4 ms·

you need to stop identifying with left/right or "us" as a colour of skin. You do that you'll just get shafted by someone claiming to represent you against "them

you need to stop identifying with left/right or "us" as a colour of skin. You do that you'll just get shafted by someone claiming to represent you against "them" (a la Trump). Don't identify either way, realise that most politicians are acting against "us" and pick and choose each election on the basis of what policies politicians are putting forward and try to ignore their rhetoric.

hga 10y ago
It's perhaps a little late to tell someone who's about to turn 56 to stop doing this ^_^! Seriously, the "Right" and "Left" are abstractions for two general philosophies about human nature, the Right believing that human nature is basically fixed, or as a favorite history teacher put it, "Original Sin is an empirical observation!", and the Left believes in the perfectibility of man. And historically, at least since the French Revolution which created the modern versions of these two, has gotten downright murderously violent when their attempts to "perfect" men failed, as we on the right believe is inevitable. So you're asking me to drop a perfectly usable and useful abstraction that helps to make more sense of the world because of the danger I'll be disappointing by any particular politician. Seeing that my first great disappointment was Nixon in his second term, I've got to tell you I've got other tools for that, like "best is the enemy of good enough", "the lessor of two evils", and so on. And you shouldn't assume I didn't look at the actual policies both put forward, and could make a choice on those alone. And how to you characterize a rhetorical policy against political correctness? Or an attack on a common enemy like the MSM that's more carried out by rhetoric than actions? Or the simple fact that many if not most people simply cannot be reached by dialectical arguments, it's rhetoric or nothing (or I'm told, see Aristotle's book on the subject, this is said to be a good translation: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195064879/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195064879/ ). As for your point "'us' as a colour of skin", the best reply is the one attributed to Trotsky, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you". I'd prefer to be left alone to code up neat stuff, but that's not an option today in the US.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Seriously, the "Right" and "Left" are abstractions for two general philosophies about human nature, the Right believing that human nature is basically fixed, or as a favorite history teacher put it, "Original Sin is an empirical observation!", and the Left believes in the perfectibility of man. And historically, at least since the French Revolution which created the modern versions of these two, has gotten downright murderously violent when their attempts to "perfect" men failed, as we on the right believe is inevitable. This is a uniquely right-wing view of what "left" and "right" mean. On the Left, we view it as your preferring hierarchy over equality, and our preferring equality over hierarchy. We also think of our politics as materialist and class-based, while yours are idealist (in the continental philosophy sense) and identity-based. So you probably should drop an abstraction that isn't informative about anything except your own ideology.
  - hga 10y ago
    My abstraction claims there are two different takes on fundamental human nature. To shift the domain to things like hierarchy, equality, materialism, class, and idealism is Not Even Wrong, especially since you're not denying my side's take is actually, you know, wrong. Or that your side's issues don't directly flow from what I claim is your side's take on human nature. E.g. we don't believe in "equality" as the Left defines it because we don't believe such a thing exists. We on the Alt Right are even moving past the concept of equality before the law based on this (!).
- Quarrelsome 10y ago
  I'm only saying its crap because its a really lossy abstraction. As soon as you start saying "there are two types of people" you _know_ you're chatting nonsense because humans are damn complex beasts and to make them binary is a ridiculous generalisation. I don't care about US politics what I care about is people trying to turn the world into a boolean when it is rich and complex. All these people have unique experiences and stories, don't just jpeg all that cool stuff out. Also don't use your age as an excuse to be stubborn, we're never too old to look at things in new ways.
blahi 10y ago
NO. You NEED to stop telling other people what they NEED. You don't know them. You don't know jack shit. You do not see through the matrix. You are not enlightened. You haven't figured it all out. You do not have the right to tell somebody else what they NEED to do. You are not their shepherd, not their moral compass, you are nothing to them. Your opinion does not hold more weight than theirs. You are not mr. Spock. You are ruled by emotion just like everybody else. Your opinion is not objective. It is shaped by your emotion. So tell me, why do your emotions hold precedence over theirs?
- Quarrelsome 10y ago
  I mean like the world is a bit more complex than right and left and them and us. The abstractions are too lossy, let them go, they get us riled up and allow frauds to pull the wool over our eyes. Often people on other sides of such divides have more in common than the people trying to rile up people against the people on the other side of the divide.
- dang 10y ago
  Since you've flouted our requests to follow the rules when commenting here, we've banned your account.
  - blahi 10y ago
    This has nothing to do with objective rules. It has to do with the leftist censorship - exactly what I talked about. You are preaching dogma. "If you don't subject and do what we tell you, you are wrong. If you talk, we will ignore you. If we can, we will isolate and mute you". Perhaps my previous ban was deserved. This is surely not. Hackernews and Ycombinator have made it very clear that they are a conduit for leftist ideas and there is no place for differing opinions. Now I understand how so many people hate you so much that they had to turn to Trump, LePen, Farage.
    - dang 10y ago
      Although your comment is false, I'm unkilling it so as to explain (to the community) why it's false. Posting things like "you don't know jack shit" will get you banned on HN. Obviously that isn't political censorship. It's the first resort of every banned ideologue on HN to claim that they're being repressed (favorite word, 'silenced') because of politics X, but we actually try hard not to do that, for nearly any value of X. I say 'nearly' because there are no absolute rules of moderation, but it's as true as we can reasonably make it.

