10 ms·

A really good read. Fascinating stuff. A key bit was: "Almost no one changes their mind because of one day' argument. Instead, we slowly start to see ideas we

by chippy 7y ago

A really good read. Fascinating stuff. A key bit was: "Almost no one changes their mind because of one day' argument. Instead, we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after we have been exposed to other people whom we respect or identify with who believe them." This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.)

jacobush 7y ago
"reasonable" -> "unreasonable"
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  "reasonable" <-> "unreasonable" It's a two way street. Gay marriage (for example) used to be unreasonable.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    He probably meant to write unreasonable. Was what I was trying to point out. But your comment is good too. :-)
    - cannam 7y ago
      It's a slightly ambiguous parse. > we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after... I think you parsed it as > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable") only after and concluded that "unreasonable" was intended. But I think the proper parse is > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand) as "reasonable" only after
      - lostlogin 7y ago
        A literal reasonable argument. Bizarre how it can work either way - thanks for pointing this out.
charliesharding 7y ago
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes How do you define "lower classes"? If you mean household income then quite the opposite is true: https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identification-detailed-tables/ https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...
- chippy 7y ago
  I'll try to describe it. The stats are correct in that the working classes have shrunk. In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people". Losing touch in that way and instead adopting a more paternalist role towards them due to a much larger middle class. The left used to work with the poor, now they work for the poor, if that makes sense? Socialism now is no longer about the working class but about the middle class looking after the working class.
  - pytester 7y ago
    >In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people" This is false. Labour is undergoing a reversal in the policy of the blairite years where they tied their mast to corporate/NGO elites and decoupled themselves from unions. Unions now have a lot more power (including official voting power / influence over the NEC) in the Labour party than they ever have and corporate influence has waned almost completely.
    - youngtaff 7y ago
      Let's face it the union fat cats want power and they want it so they can get their industries nationalised because it gives them more power rather than for the good of the general UK population. We've got better things, more urgent things to spend money on that nationalising utilities etc. (we can control them through regulation anyway)
      - JetSpiegel 7y ago
moduspol 7y ago
Yep. And perhaps the mainstream media (who is no fan of that leader) might also have some impact in the acceptance of ideas that would have been rejected as unreasonable ten or twenty years ago.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Mainstream media, such as Fox News and the tabloid-sphere, very much push those leaders’ views without challenge and with much fanfare. I would very much call the most mainstream tv news station in the US a massive fan of the most mainstream politician, Trump.
  - moduspol 7y ago
    I agree, although Fox News is only the top US cable TV news channel, as far as I know. Now consider all late night shows, nearly all newspapers, most big news blogs, and the other cable (and broadcast) TV news channels. But regardless, there's not a lot of point in debating what "mainstream" means. My point is that seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel cry over health care policy [1] is exactly the kind of thing OP is describing. You don't need to be a cartoon politician to fit the bill OP describes. People like and respect celebrities and media personalities, and they see a lot more of them than they do of Trump. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late-night-health-care/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late...
duxup 7y ago
The political parties system seems to only encourage this. Internal party topics and subjects just encourage this sort of down the rabbit hole effort to appeal to a smaller and smaller number of people to win a nomination.... But then in the outside world that isn't what the voters want / respect. I see it time and again even with political parties I'm inclined to agree with. They show up even in general elections with slogans and somewhat corner case policies, attacks on their opponents, and ideas that really don't appeal to the masses. They seem to bamboozle even themselves unable to even recognize it at times.
roenxi 7y ago
I keep a keen eye on 538's polling data [0]. They suggest that there is only the slimmest of wafer thin margins between Trump and Obama approval ratings at this point in the presidency. I'm sure it would be lovely if Trump spoke in complete sentences and behaviour is important; but decisions, tribe and policy are ultimately more important. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  It's interesting because Trump has had to play a 24/7 PR and election campaign game to maintain his approval rating. He still holds the same rallies while in office that he did while campaigning. While Obama was in office, he just didn't have to create a controversy despite the media attacking him on everything from his choice of mustard to the color of his suit.
