4 ms·

I'm going to go off on a tangent here, and will happily accept downvotes, but I feel like venting for a bit. I love the NYT. Years ago, when I got into it, I w

by exergy 10y ago

I'm going to go off on a tangent here, and will happily accept downvotes, but I feel like venting for a bit. I love the NYT. Years ago, when I got into it, I was blown away by Krugman, Kristof, Friedman (yes), and even David Brooks. They sounded sensible, nuanced, and intelligent. A lof of that hasn't changed (except perhaps my opinion of Friedman!), but NYT's comment section is a cesspool. I'm as liberal as they come, but every NYT comment section is effectively blaming the right-wing regardless of the context of the article. When Brooks talks about values for example, or "social fabric", I think he does a good job of being reasonable, and if the article were from "anon" vs. Brooks, people would say "Yeah, sounds about right." Instead, all we get are "David, your party caused this, blah blah blah". Even in this article, there is a lot of data and lots of food for thought. And yet, the top comment starts out: "Is the problem "single mothers" or is it the right-wingers who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality?" It's as if you only care about establishing what side the author belongs too, argument be damned.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
This is the web today. I stopped reading comments on most articles long ago because it's always like you described. This does nobody any good. Actually, it does politicians good to keep us separated down the middle. We are at our weakest in this position.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Not helping that modern marketing has taken to game such comment sections (never mind the wider social media field) on behalf of their paymasters. In a sense the net, first seen as flattening the classes, have instead empowered the elite to make both Stasi and Bernays look like bungling idiots. Rather than crude manual policing etc, computers can both monitor all activity online (and offline, thanks to the likes of smartphones) and insert data to affect opinions and future activity.
- c3o 10y ago
  I don't think though that othering policitians as "them" and identifying "the people" as an "us" helps us handle the complexity of social and political discourse either...
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    Then how do we get the politicians to stop thinking in terms of "there's us" and then "there's the people"? edit for clarification.
- Boothroid 10y ago
  I knew this reminded me something, it's Chomsky (I had to google it): 'The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.'
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    Oh, wow, yes. A very apt quote.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
cmdrfred 10y ago
If its any consolation I'm conservative for the most part and feel the same way. Why does it seem that nobody ever considers that it is unlikely complex problems have a singular specific root cause? Its never a little out of column A and a little out of column B in their minds. Corruption absolutely exists and children from two parent households do better statistically speaking. Why does one preclude the other?
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Much easier to just vent "virtue signals". Especially after having spent 12h+ on multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    That makes sense when I was working 60 hour weeks it was pretty much impossible to be informed about much of anything.
- rybosome 10y ago
  The good news is that there are sensible people on both sides who recognize that most problems are complex. We can be voices of reason within our tribes rather than joining in the two-minutes hate and blaming the other side for everything under the sun. I would happily vote for any politician, party be damned, who talked about the importance of listening to multiple perspectives, compromising and not simply wielding a narrow majority like a club against the losers.
- pjc50 10y ago
  This has a lot to do with how "cause" transitions into "blame" and then "carrot/stick" systems that end up being only the stick. Historically speaking the prejudice against single parent families and single mothers has been punitive to the point of some extremely dark places: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/07/catholic-church-children-buried-at-tuam-ireland https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/07/cathol... So a lot of "jumping the gun" goes on: as soon as it looks like the discussion might be heading in the direction of criticising single parents, get your retaliation in first.
CPLX 10y ago
Thomas Friedman and David Brooks have been dangerous idiots and tools of the most regressive forces in society since they started writing. They have none of the attributes you've ascribed to them and never have. They've advocated for war and economic oppression, for a living, for decades. To answer your question, yes, the the problem is, in fact, people (right wingers and otherwise) who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality.
- refurb 10y ago
  Wow! I didn't think I'd see a reply that does the exact thing the parent talked about. It's like a meta-meta-comment.
  - NoGravitas 10y ago
    On the other hand, it has the distinct advantage of being the truth, rather than propaganda.
    - CPLX 10y ago
      Indeed. Seems like a reasonable defense to me.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  thank you for saying this. I wish you hadn't been down-voted.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Chathamization 10y ago
That comment seems to be aimed at the argument, not where the author stands (from this piece, it seems like the author stands on the Left). I don't think it's an unfair question to ask - how much of what we're seeing is the result of personal traits, and how much of it is the result of choices that a society makes? Since the author seems to be advocating efforts to change personal traits (rather than societal systems) as the main focus of combating inequality, I think the types of question the questioner is asking are extremely important (even if the question itself is rather blunt).
- PlaceFan 10y ago
  The problem being that as soon as you start bringing the left/right dichotomy into the picture, you've lost all hope of having a sensible argument or even an intelligent discussion. I mean, it's not like it's all that difficult to rephrase the question in a way to be less thought-terminating (and this is literally one substitution, you can imagine even more eloquent ways of phrasing it): > "Is the problem "single mothers" or is it the people who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality?" I want to believe that most people KNOW this, and it's merely "virtue signaling" as another poster noted. An easy way to vent frustration, maybe. But it's not a question that asks for sensible discussion. It's a "when did you stop hitting your wife?" type of question - one that insults the very people you really want to answer the question. How do you expect to have a reasonable discussion like that?
  - Chathamization 10y ago
    Sure. It's a question of how much self-censorship you want to impose on yourself in the hope of fostering a good discussion. And how much you are focusing on expressing what you feel vs. starting a conversation with people you disagree with. Different people will make different choices, even in this discussion. For instance, I could rewrite your comment: > I want to believe that most people KNOW this, and it's merely "virtue signaling" as another poster noted. An easy way to vent frustration, maybe. But it's not a question that asks for sensible discussion. It's a "when did you stop hitting your wife?" type of question - one that insults the very people you really want to answer the question. How do you expect to have a reasonable discussion like that? As something like: > This type of comment probably isn't the type that would best encourage an open debate with someone on the Right. My personal suggestion would be something that addresses individual policies and avoids a monolithic view of one side of the political spectrum. It would be more diplomatic, sure. But is that closer to what you really wanted to express? Maybe not.
skadamou 10y ago
This. 100% this. One of the major reasons I enjoy reading HN is for the comments. I find that comments here are much more insightful, and more importantly, much more respectful, than you find elsewhere on the web. I suppose HN comments still lean to the left but I find it much more tolerable when everything is not painted in a political light.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  HN would be just like Reddit or even NYT without the fantastic moderation keeping everyone in line. It's not easy maintaining a positive culture in an online community, even in places like this.
metaphorm 10y ago
I won't comment on your endorsements of NYTimes opinion writers (I have a very low opinion of all of them, ESPECIALLY Friedman), but I will comment on the trend you're noticing. I've noticed it too and it affects all layers of the paper, not just the opinion pages. The news reporting has become much worse as well. Distorted, biased, propagandized. Dubious sources. Anonymous political operatives leaking rumors to the NYTimes for pure gamesmanship in their ongoing partisan (and internecine) warfare. The NYTimes has become a pawn in a geopolitical and national power game being played by factions that have very little accountability and no transparency. On top of this the Times has really raced to the bottom to get more eyeballs on ads. They have succumbed to market pressure to cater to their audience's biases and preferences. They are optimizing for FB shares and retweets just like everyone else in the business. This is destroying our society. The Times will not be judged kindly by history. I call this the "Fox News-ification" of American society. Fox started it and it worked for them so now everyone is doing it. We're suffering the consequences of it.
telchar 10y ago
Regarding Brooks, I've read him quite a bit as well. At this point it has become a source of entertainment to me to find out with each article how he will manage to take a factual premise and reasonable arguments to arrive at a nonsequitur conservative platitude. Around 3/4 of the way through the column he consistently takes a turn from reason, apparently hoping we won't notice that his conclusion does not follow from the rest of the article. I used to do the same on my homework when I didn't understand the material. If you aren't reading the articles to the end (not to suggest that you personally aren't) it would be easy to feel the commentators are unfairly jumping on him. But I think they have also observed the same pattern and feel that he is playing a softly-spoken rearguard for odious views and policies.

