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Comment by igravious | Hacker News Reader

This (Tyranny of Structurelessness) pamphlet was one of many diverse pamphlets on a board in an anarcho-communist activist/literature space where I used to volunteer. I'm more than surprised to see it posted here and it pleases me to see that there is a critique (Tyranny of tyranny).

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 boy

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Such a poll would go against the site rules, and for good reason, but I sometimes conduct hidden polls by posting "libertarian" and "socialist" (I'm putting those in quotes because these terms have different meanings in the US than elsewhere) comments (using different accounts) on political threads and counting the upvotes. It might be surprising (but only for a split second) that the vast majority of HN users are progressive (in America: socialist/democrat), while free market believers/libertarians are a minority. It is by no means scientific, and possibly quite anecdotal, but also not surprising, that the free-market libertarians are among the younger members of this site (usually early twenties, judging by the information posted on user pages of "libertarian posters").

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.

Have you also taken into account that most Americans that consider themselves democrat/liberal/progressive would be considered well to the right in most other countries represented on HN?

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.

I'm not sure about that, I'm from the UK and most of my exposure to US culture comes from the internet or the media but I get the impression that there are simply more extremes of opinion in the US than there are here.

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.

I think the UK is somewhat a special case among the Western European nations in this context as well. From a Finnish/Nordic perspective it seems that the US Democrats, on average, seem only a bit to the left of what would here be regarded as "center"; in some cases even to the right.

Either that and/or people on the internet are more extreme. Specifically the ones who write the things on the links you choose to click.

Bit of a me too comment, as in, that is what I was thinking as well - I have come to the judgment that the number of libertarians in HN is small though larger than other such communities. It makes you wonder.

I'd be more interested in a heat map of Political Compass[1] results or something similar. It's not a great model, but it's slightly less terrible than a bunch of pre-globalization labels.

And 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.

"shut the hell up, strategize, build and iterate"

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?

> What does that make me I wonder?

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.

[1] http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Consequentialism

I've found LessWrong tough going in the past but I'll try again as you've given me motivation.

Awesome. It's a fantastic community, full of incredibly smart people, novel perspectives and ways to actively improve the functionality of your mind.

Coincidentally, the user I originally replied to up above, Eliezer, is the founding member of LessWrong and author of most of the early posts.

A strict consequentialist wouldn't waste time with politics; he knows the input/output ratio is a billion to one.

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