  - ru999gol 7y ago
    I love when HN is talking about politics, they are so completely, thoroughly, wrong about every single aspect of it, at all times, its mind bending.
pjc50 7y ago
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities. I'm not sure this is true; it's a standard media line, certainly, and there's definitely a problem in that a lot of the most visible figures on the left tend to be of privileged backgrounds (because that privilege gives visibility!). But because of the changes in working practice and social structure over the 21st century, what constitutes "working class" now looks very different. The UK is not quite so factionalised as the US yet, although it's clear that EU membership has been used as the "wedge issue" in the way that abortion has in the US. It's gone from being something of very low salience to the only issue it's possible to talk about.
- chippy 7y ago
  I think this means the middle class has grown and because of this what used to be about the large working class is now about the middle class and a smaller class without agency of "vulnerable people". This group of people which used to have a champion who understood them now have a champion which doesn't need to. Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore
  - pjc50 7y ago
    People say this a lot. But I've not heard all that many people saying this in the media in their own words. It's possible to go quote-fishing until you can find someone who says "nobody represents me", but that's not quite the same thing. Can we find an example of a working class commentator with a reasonable audience saying this themselves?
    - chippy 7y ago
      The point was that in the UK at the very least, Labour used to be voice of the working class. That we can't point to Labour as being the "working class commentator" which we used to is a great indication that they are no longer in touch with their working class origins. Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.
jefurii 7y ago
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes Nonprofit museum/library techie here. Anecdotally, if by "the left" mean supporters of Democratic establishment politicians, this is very true. They're doing well enough for themselves that they're insulated from economic bumps and they just don't seem to care about the things that real working people do. Real leftists and progressives get it though, which is why politicians like Bernie are so popular with working class people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rojobuffalo 7y ago
I think Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris talking about AI risk and simulation theory is a case that brings that point home for me. I was reading Nick Bostrom's book at the time when those guys started making public comments about it. I thought the book was really interesting and thought provoking, but I wasn't fully behind it. Once prominent figures state a belief in something, it becomes a lot easier to take it seriously.
friendlybus 7y ago
>This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.) I don't know where to go with this. Both Trump and Boris have the uncomfortable task of burning off the dead wood in society. The UK and the US find this the most difficult, the UK wanting to keep every scrap of wood they have, playing social musical chairs instead of getting on with business. The US gets all steamy and hot about China/Russia and tax returns but at the end of the day it's about money. This is our ww1 moment except without the destructive european alliance setup and proclivity for war. Frankly they are both behaving as statesmen do. The younger Bush was a war president and lost the ability to speak in full sentences - whilst at war. He regained his ability to speak after he left the presidency. Nixon nearly refused to give up the chair. Clinton went out on "what the definition of is - is". Trump's legacy is going to be that he made China pay him some cash and he didn't get into a nuclear war. Other than his explosive entrance and flushing out many things (right or wrongly) he has been much like other US presidents. I get a display of quality in leadership is valuable. That'll come back in 2028.
jborichevskiy 7y ago
Isn't this basically the Overton window? > The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
hanoz 7y ago
In the west, the self anointed custodians of public discourse have become so successful in whipping into line any public figure who dares stray outside their own boundaries of acceptable thought, vastly adrift though it is from most ordinary decent folk's, that the only people who can rise to power outside it are those so far beyond its reach as to be invulnerable to their hysterical protestations, and unpalatable as he might be the people will be willing to overlook his faults.
kkggyftfxdfg 7y ago
> and the left have lost touch with the lower classes This isn't remotely true. The left is overwhelmingly concerned with working-class people in the US (and in the UK). Do you mean the left as in anyone not Republican/Tory?
- jessaustin 7y ago
  The Left that cares about the working class is not the same as the Left that runs a dominant political party in USA. In order to convince us otherwise you'll have to use an account that isn't green.
Ar-Curunir 7y ago
I think by 'left' you mean liberal; The Democratic party is not 'left' in the global sense.

