4 ms·

Nothing like a little oversimplified, half baked Marxism, when you want a one-idea panacea for society's problems. Ugh!

lacampbell 9y ago
The communism on hacker news is fairly disgusting. Fascism wouldn't be tolerated here, no matter how loudly someone told us that Nazi Germany "wasn't real fascism". But somehow left-wing extremists get a completely free pass, despite their much higher historical death toll.
- examancer 9y ago
  There is nothing "communist" about the article. It is a critique of the flaws of our existing crony capitalist economies and how the real "welfare" is provided mostly to the elite. It concludes not with some call to junk capitalism and have the state run everything, but instead with advice on modifications we could make to fix the flaws and allow capitalism to work a little more like we all believe it does.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  Users of every ideological commitment say similar things about Hacker News, so I think it's an optical illusion. In any case, please don't post generic ideological comments here. The genre of the internet thread is unable to do anything interesting with them.
  - lacampbell 9y ago
    If there was a small minority of posters here who advocated fascism with various degrees of subtlety, how would you feel? They're certainly not the majority, but it's evident and tolerated here.
    - tomhoward 9y ago
      I don't see anyone advocating or defending Stalinism or Maoism and going unchallenged here. My personal leaning is towards Hayek-style classical liberalism, and whilst I see plenty of commentary here that's strongly to the left or right of that, I don't see anything tolerated that advocates enslaving or murdering anyone, and I find most commentary useful in better understanding and clarifying my own positions.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      > If there was a small minority of posters here who advocated fascism with various degrees of subtlety There are a small minority of posters who advocate fascist points of view.
    - metaphorm 9y ago
      you seem unable to distinguish between principled arguments from the left and your own obsession with 20th century authoritarianism.
      - lacampbell 9y ago
        My healthy skepticism of viewpoints echoing 20th century authoritarianism is more than justified, considering that in many countries that authoritarianism has continued into the 21st century. In 2017 there are still military threats from socialist dictatorships directed towards capitalist democracies.
        metaphorm 9y ago
        which threats are those? have you seen much rhetorical defense of North Korea from hacker news posters?
        lacampbell 9y ago
        The most credible threat is that of the PRC towards Taiwan. Rhetorical defense of the PRC is universally accepted in mainstream western discourse.
  - wav-part 9y ago
    Still dont you/anyone find these kinds of threads out of place for HN, a VC forum ?
    - dang 9y ago
      This isn't a VC forum. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Anything goes as long as it gratifies intellectual curiosity. Here at HNHQ we take pride in the site not being limited to technology and startups. Somebody post some Flannery O'Connor!
- Can_Not 9y ago
  What exactly is disgusting about communism? Assuming it is fair to say communism killed 100 million people, just for reference, how many people has capitalism kill?
  - grzm 9y ago
    Please don't pile more fuel on an already well-beaten, general ideological flamewar. The comment you're replying to is already flagged dead, a clear indication that this isn't a thread of conversation worth pursuing on HN.
examancer 9y ago
I'm not going to bother dissecting the logical fallacies and projection oozing from your post. Instead I'll point out the factual inaccuracy: The author does not provide a "one-idea panacea". He uses a single over-arching idea (rent) and shows the subtle ways in which it pervades our society and economy. He then concludes with a laundry list of possible solutions (the "panacea") and alludes to even more. The author is under no illusion that this is a simple problem to solve. The illusion appears to be your own.
- jack9 9y ago
  > he author does not provide a "one-idea panacea" > He uses a single over-arching idea (rent) literal eyeroll Yay for semantic arguments.
metaphorm 9y ago
what did the author of the article say that suggests to you that he is a Marxist?

The communism on hacker news is fairly disgusting. Fascism wouldn't be tolerated here, no matter how loudly someone told us that Nazi Germany "wasn't real fascism". But somehow left-wing extremists get a completely free pass, despite their much higher historical death toll.

examancer 9y ago
There is nothing "communist" about the article. It is a critique of the flaws of our existing crony capitalist economies and how the real "welfare" is provided mostly to the elite. It concludes not with some call to junk capitalism and have the state run everything, but instead with advice on modifications we could make to fix the flaws and allow capitalism to work a little more like we all believe it does.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dang 9y ago
Users of every ideological commitment say similar things about Hacker News, so I think it's an optical illusion. In any case, please don't post generic ideological comments here. The genre of the internet thread is unable to do anything interesting with them.
- lacampbell 9y ago
  If there was a small minority of posters here who advocated fascism with various degrees of subtlety, how would you feel? They're certainly not the majority, but it's evident and tolerated here.
  - tomhoward 9y ago
    I don't see anyone advocating or defending Stalinism or Maoism and going unchallenged here. My personal leaning is towards Hayek-style classical liberalism, and whilst I see plenty of commentary here that's strongly to the left or right of that, I don't see anything tolerated that advocates enslaving or murdering anyone, and I find most commentary useful in better understanding and clarifying my own positions.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > If there was a small minority of posters here who advocated fascism with various degrees of subtlety There are a small minority of posters who advocate fascist points of view.
  - metaphorm 9y ago
    you seem unable to distinguish between principled arguments from the left and your own obsession with 20th century authoritarianism.
    - lacampbell 9y ago
      My healthy skepticism of viewpoints echoing 20th century authoritarianism is more than justified, considering that in many countries that authoritarianism has continued into the 21st century. In 2017 there are still military threats from socialist dictatorships directed towards capitalist democracies.
      - metaphorm 9y ago
        which threats are those? have you seen much rhetorical defense of North Korea from hacker news posters?
        lacampbell 9y ago
        The most credible threat is that of the PRC towards Taiwan. Rhetorical defense of the PRC is universally accepted in mainstream western discourse.
- wav-part 9y ago
  Still dont you/anyone find these kinds of threads out of place for HN, a VC forum ?
  - dang 9y ago
    This isn't a VC forum. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Anything goes as long as it gratifies intellectual curiosity. Here at HNHQ we take pride in the site not being limited to technology and startups. Somebody post some Flannery O'Connor!
Can_Not 9y ago
What exactly is disgusting about communism? Assuming it is fair to say communism killed 100 million people, just for reference, how many people has capitalism kill?
- grzm 9y ago
  Please don't pile more fuel on an already well-beaten, general ideological flamewar. The comment you're replying to is already flagged dead, a clear indication that this isn't a thread of conversation worth pursuing on HN.

examancer 9y ago

I'm not going to bother dissecting the logical fallacies and projection oozing from your post. Instead I'll point out the factual inaccuracy: The author does not provide a "one-idea panacea". He uses a single over-arching idea (rent) and shows the subtle ways in which it pervades our society and economy. He then concludes with a laundry list of possible solutions (the "panacea") and alludes to even more. The author is under no illusion that this is a simple problem to solve. The illusion appears to be your own.

jack9 9y ago
> he author does not provide a "one-idea panacea" > He uses a single over-arching idea (rent) literal eyeroll Yay for semantic arguments.

metaphorm 9y ago

what did the author of the article say that suggests to you that he is a Marxist?