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I have noticed this as well. Hacker News generally considers itself liberal but actually holds very conservative views (see any thread on gender equality). The

I have noticed this as well. Hacker News generally considers itself liberal but actually holds very conservative views (see any thread on gender equality). The EU is being positioned as a liberal organisation (whether it truly is or not) so in every EU related thread the free speech / anti regulation commentators come out in force

Iv 7y ago
That's what I assume as well. But maybe that's also what it feels like to become as relevant int he tech world as the US. There is no shortage of US-bashing in international tech discussions. As long as it stays good spirited, I don't mind.
noonespecial 7y ago
>Hacker News generally considers itself liberal but actually holds very conservative views... I'm not sure that's entirely true. We're(1) a bunch of programmers. We are very sensitive to unintended consequences in complex systems. I think we just tend to be a little more careful with feel-good regulations that might produce these, along with being more evidence based in judging success. (1) With all of the usual caveats about the monolithic "us".
- watwut 7y ago
  I don't think it is about being cautious of unintended consequences in general. It is about being cautious of some unintended consequences and not caring about other unintended consequences. The choice of which of these matters decides the politics.
  - AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
    It's about known unintended consequences vs. unknown unintended consequences.
- rs1234 7y ago
  True, but what about intended consequences my friend. Companies obviously have a vested interest in getting us to buy new products, rather than have us repair the older ones. So, I guess a little regulation will be ok.
  - AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
    Every company wants to manufacture a washing machine once and then keep selling spare parts with 100% margin. No RnD expenses, no assembly line, no demo stands - pure profit! That's like free printers with expensive ink cartridges. But apparently I'm wrong?
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  If you realize that the null policy is also a policy, then there is no reason to be a priori more critical of active policies compared to the null policy.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    The null policy always has more empirical validation because society clearly hasn't collapsed under it. This fact might be the essence of conservatism.
    - oblio 7y ago
      There's plenty of cases where null policies have failed. I could list them but that list obviously has to trigger Godwin's law...
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        If Hitler had not done anything, i.e. implemented the so-called null policy, nothing bad would have happened. Feel free to substitute with any other dictator if you want to avoid Godwin's law.
        JetSpiegel 7y ago
        Chamberlain implemented a null policy and Hitler was the result.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Even if the right to repair were a bad policy, it certainly wouldn't cause society to collapse. Nor would it destroy democracy or cause any other irreparable damage. Implementing it merely risks a minor decrease in economic efficiency for a few years. The potential reward can last for an unlimited time. And there's a guaranteed reward too: Gaining knowledge on what policies work. We should do it even if we expected it to fail (see also VCs).
    - conjectures 7y ago
- FakeComments 7y ago
  The conservative position is “don’t just do something, stand there” while a liberal one is “people can do what they want”. (Note the small letters.) Most people here are talking about completely different things, but the interesting part is this: liberal values are the conservative position in Western society right now, while “progressive” ones like organized racism, speech codes, and authoritarianism are the “new” political force. The appropriation of descriptive words for team names has done massive damage to political discourse, as it was meant to.
- gbrown 7y ago
  I think that's generous. Yesterday several people were fervently arguing that discriminating in job advertisements against protected classes should be fine because it may be "more efficient". Talk about unintended consequences...
maxerickson 7y ago
The gestalt is a lie.
vorpalhex 7y ago
HN is generally liberal, with some conservative and libertarian elements. You're confusing liberal with accepting a particular set of theories (critical theory, post-structuralist/post-modernist value structures) that primarily belong to subgroups, one I'll term as "ultra progressive". ultra progressives tend to believe the Government is the only force who can safeguard workers. Many other forms of liberal believe that while the Government has a role to play in setting boundaries for capitalism and engaging in non-capitalist activity (welfare, public education, etc) that it does not always act in the interest of the people. This is likely part of what you see as "HN being conservative on gender equality" (paraphrasing). Most HNers seem to hold belief in equality of opportunity (classical liberal) vs equality of outcome (ultra progressive). In other words, the debate can be seen as whether it's necessary to have 50% of a given field be women and 50% be men, or simply for there to be an absence of a gender based discrimination. (And ultra progressives would likely respond that anything can be gender based discrimination, whereas a classic liberal would be looking for intent) (Leaving my attempts at a neutral point of view and going into my own beliefs) One of the flaws in ultra progressiveism is that it's reductionist (a person is defined as a mix of attributes such as political affiliation, gender or lack thereof, social class, etc) which encourages an "us vs them" mentality. The issue ultra progressives face is that "us" is becoming an ever shrinking circle which now excludes most of their other liberal allies.
- anoncake 7y ago
  > ultra progressives tend to believe the Government is the only force who can safeguard workers. My impression is that workers are pretty much the only disadvantaged group that ultra progressives do not care about. Apart from that, you're on point.
Zenst 7y ago
Alas when society feels fit to label things one way or another , they overlook the actual action and detail and with that, if it is something good (like this) they are sceptical and focus upon bad aspects and ignore the whole. But when politics drives and runs with left/right mentality, they end up disenfranchising common sense more often than not and you end up politically with a seesaw effect - you get a controlling party that is one way, then after a while you end up with a party the other way to restore balance. This is one of those wonderful moments in which the result is common sense on so many levels that we should (sure many do) see it for what it is - something wonderful. But everybody has a bad day, political things of any form can bring out the worst in all of us, but decorum upon this forum, does a better job than most in regulating those aspects. For that, let us be thankful as I can only imagine the Twitter flavours of this very subject being played out and shudder. But credit when it is due - thank you EU for this.
0xcafecafe 7y ago
To add to your point, even threads on immigration I have seen fairly conservative (and at times even xenophobic) views upvoted here.
AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
HN seems to be pretty centric to me, but yes, by IT crowd standards it's probably as right as one can get. "Very conservative views" on gender equality would ask for a niqab, female education ban and a mandatory dowry. I doubt you'll find here a lot of people sharing these views.

