Comment by datsci_est_2015 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by datsci_est_2015 | Hacker News Reader

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datsci_est_2015

When you vaguepost, you shouldn't be surprised when you receive follow-up comments asking for clarification, which was what I was doing. The most charitable interpretation, as another commenter noted, was that you were essentially saying "both sides bad".

> Even if you're inclined to believe the conclusions, this should recognizably be a silly rant ... If it triggers your defenses to the point where you can't see that this is a poor rant, it could be instructive to copy/paste it into an LLM and ask for an analysis or some counterarguments.

It seems to be triggering your defenses as well, to be frank. The primary claim:

> "A big reason that Republican voters were able to justify voting for Trump and open corruption was that they were bombarded with claims that there was a "Biden crime family" in office for four years."

Is essentially how I'm keeping my sanity living amongst people who voted for Trump. The only way I could find it justifiable is that somehow people believed that corruption wouldn't be this bad, or it was just as bad under Biden. I also know that there's a large contingent of nihilistic, psychopathic, "libertarian", chauvinistic technocrats that probably had no problem voting for Trump because they genuinely believed they would be able to make more money under a Trump presidency rather than a Harris presidency - but I choose to believe there are more people who were misled about relative corruption levels rather than pure psychopaths.

I don't know how to say this except by repeating myself: I recommend you ask a thoughtful person, or a capable LLM, to argue against "a big reason that ... [ad hominem patronization presented without evidence]"

In the age of LLMs, it's pure negligence to let your perspective be this uninformed and low-resolution. And it's violence against the attentions of others to share it with them, to be hyperbolic.

If this is your honest, best faith rendering why 50% of the country votes differently than you, then I recommend you leave politics alone. If you won't try and understand why people are the way they are, and instead are going with "they're all too stupid to know they're being fooled, unlike me" then yes, this is an unhealthy worldview which can damage your sanity.

> If you won't try and understand why people are the way they are, and instead are going with "they're all too stupid to know they're being fooled, unlike me"

Unfortunately, being more aware than - and immune to being fooled than - the majority of a specific voting bloc is not a historical anomaly. Take, for example, the Jews who were privileged and fortunate enough to have the foresight to flee Europe during the rise of Nazism. They saw the writing on the wall, and were wise to the foolishness and depravity that was on the horizon.

Most populist movements are very much the case of “they’re all too stupid to know they’re being fooled, unlike me” - although I wouldn’t necessarily use the word “stupid” and I wouldn’t necessarily limit it to “me”.

"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that."

Everyone thinks they know better than others, and that's why their group and way of thinking should lead. Because of this, reasonable people ought to feel the need to present results, or at least make credible and compelling arguments, for why their way should prevail. All I'm seeing here is hackneyed, and very strained, WW2 analogies. And weepy moralization.

The only thing exceptional here is the gall you're showing, in suggesting that these tired, middling arguments are reasons why actually "the voting booth is wrong and I'm right, even though I (presumably) value democracy"

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