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It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left. The extremes tend to dominate the messaging on both sides. And

by raarts 6y ago

It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left. The extremes tend to dominate the messaging on both sides. And frankly, the internet being dominated by younger people, there is a good case to be made that the extreme left's voices are louder.

romanoderoma 6y ago
What you call extreme left in USA is barely center left in any other country in the west What is called far right in USA is the same thing we call neo-fascism anywhere else In US a socialist party is unimaginable, in Germany it is the largest party of the center left, same in Italy, France, Spain, Scandinavia So probably the bias comes from living in a country that's leaning towards the right in its entirety @moderators: have I earned the automatic downvote? Whatever I post shows zero points as soon as it is posted.
- raarts 6y ago
  That used to be the case, but it has changed. The last 10 years the extreme left in the US has shifted left, passing even the European left, at least according to Pew[1]. I don't think this particular report mentions the European part, can't find that right now, but they mentioned it in another report on it. I would like to add that the Critical Race Theory (where DEI originates from) is only recently starting to get traction in for example The Netherlands, traditionally an already pretty left-leaning country. [1] https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/10/05162647/10-05-2017-Political-landscape-release.pdf https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/20...
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    But that doesn't mean that the Democratic party message comes from the far left. Biden can't pronounce the word "free healthcare" for fear of losing votes. That's what I was contesting: far right is right at the centre of the political scene side by side with Trump, far left is not because it has no direct representation in the political system. Unless you consider someone like Sanders a far left extremists, which is not. Far left movements are mostly extra-parliamentary
  - andi999 6y ago
    What page in [1] do you refer to? While I believe it could be democrats are more left than european sozialdemocratic parties, I would doubt they are left to succesor party of the communidt aera.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > That used to be the case, but it has changed. No, it hasn't, meaningfully. > The last 10 years the extreme left in the US has shifted left, passing even the European left Whether or not it's true, the “extreme left” in the US that may or may not have shifted that way is politically irrelevant. Meanwhile, of the major parties the Democratic Party has been stable for decades while the Republican Party has shot to the extremes, a process that has continued at a rapid pace over the last decade. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/31/the-republican-party-has-lurched-towards-populism-and-illiberalism https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/31/the-repu...
- skinkestek 6y ago
  > @moderators: have I earned the automatic downvote? Whatever I post shows zero points as soon as it is posted. Not a mod, but I'll take an educated guess that this is what ires someone: > What is called far right in USA is the same thing we call neo-fascism anywhere else The rest of your post is spot on IMO but I hesitate to upvote because of that part, and not because there isn't a point but because it is a whole lot more nuanced: Yes: a number of wackos exist on the "far right" (I hate that term as it frames conservatives with totalitarian ones.) But there has also been a tendency by media to abuse the term as a rubber stamp for "anything conservative we don't like". It's either that or a large number of facists are the ones to defend the jews this year, and despite 2020 being odd I don't think that will ever happen. (I collected a fair number of downvotes myself last election season, seemingly from both sides, which is why I feel somewhat qualified to explain ;-)
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    > Not a mod, but I'll take an educated guess that this is what ires someone: It was a simple question, I had the last 6-7 post immediately downvoted at zero points upon submission. Seconds later. Unless someone is tracking me , which would be rather incredible, I wanted to know if I triggered something. Have you ever heard of people shadow banned without warnings? A post among many to explain what I mean It's ok if the moderators do their job the way they are told to, it's more of a problem if you don't know why and especially if it happened to you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681860 To be honest I don't care if someone is ired or not, being ired is a choice and usually doesn't depend to what other people do, but how we react to them
    - skinkestek 6y ago
      I've never heard or seen anything like what you suggest. It has been admitted I think that one is aware of certain bots (not affiliated with YC) that vote in certain directions. I think I have even seen one popular HNer admit that he thought there was a bot who would upvote all his answer irregardless of who low quality they were. Maybe someone has something like that and have pointed it at you. More likely though you annoyed someone and they went in to your profile and looked at your other answers. Edit: I looked into your comments and here are two notes. 1. Your comments are a mixed bag. Saying Trump brought war to American soil for example isn't anywhere near true and also inflammatory. 2. Some of them are insightful but ires one side without delighting the other. The result is you get a downvote from those who are annoyed and no support from the other side. I've been hit by this a lot. Don't care to much.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > What is called far right in USA is the same thing we call neo-fascism anywhere else The US far-right includes camps that don't exactly fit that definition (though there is plenty of overlap), like christian dominionists, corporatist right-libertarians, and the misogynistic PUA/incell/MRA crowd (which is more of a feeder system than a political philosophy per se). It's a rather Big Tent™.