by exergy 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

This is the web today. I stopped reading comments on most articles long ago because it's always like you described. This does nobody any good. Actually, it does politicians good to keep us separated down the middle. We are at our weakest in this position.

digi_owl 10y ago
Not helping that modern marketing has taken to game such comment sections (never mind the wider social media field) on behalf of their paymasters. In a sense the net, first seen as flattening the classes, have instead empowered the elite to make both Stasi and Bernays look like bungling idiots. Rather than crude manual policing etc, computers can both monitor all activity online (and offline, thanks to the likes of smartphones) and insert data to affect opinions and future activity.
c3o 10y ago
I don't think though that othering policitians as "them" and identifying "the people" as an "us" helps us handle the complexity of social and political discourse either...
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Then how do we get the politicians to stop thinking in terms of "there's us" and then "there's the people"? edit for clarification.
Boothroid 10y ago
I knew this reminded me something, it's Chomsky (I had to google it): 'The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.'
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Oh, wow, yes. A very apt quote.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

cmdrfred 10y ago

If its any consolation I'm conservative for the most part and feel the same way. Why does it seem that nobody ever considers that it is unlikely complex problems have a singular specific root cause? Its never a little out of column A and a little out of column B in their minds. Corruption absolutely exists and children from two parent households do better statistically speaking. Why does one preclude the other?

digi_owl 10y ago
Much easier to just vent "virtue signals". Especially after having spent 12h+ on multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  That makes sense when I was working 60 hour weeks it was pretty much impossible to be informed about much of anything.
rybosome 10y ago
The good news is that there are sensible people on both sides who recognize that most problems are complex. We can be voices of reason within our tribes rather than joining in the two-minutes hate and blaming the other side for everything under the sun. I would happily vote for any politician, party be damned, who talked about the importance of listening to multiple perspectives, compromising and not simply wielding a narrow majority like a club against the losers.
pjc50 10y ago
This has a lot to do with how "cause" transitions into "blame" and then "carrot/stick" systems that end up being only the stick. Historically speaking the prejudice against single parent families and single mothers has been punitive to the point of some extremely dark places: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/07/catholic-church-children-buried-at-tuam-ireland https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/07/cathol... So a lot of "jumping the gun" goes on: as soon as it looks like the discussion might be heading in the direction of criticising single parents, get your retaliation in first.