by chippy 7y ago

jacobush 7y ago

"reasonable" -> "unreasonable"

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
"reasonable" <-> "unreasonable" It's a two way street. Gay marriage (for example) used to be unreasonable.
- jacobush 7y ago
  He probably meant to write unreasonable. Was what I was trying to point out. But your comment is good too. :-)
  - cannam 7y ago
    It's a slightly ambiguous parse. > we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after... I think you parsed it as > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable") only after and concluded that "unreasonable" was intended. But I think the proper parse is > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand) as "reasonable" only after
    - lostlogin 7y ago
      A literal reasonable argument. Bizarre how it can work either way - thanks for pointing this out.

charliesharding 7y ago

> the left have lost touch with the lower classes How do you define "lower classes"? If you mean household income then quite the opposite is true: https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identification-detailed-tables/ https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...

chippy 7y ago
I'll try to describe it. The stats are correct in that the working classes have shrunk. In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people". Losing touch in that way and instead adopting a more paternalist role towards them due to a much larger middle class. The left used to work with the poor, now they work for the poor, if that makes sense? Socialism now is no longer about the working class but about the middle class looking after the working class.
- pytester 7y ago
  >In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people" This is false. Labour is undergoing a reversal in the policy of the blairite years where they tied their mast to corporate/NGO elites and decoupled themselves from unions. Unions now have a lot more power (including official voting power / influence over the NEC) in the Labour party than they ever have and corporate influence has waned almost completely.
  - youngtaff 7y ago
    Let's face it the union fat cats want power and they want it so they can get their industries nationalised because it gives them more power rather than for the good of the general UK population. We've got better things, more urgent things to spend money on that nationalising utilities etc. (we can control them through regulation anyway)
    - JetSpiegel 7y ago

moduspol 7y ago

Yep. And perhaps the mainstream media (who is no fan of that leader) might also have some impact in the acceptance of ideas that would have been rejected as unreasonable ten or twenty years ago.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
Mainstream media, such as Fox News and the tabloid-sphere, very much push those leaders’ views without challenge and with much fanfare. I would very much call the most mainstream tv news station in the US a massive fan of the most mainstream politician, Trump.
- moduspol 7y ago
  I agree, although Fox News is only the top US cable TV news channel, as far as I know. Now consider all late night shows, nearly all newspapers, most big news blogs, and the other cable (and broadcast) TV news channels. But regardless, there's not a lot of point in debating what "mainstream" means. My point is that seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel cry over health care policy [1] is exactly the kind of thing OP is describing. You don't need to be a cartoon politician to fit the bill OP describes. People like and respect celebrities and media personalities, and they see a lot more of them than they do of Trump. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late-night-health-care/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late...

duxup 7y ago

The political parties system seems to only encourage this. Internal party topics and subjects just encourage this sort of down the rabbit hole effort to appeal to a smaller and smaller number of people to win a nomination.... But then in the outside world that isn't what the voters want / respect. I see it time and again even with political parties I'm inclined to agree with. They show up even in general elections with slogans and somewhat corner case policies, attacks on their opponents, and ideas that really don't appeal to the masses. They seem to bamboozle even themselves unable to even recognize it at times.

roenxi 7y ago

I keep a keen eye on 538's polling data [0]. They suggest that there is only the slimmest of wafer thin margins between Trump and Obama approval ratings at this point in the presidency. I'm sure it would be lovely if Trump spoke in complete sentences and behaviour is important; but decisions, tribe and policy are ultimately more important. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...

heavyset_go 7y ago
It's interesting because Trump has had to play a 24/7 PR and election campaign game to maintain his approval rating. He still holds the same rallies while in office that he did while campaigning. While Obama was in office, he just didn't have to create a controversy despite the media attacking him on everything from his choice of mustard to the color of his suit.
- ru999gol 7y ago
  I love when HN is talking about politics, they are so completely, thoroughly, wrong about every single aspect of it, at all times, its mind bending.

