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They lost me at the first line. "Imagine a society in which everyone more or less agrees with you." Don't have to imagine. Maybe this author's been under a r

• happytoexplain 8y ago
  Your logic seems overly simplistic. A's makeup and ideologies aren't necessarily as uniform as B's, unless you're implicitly asserting that they are - but it would be more constructive to make such a point explicitly.
  • rdiddly 8y ago
    A's belief that their ideology is broad and that B's is narrow and uniform, is in fact part of what defines A's rhetoric and its viewpoint of itself and of B. But the fact remains that A's tolerance for B is no higher than B's tolerance for A. A freaks out just as theatrically when it loses an election as B does when it does. Each one is starting to define itself as not the other one. A = !B and B = !A. Neither has a coherent ideology anymore. You are voting for nothing. The differences are now chiefly historical, between the ideologies each sold out and neither implements.
• smsm42 8y ago
  > The other thing of course is that it's not just Republicans surrounded by only those they agree with "Not just"? Let's do a thought experiment. Take two people, and let them come to a random Silicon Valley Company - Twitter, Facebook, Google, whatever, or to a college campus - and publish on a company public forum, or campus forum, etc. - a slightly controversial article - one with some left-to-the-center bent and one with right-of-the-center one. Which person would have a higher chance to earn the vitriolic scorn of the surrounding public, face HR complaints and ultimately may get fired? Did you ever read the political spectrum distribution on university faculties? In some places, there's no single person that is not ideologically left on the whole faculty staff. In others, you get ratios like 1:10 to 1:20. This is where the students spend their formative years. I am assuming for now that the political spectrum is one-dimensional, which is obviously wrong. But if we keep this simplifying assumption for a minute, and consider how one can form a bubble, "not just Republicans" would be quite an understatement. For the non-lefty person in most tech, academic, entertainment, press and many other areas, there would be literally no way to live in a Republican bubble - there would be no material to form the bubble from. Of course, there are such bubbles too, and places where you could comfortably form them - but I think I would not be too wrong if I say at least 90% of HN readers are not in those places. You can form your own bubble of course by carefully selecting what you read, who you listen to, etc. - but even then if you're in one of the places enumerated above in the US, you'd encounter people who hold views different from yours - and are very open, outspoken and sometimes forceful about them - literally every day. The reason why the right wants their own apps is not because they don't want to ever hear from the left - though some do, of course, but not all - it's because they feel the left does not want to hear from them, and is actively pursuing silencing them. And they have a very good evidence to show for it.
  • cannonedhamster 8y ago
    You're heavily biased. Try bringing a leftist point of view on a right wing site, the Heritage foundation, or the American government. The current crop of conservatives brought loaded weapons to a presidential rally under Obama and President Trump is demanding personal loyalty pledges from civil servants. Breitbart, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh etc control the talk show airwaves, there's not a single strong liberal voice in any media that has the sway or clout of any of those that I mentioned. Leftists have been getting fired from media for quite some time for not being conservative enough. I sincerely disbelieve that the right is being silenced. What is being silenced is death threats, hate speech, and extremist which doesn't belong in public discourse. The people leaving to form their own groups are generally people who support white nationalism. Reddit has groups that literally function as attack dogs silencing any group that speaks ill of the president through brigading and taking over the front page. To suggest that there is "good evidence" that the left is censoring the right is plain silly. What's being censored is things that don't belong in a workplace, or don't belong on a site for civil discourse. Personally, I am glad that they still have a place to speak for themselves, but most people don't want to read conspiracy theories, hate speech, and abuse on a daily basis from either party and every single time some group is removed they claim censorship, usually because they follow the letter to break the spirit of any rules.
    • taborj 8y ago
      I think you both could use a read of this article about an interesting study recently done. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo... I think you'll both find that the majority of Americans are neither far left nor far right. The "echo chamber" of the internet will tell you otherwise, of course, but that's a case of the vocal minority.
    • smsm42 8y ago
      > Try bringing a leftist point of view on a right wing site, the Heritage foundation, or the American government. I do not doubt, as I pointed out explicitly, that right-wing bubbles exist. They just don't exist anywhere typical HN reader would find themselves. They do not exist, in particular, anywhere in Silicon Valley, and can not exist. Of course they would exist on a Trump rally or in Trump's White House maybe (I hope not, but who knows). > Breitbart, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh etc control the talk show airwaves Err, what? Those people control nothing but their own private channels. None of them can deplatform a leftist radio show. Facebook or Twitter, or a typical campus administration, can easily deplatform a right-wing person or group, and did so many times. Can you spot the difference? It's like I can ban you from my private home, and you can chase me out of the city - who has more power here? > there's not a single strong liberal voice in any media that has the sway or clout of any of those that I mentioned Of course, nobody expects to find a lot of liberals on Rush Limbaugh show or conservatives on Rachel Maddow show. The problem is not single shows, but whole platforms and whole branches (like political science or sociology) become ideologically homogenous. If one family lives in one house, it's not a diversity problem, there are other houses. If the whole large city is just one family, now you have a problem. > The people leaving to form their own groups are generally people who support white nationalism. If you are going to confuse right wing with white nationalism, I'd decide you failed the Turing test and discussion with you is pointless until you educate yourself at least about the basics of US politics. Free lesson: white nationalists are tiny minority of the right wing, just like leninists are minority of the left wing (probably the latter minority is larger than the former one). > Reddit has groups that literally function as attack dogs silencing any group that speaks ill of the president Judging from my last visit to Reddit, couple of days ago, these groups are piss poor at their job, as there is nobody in mortal fear of criticizing the president and lots of people continue to criticize him without any problem. Which, of course, as it should be. > To suggest that there is "good evidence" that the left is censoring the right is plain silly Only if you arrived at predetermined conclusion and intend to declare "silly" any evidence that contradicts it. > What's being censored is things that don't belong in a workplace, If you think that by shifting the goalposts and calling things that disagree with your ideological positions "hate speech", "unfit for workplace", "don't belong in civil discourse" and so on, you are somehow making your argument stronger - I am sorry, you are not. Ideological censorship remains the same, whatever fig leaf you put on it. > most people don't want to read conspiracy theories, hate speech, and abuse on a daily basis On most social networks - including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. - it is extremely easy to not read content that you don't want to read. Deplatforming does not prevent you from reading it - it prevents everybody from reading it, and the purpose of it not to avoid encountering content that you don't like but prevent that content from reaching people who do like it. > usually because they follow the letter to break the spirit of any rules. And, of course, since the letter of the rules does not mean anything, and those in power are always free to interpret "the spirit" of the rules as they want, the result is unlimited arbitrary power, not constrained by any rules. Which corrupts exactly as it always did.