CPLX 10y ago

Thomas Friedman and David Brooks have been dangerous idiots and tools of the most regressive forces in society since they started writing. They have none of the attributes you've ascribed to them and never have. They've advocated for war and economic oppression, for a living, for decades. To answer your question, yes, the the problem is, in fact, people (right wingers and otherwise) who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality.

refurb 10y ago
Wow! I didn't think I'd see a reply that does the exact thing the parent talked about. It's like a meta-meta-comment.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  On the other hand, it has the distinct advantage of being the truth, rather than propaganda.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    Indeed. Seems like a reasonable defense to me.
metaphorm 10y ago
thank you for saying this. I wish you hadn't been down-voted.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Chathamization 10y ago

That comment seems to be aimed at the argument, not where the author stands (from this piece, it seems like the author stands on the Left). I don't think it's an unfair question to ask - how much of what we're seeing is the result of personal traits, and how much of it is the result of choices that a society makes? Since the author seems to be advocating efforts to change personal traits (rather than societal systems) as the main focus of combating inequality, I think the types of question the questioner is asking are extremely important (even if the question itself is rather blunt).

PlaceFan 10y ago
The problem being that as soon as you start bringing the left/right dichotomy into the picture, you've lost all hope of having a sensible argument or even an intelligent discussion. I mean, it's not like it's all that difficult to rephrase the question in a way to be less thought-terminating (and this is literally one substitution, you can imagine even more eloquent ways of phrasing it): > "Is the problem "single mothers" or is it the people who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality?" I want to believe that most people KNOW this, and it's merely "virtue signaling" as another poster noted. An easy way to vent frustration, maybe. But it's not a question that asks for sensible discussion. It's a "when did you stop hitting your wife?" type of question - one that insults the very people you really want to answer the question. How do you expect to have a reasonable discussion like that?
- Chathamization 10y ago
  Sure. It's a question of how much self-censorship you want to impose on yourself in the hope of fostering a good discussion. And how much you are focusing on expressing what you feel vs. starting a conversation with people you disagree with. Different people will make different choices, even in this discussion. For instance, I could rewrite your comment: > I want to believe that most people KNOW this, and it's merely "virtue signaling" as another poster noted. An easy way to vent frustration, maybe. But it's not a question that asks for sensible discussion. It's a "when did you stop hitting your wife?" type of question - one that insults the very people you really want to answer the question. How do you expect to have a reasonable discussion like that? As something like: > This type of comment probably isn't the type that would best encourage an open debate with someone on the Right. My personal suggestion would be something that addresses individual policies and avoids a monolithic view of one side of the political spectrum. It would be more diplomatic, sure. But is that closer to what you really wanted to express? Maybe not.

skadamou 10y ago

This. 100% this. One of the major reasons I enjoy reading HN is for the comments. I find that comments here are much more insightful, and more importantly, much more respectful, than you find elsewhere on the web. I suppose HN comments still lean to the left but I find it much more tolerable when everything is not painted in a political light.

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
HN would be just like Reddit or even NYT without the fantastic moderation keeping everyone in line. It's not easy maintaining a positive culture in an online community, even in places like this.

metaphorm 10y ago

I won't comment on your endorsements of NYTimes opinion writers (I have a very low opinion of all of them, ESPECIALLY Friedman), but I will comment on the trend you're noticing. I've noticed it too and it affects all layers of the paper, not just the opinion pages. The news reporting has become much worse as well. Distorted, biased, propagandized. Dubious sources. Anonymous political operatives leaking rumors to the NYTimes for pure gamesmanship in their ongoing partisan (and internecine) warfare. The NYTimes has become a pawn in a geopolitical and national power game being played by factions that have very little accountability and no transparency. On top of this the Times has really raced to the bottom to get more eyeballs on ads. They have succumbed to market pressure to cater to their audience's biases and preferences. They are optimizing for FB shares and retweets just like everyone else in the business. This is destroying our society. The Times will not be judged kindly by history. I call this the "Fox News-ification" of American society. Fox started it and it worked for them so now everyone is doing it. We're suffering the consequences of it.

telchar 10y ago

Regarding Brooks, I've read him quite a bit as well. At this point it has become a source of entertainment to me to find out with each article how he will manage to take a factual premise and reasonable arguments to arrive at a nonsequitur conservative platitude. Around 3/4 of the way through the column he consistently takes a turn from reason, apparently hoping we won't notice that his conclusion does not follow from the rest of the article. I used to do the same on my homework when I didn't understand the material. If you aren't reading the articles to the end (not to suggest that you personally aren't) it would be easy to feel the commentators are unfairly jumping on him. But I think they have also observed the same pattern and feel that he is playing a softly-spoken rearguard for odious views and policies.