hga 10y ago

It's perhaps a little late to tell someone who's about to turn 56 to stop doing this ^_^! Seriously, the "Right" and "Left" are abstractions for two general philosophies about human nature, the Right believing that human nature is basically fixed, or as a favorite history teacher put it, "Original Sin is an empirical observation!", and the Left believes in the perfectibility of man. And historically, at least since the French Revolution which created the modern versions of these two, has gotten downright murderously violent when their attempts to "perfect" men failed, as we on the right believe is inevitable. So you're asking me to drop a perfectly usable and useful abstraction that helps to make more sense of the world because of the danger I'll be disappointing by any particular politician. Seeing that my first great disappointment was Nixon in his second term, I've got to tell you I've got other tools for that, like "best is the enemy of good enough", "the lessor of two evils", and so on. And you shouldn't assume I didn't look at the actual policies both put forward, and could make a choice on those alone. And how to you characterize a rhetorical policy against political correctness? Or an attack on a common enemy like the MSM that's more carried out by rhetoric than actions? Or the simple fact that many if not most people simply cannot be reached by dialectical arguments, it's rhetoric or nothing (or I'm told, see Aristotle's book on the subject, this is said to be a good translation: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195064879/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195064879/ ). As for your point "'us' as a colour of skin", the best reply is the one attributed to Trotsky, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you". I'd prefer to be left alone to code up neat stuff, but that's not an option today in the US.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Seriously, the "Right" and "Left" are abstractions for two general philosophies about human nature, the Right believing that human nature is basically fixed, or as a favorite history teacher put it, "Original Sin is an empirical observation!", and the Left believes in the perfectibility of man. And historically, at least since the French Revolution which created the modern versions of these two, has gotten downright murderously violent when their attempts to "perfect" men failed, as we on the right believe is inevitable. This is a uniquely right-wing view of what "left" and "right" mean. On the Left, we view it as your preferring hierarchy over equality, and our preferring equality over hierarchy. We also think of our politics as materialist and class-based, while yours are idealist (in the continental philosophy sense) and identity-based. So you probably should drop an abstraction that isn't informative about anything except your own ideology.
- hga 10y ago
  My abstraction claims there are two different takes on fundamental human nature. To shift the domain to things like hierarchy, equality, materialism, class, and idealism is Not Even Wrong, especially since you're not denying my side's take is actually, you know, wrong. Or that your side's issues don't directly flow from what I claim is your side's take on human nature. E.g. we don't believe in "equality" as the Left defines it because we don't believe such a thing exists. We on the Alt Right are even moving past the concept of equality before the law based on this (!).
Quarrelsome 10y ago
I'm only saying its crap because its a really lossy abstraction. As soon as you start saying "there are two types of people" you _know_ you're chatting nonsense because humans are damn complex beasts and to make them binary is a ridiculous generalisation. I don't care about US politics what I care about is people trying to turn the world into a boolean when it is rich and complex. All these people have unique experiences and stories, don't just jpeg all that cool stuff out. Also don't use your age as an excuse to be stubborn, we're never too old to look at things in new ways.

blahi 10y ago

NO. You NEED to stop telling other people what they NEED. You don't know them. You don't know jack shit. You do not see through the matrix. You are not enlightened. You haven't figured it all out. You do not have the right to tell somebody else what they NEED to do. You are not their shepherd, not their moral compass, you are nothing to them. Your opinion does not hold more weight than theirs. You are not mr. Spock. You are ruled by emotion just like everybody else. Your opinion is not objective. It is shaped by your emotion. So tell me, why do your emotions hold precedence over theirs?

Quarrelsome 10y ago
I mean like the world is a bit more complex than right and left and them and us. The abstractions are too lossy, let them go, they get us riled up and allow frauds to pull the wool over our eyes. Often people on other sides of such divides have more in common than the people trying to rile up people against the people on the other side of the divide.
dang 10y ago
Since you've flouted our requests to follow the rules when commenting here, we've banned your account.
- blahi 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with objective rules. It has to do with the leftist censorship - exactly what I talked about. You are preaching dogma. "If you don't subject and do what we tell you, you are wrong. If you talk, we will ignore you. If we can, we will isolate and mute you". Perhaps my previous ban was deserved. This is surely not. Hackernews and Ycombinator have made it very clear that they are a conduit for leftist ideas and there is no place for differing opinions. Now I understand how so many people hate you so much that they had to turn to Trump, LePen, Farage.
  - dang 10y ago
    Although your comment is false, I'm unkilling it so as to explain (to the community) why it's false. Posting things like "you don't know jack shit" will get you banned on HN. Obviously that isn't political censorship. It's the first resort of every banned ideologue on HN to claim that they're being repressed (favorite word, 'silenced') because of politics X, but we actually try hard not to do that, for nearly any value of X. I say 'nearly' because there are no absolute rules of moderation, but it's as true as we can reasonably make it.