Am I over-inferring from one piece of info, or does this writing represent an entire branch of early feminism which lost the struggle for the heart of the movement and was driven out by worse ideas?
Reading the oft-cited anarchist response might provide some context (though it was written in 2005): http://libcom.org/library/tyranny-of-tyranny-cathy-levine
Nearly every time the Tyranny of Structurelessness is posted to some activist's facebook wall these days, a link to the Tyranny of Tyranny is in the first few comments. Then the discussion devolves into rehashed bickering, though never about the actual content of the pieces.
Has there ever been a pole about the political leanings of HN or would it be impossible to enumerate the categories?
[] anarchist
[] socialist
[] republican
[] monarchist
[] libertarian
[] free market capitalist taxes are theft ayn rand is my god
[] conservative
[] democrat
[] i really couldn't tell you old boyAnd ultimately, I've stopped caring about how people define themselves politically. No matter how deep into activist milieus I got[2], my politics were always consequentialist. And to actually be a consequentialist you have to shut the hell up, strategize, build and iterate. Introspective and social identities are no exception to that.
[1] http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2
[2] Note the strict past tense.
I've got a few rules like, "personal autonomy trumps most bullshit", "strict separation of church and state (means .gov and .mil and .edu)" "lots of checks and balances (judicial, legislative, executive, media, direct democracy)", um, and so on
I do not believe in innate human rights, I only believe in asserting ideals but I am completely aware that your ideals and my ideals may differ.
Most days I sympathize with the anarchist ethos, I align myself with organisations like the FSF and EFF and ACLU (and the global and European equivalents: FSFe and so forth)
What does that make me I wonder? Do you mean consequentialism in the philosophical sense - as in, to be contrasted with deontology?
It only matters if you're still asking that rabbit hole of a question.
> Do you mean consequentialism in the philosophical sense - as in, to be contrasted with deontology?
I suppose that's accurate enough for this context. The LW threads where consequentialism has been discussed[1] are probably the only way to get a good idea of what I mean by it.
I'd probably be better served by using the word less in favor of a phrase like "longterm rationality".
There is no good, simple to understand word or phrase that gets across the idea of "ethical strategy is more important than anything, and that doesn't mean what you think it means, because my strategy involves willfully, permanently altering my identity whenever necessary (and practical)". The common language of ethics is stuck in the early 20th century (at best) and its pre-computational aspirations.
Coincidentally, the user I originally replied to up above, Eliezer, is the founding member of LessWrong and author of most of the early posts.
This is not surprising because HN is a community of mostly well educated people, which here, like elsewhere, is composed of left-leaning individuals. However, it is also true that the number of libertarians here, while still a relatively small minority, is larger than found in other communities of well educated people.
The American contingent really skews the numbers if you let people identify themselves.
You get a much clearer picture if you look at discussions around concrete issues, like government and regulation.
Your liberals are more progressive and your conservatives are more conservative, at least towards the fringes.
I think it would be much easier to find a consensus of opinion in the UK on most topics than it would be in the US.
It might be true that the political status quo (on many issues) in the US is further to the right than it is here, but that might be because progressives feel that they have to vote for the party that most closely represents their views and has a chance of being elected (presumably democrat) rather than a party that they necessarily agree with.