pjc50 7y ago

> the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities. I'm not sure this is true; it's a standard media line, certainly, and there's definitely a problem in that a lot of the most visible figures on the left tend to be of privileged backgrounds (because that privilege gives visibility!). But because of the changes in working practice and social structure over the 21st century, what constitutes "working class" now looks very different. The UK is not quite so factionalised as the US yet, although it's clear that EU membership has been used as the "wedge issue" in the way that abortion has in the US. It's gone from being something of very low salience to the only issue it's possible to talk about.

chippy 7y ago
I think this means the middle class has grown and because of this what used to be about the large working class is now about the middle class and a smaller class without agency of "vulnerable people". This group of people which used to have a champion who understood them now have a champion which doesn't need to. Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore
- pjc50 7y ago
  People say this a lot. But I've not heard all that many people saying this in the media in their own words. It's possible to go quote-fishing until you can find someone who says "nobody represents me", but that's not quite the same thing. Can we find an example of a working class commentator with a reasonable audience saying this themselves?
  - chippy 7y ago
    The point was that in the UK at the very least, Labour used to be voice of the working class. That we can't point to Labour as being the "working class commentator" which we used to is a great indication that they are no longer in touch with their working class origins. Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.

jefurii 7y ago

> the left have lost touch with the lower classes Nonprofit museum/library techie here. Anecdotally, if by "the left" mean supporters of Democratic establishment politicians, this is very true. They're doing well enough for themselves that they're insulated from economic bumps and they just don't seem to care about the things that real working people do. Real leftists and progressives get it though, which is why politicians like Bernie are so popular with working class people.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

rojobuffalo 7y ago

I think Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris talking about AI risk and simulation theory is a case that brings that point home for me. I was reading Nick Bostrom's book at the time when those guys started making public comments about it. I thought the book was really interesting and thought provoking, but I wasn't fully behind it. Once prominent figures state a belief in something, it becomes a lot easier to take it seriously.

friendlybus 7y ago

>This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.) I don't know where to go with this. Both Trump and Boris have the uncomfortable task of burning off the dead wood in society. The UK and the US find this the most difficult, the UK wanting to keep every scrap of wood they have, playing social musical chairs instead of getting on with business. The US gets all steamy and hot about China/Russia and tax returns but at the end of the day it's about money. This is our ww1 moment except without the destructive european alliance setup and proclivity for war. Frankly they are both behaving as statesmen do. The younger Bush was a war president and lost the ability to speak in full sentences - whilst at war. He regained his ability to speak after he left the presidency. Nixon nearly refused to give up the chair. Clinton went out on "what the definition of is - is". Trump's legacy is going to be that he made China pay him some cash and he didn't get into a nuclear war. Other than his explosive entrance and flushing out many things (right or wrongly) he has been much like other US presidents. I get a display of quality in leadership is valuable. That'll come back in 2028.

jborichevskiy 7y ago

Isn't this basically the Overton window? > The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

hanoz 7y ago

In the west, the self anointed custodians of public discourse have become so successful in whipping into line any public figure who dares stray outside their own boundaries of acceptable thought, vastly adrift though it is from most ordinary decent folk's, that the only people who can rise to power outside it are those so far beyond its reach as to be invulnerable to their hysterical protestations, and unpalatable as he might be the people will be willing to overlook his faults.

kkggyftfxdfg 7y ago

> and the left have lost touch with the lower classes This isn't remotely true. The left is overwhelmingly concerned with working-class people in the US (and in the UK). Do you mean the left as in anyone not Republican/Tory?

jessaustin 7y ago
The Left that cares about the working class is not the same as the Left that runs a dominant political party in USA. In order to convince us otherwise you'll have to use an account that isn't green.

Ar-Curunir 7y ago

I think by 'left' you mean liberal; The Democratic party is not 'left' in the global sense.