Iv 7y ago

That's what I assume as well. But maybe that's also what it feels like to become as relevant int he tech world as the US. There is no shortage of US-bashing in international tech discussions. As long as it stays good spirited, I don't mind.

noonespecial 7y ago

>Hacker News generally considers itself liberal but actually holds very conservative views... I'm not sure that's entirely true. We're(1) a bunch of programmers. We are very sensitive to unintended consequences in complex systems. I think we just tend to be a little more careful with feel-good regulations that might produce these, along with being more evidence based in judging success. (1) With all of the usual caveats about the monolithic "us".

watwut 7y ago
I don't think it is about being cautious of unintended consequences in general. It is about being cautious of some unintended consequences and not caring about other unintended consequences. The choice of which of these matters decides the politics.
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  It's about known unintended consequences vs. unknown unintended consequences.
rs1234 7y ago
True, but what about intended consequences my friend. Companies obviously have a vested interest in getting us to buy new products, rather than have us repair the older ones. So, I guess a little regulation will be ok.
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  Every company wants to manufacture a washing machine once and then keep selling spare parts with 100% margin. No RnD expenses, no assembly line, no demo stands - pure profit! That's like free printers with expensive ink cartridges. But apparently I'm wrong?
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
If you realize that the null policy is also a policy, then there is no reason to be a priori more critical of active policies compared to the null policy.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  The null policy always has more empirical validation because society clearly hasn't collapsed under it. This fact might be the essence of conservatism.
  - oblio 7y ago
    There's plenty of cases where null policies have failed. I could list them but that list obviously has to trigger Godwin's law...
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      If Hitler had not done anything, i.e. implemented the so-called null policy, nothing bad would have happened. Feel free to substitute with any other dictator if you want to avoid Godwin's law.
      - JetSpiegel 7y ago
        Chamberlain implemented a null policy and Hitler was the result.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Even if the right to repair were a bad policy, it certainly wouldn't cause society to collapse. Nor would it destroy democracy or cause any other irreparable damage. Implementing it merely risks a minor decrease in economic efficiency for a few years. The potential reward can last for an unlimited time. And there's a guaranteed reward too: Gaining knowledge on what policies work. We should do it even if we expected it to fail (see also VCs).
  - conjectures 7y ago
FakeComments 7y ago
The conservative position is “don’t just do something, stand there” while a liberal one is “people can do what they want”. (Note the small letters.) Most people here are talking about completely different things, but the interesting part is this: liberal values are the conservative position in Western society right now, while “progressive” ones like organized racism, speech codes, and authoritarianism are the “new” political force. The appropriation of descriptive words for team names has done massive damage to political discourse, as it was meant to.
gbrown 7y ago
I think that's generous. Yesterday several people were fervently arguing that discriminating in job advertisements against protected classes should be fine because it may be "more efficient". Talk about unintended consequences...

maxerickson 7y ago

The gestalt is a lie.

vorpalhex 7y ago

HN is generally liberal, with some conservative and libertarian elements. You're confusing liberal with accepting a particular set of theories (critical theory, post-structuralist/post-modernist value structures) that primarily belong to subgroups, one I'll term as "ultra progressive". ultra progressives tend to believe the Government is the only force who can safeguard workers. Many other forms of liberal believe that while the Government has a role to play in setting boundaries for capitalism and engaging in non-capitalist activity (welfare, public education, etc) that it does not always act in the interest of the people. This is likely part of what you see as "HN being conservative on gender equality" (paraphrasing). Most HNers seem to hold belief in equality of opportunity (classical liberal) vs equality of outcome (ultra progressive). In other words, the debate can be seen as whether it's necessary to have 50% of a given field be women and 50% be men, or simply for there to be an absence of a gender based discrimination. (And ultra progressives would likely respond that anything can be gender based discrimination, whereas a classic liberal would be looking for intent) (Leaving my attempts at a neutral point of view and going into my own beliefs) One of the flaws in ultra progressiveism is that it's reductionist (a person is defined as a mix of attributes such as political affiliation, gender or lack thereof, social class, etc) which encourages an "us vs them" mentality. The issue ultra progressives face is that "us" is becoming an ever shrinking circle which now excludes most of their other liberal allies.

anoncake 7y ago
> ultra progressives tend to believe the Government is the only force who can safeguard workers. My impression is that workers are pretty much the only disadvantaged group that ultra progressives do not care about. Apart from that, you're on point.

Zenst 7y ago

Alas when society feels fit to label things one way or another , they overlook the actual action and detail and with that, if it is something good (like this) they are sceptical and focus upon bad aspects and ignore the whole. But when politics drives and runs with left/right mentality, they end up disenfranchising common sense more often than not and you end up politically with a seesaw effect - you get a controlling party that is one way, then after a while you end up with a party the other way to restore balance. This is one of those wonderful moments in which the result is common sense on so many levels that we should (sure many do) see it for what it is - something wonderful. But everybody has a bad day, political things of any form can bring out the worst in all of us, but decorum upon this forum, does a better job than most in regulating those aspects. For that, let us be thankful as I can only imagine the Twitter flavours of this very subject being played out and shudder. But credit when it is due - thank you EU for this.

0xcafecafe 7y ago

To add to your point, even threads on immigration I have seen fairly conservative (and at times even xenophobic) views upvoted here.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago

HN seems to be pretty centric to me, but yes, by IT crowd standards it's probably as right as one can get. "Very conservative views" on gender equality would ask for a niqab, female education ban and a mandatory dowry. I doubt you'll find here a lot of people sharing these views.