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Comment by vulcan01 | Hacker News Reader

Parent is not claiming that protesters generally gain support for their own cause. Parent claims that protests shift the Overton Window such that more reasonable stances can fall within and gain support.

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Yes. Thank you. And actually, when you have a non-politically charged conversation offline with some of the political operatives that cause these bridge shutdowns, they will admit that this is their goal as well. They know it's ragebait, but bait nonetheless.

It’s a terrible idea and I believe a substantial portion of the world’s polarization issues stem from this “overton window” nonsense.

How are you ever going to find common ground if everybody who cares deeply about an issue constantly makes the moet extreme version of their argument?

Bold of you to assume extreme version arguments are by people who legitimately care, and not in many cases griefers, rage baiters, etc.

Either way, the shift in day to day to day stances is apparent on many topics.

Those are the same argument. The idea that “I’m the moderate and if you don’t vote for my position, you’ll get the extremist” is a form of blackmail.

Not quite - that’s if you believe the moderates control the extremists. If they don’t, it’s more like “I’m the extremist and I am currently so unhappy I will do this. What will you do to make me less unhappy?”

This doesn’t seem to follow? No “control” is needed, a quid quo pro is more than sufficient.

Control/coordination

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