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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint: what you want to claim are core values are actually window dressing to hide how people see the out-group. Who doesn't "love their kids" or fall in love, or want a sense of belonging (ok, a few), or a sense of purpose (ok, a few more). These are not statements about anyone's core values, they're statements about what it is to be human.

Core values are about how you treat people who are NOT close to you, how you believe limited resources should be allocated, how and by whom you think decisions should be made, what the relationship between individuals and society ought to be, and specifically between individuals and government.

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That also sounds nice on the surface - but has the same problem. Political positions disguised as core human values. Allow me to explain.

You say "values like how you treat people who are NOT close to you". Which is really code for "people who like open immigration policies are virtuous and people who oppose them are bad and/or less intelligent". But once you drill down to details - the picture changes. This kind of sentiment is used to drum up support for very specific pieces of very questionable legislation. Why should a specific ethnic group with a large and powerful diaspora get a free pass to ignore immigration laws, but other ethnic groups get the book? How is this about being virtuous and treating people NOT close to you equally? Well, you aren't allowed to ask these questions - you don't want to be a part of the dumb racist outgroup, do you?

That's a narrower framing than I had in mind for my original comment. My whole point is that "politics" has transcended any single issue and has become indicative of a much broader world view. Sure, if you zoom in on any policy question you'll find plenty of places where reasonable people can honestly disagree. But that's not the way our political system functions.

You're reading things into what I wrote that are not there. I have not suggested that any particular stance towards people who are not close to you is virtuous. What I wrote is not "code for" anything.

If your core values are the there should no border controls at all, those are your core values. If your core values are that we should very tightly controlled borders, those are your core values. If your core values are that we should let in more Norwegians and less Bangladeshis, or vice versa, then those are your core values.

My point wasn't that a particular set of core values are virtuous, it was that core values are not things like "loving my kids".

Well - what's a core value? I'd say that if you can remove a value and still stay "you" then that value wasn't really core.

By that definition maybe even "loving my kids" wouldn't pass the test, as Viktor Frankl explains better than anyone could.

As for immigration, it is no accident that anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise precisely when the economy is doing poorly. When there were enough resources to go around - there wasn't nearly as much reason to oppose immigration. Which means that "my family is financially secure" is a much more core value for most people than being open to the world (even if they'll never admit it).

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