people. Anarchy is shaped like a kibbutz, not a revolution.

Responsibility contains the understanding of second-order effects. If you give an idiot the floor, and ask about second-order effects, they cry that you aren't respecting them.

Idiots believe that, if adults do not instantly pivot to follow their lead, it is because of a dearth of democracy.

Bitch, we are an anarchy. We have no hierarchy. Democracy is when you have rulers that you can recall, which is a special case of having rulers. You just invented a political class.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com