- fredophile 6y ago
  > @moderators: have I earned the automatic downvote? Whatever I post shows zero points as soon as it is posted. Hacker News tends to be pretty good about people not just downvoting posts because they disagree with them. However, that goes out the window when the discussion gets political. I'd be really interested in seeing the numbers for upvotes and downvotes on political topics vs other topics. I wouldn't be surprised if you could train a classifier to spot political articles based on this distribution.
  - pvg 6y ago
    It's fine to downvote to disagree on HN and people do it all the time in all discussions.
    - fredophile 6y ago
      Down voting is a very blunt tool. Enough down votes can hide a comment. This means you aren't just saying "I disagree" but "this is so wrong no one should read it." It has its place but there's a reason you don't get to do it until your account has received enough upvotes.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  The problem is dang thinks fascism is a 'bad word'
stone-monkey 6y ago
>It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left. Except it's not disengenuous to say that at all. We can see that by the candidates each party has supported. Biden is considered a pretty centrist democrat by pretty much any metric. Trump, however, can't be considered a moderate. He's enabled fascist White nationalist supporters. Biden hasn't done the same. Also, for the record, BLM and SJWs aren't equivalent extremist left compared to literal Nazis - the left wing extremist equivalent is Communism and the position to kill and eat the rich. That is the level of extremism that Trump has facilitated in office. If Biden also enabled people who explicitly call to overthrow the US government, I'd say you have a fairer point.
- buran77 6y ago
  The 2 extremes are indeed closer to each other than they are to the center, the Horseshoe theory. Of course, extremists on either side would hate to be bundled together, their ideology is different but their extremist approach is not. But I can't help but think this is a very asymmetrical horseshoe where the right side extends much further then the left side ever did. The problem is not even necessarily the particular ideology but rather that the right side is willing to be far more extreme in their views. That in itself is exceptionally dangerous no matter what the views are because it implies a very, very unpleasant life for those who don't share them. It's the reason why today the US is so divided, there's no more overlap, the 2 sides each sit in their corner. The only possible response to increasing extremism on one side is increasing extremism on the other side until one has enough power to quash the other.
  - Garlef 6y ago
    > The only possible response to increasing extremism on one side is increasing extremism on the other side until one has enough power to quash the other. I think this statement is wrong. There are a lot of other possibilities. For example: "A minority that is agressively vocal for extremism in one aspect could be cushioned by a strong general consensus for a political culture of reasonable cooperation and discussion."
lumberingjack 6y ago
The photo of Biden at the top of this page has him wearing a big ass mask if that's not magnifying extreme leftism I don't know what is.
- berdario 6y ago
  Is Trump a leftist? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/20/trump-says-coronavirus-masks-are-patriotic-after-months-of-largely-resisting-wearing-one.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/20/trump-says-coronavirus-masks... Wearing a mask is just a simple precaution that everyone should take. Using pictures of you wearing a mask rather than not, is just leading by example. Other famous leftists wearing masks: https://img.etimg.com/thumb/msid-75093913,width-480,height-360,imgsize-199479,resizemode-4/pm-modi-wears-mask-during-video-conference.jpg https://img.etimg.com/thumb/msid-75093913,width-480,height-3... Narendra Modi https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/WireAP_3c4b927864dc4b2eb17c2703513586c0_16x9_608.jpg https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/WireAP_3c4b927864... Silvio Berlusconi https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/b201141e75ee4d29b83a39e11e646631/800.jpeg https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/b201141e75ee4d... Viktor Orban Etc.
- rnentjes 6y ago
  It's saddening to see that wearing a mask to prevent infection from a virus is in any way political.
  - belltaco 6y ago
    Let alone extreme leftism.
gameswithgo 6y ago
Extreme wanting to be like denmark?
tripzilch 6y ago
> It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left. Except they're not. Your country has drifted so far right, every opposing voice may look like "extreme left", but it's not. Nowhere close. If you want to argue about the actual extreme left, go right ahead. I'm as left-leaning as they are, but I'll probably agree with you. There's some idiots. But the extreme left isn't really that vocal at all in the US right now. It's the moderate leftists trying to restore some sense of normalcy.

by raarts 6y ago

romanoderoma 6y ago

What you call extreme left in USA is barely center left in any other country in the west What is called far right in USA is the same thing we call neo-fascism anywhere else In US a socialist party is unimaginable, in Germany it is the largest party of the center left, same in Italy, France, Spain, Scandinavia So probably the bias comes from living in a country that's leaning towards the right in its entirety @moderators: have I earned the automatic downvote? Whatever I post shows zero points as soon as it is posted.

raarts 6y ago
That used to be the case, but it has changed. The last 10 years the extreme left in the US has shifted left, passing even the European left, at least according to Pew[1]. I don't think this particular report mentions the European part, can't find that right now, but they mentioned it in another report on it. I would like to add that the Critical Race Theory (where DEI originates from) is only recently starting to get traction in for example The Netherlands, traditionally an already pretty left-leaning country. [1] https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/10/05162647/10-05-2017-Political-landscape-release.pdf https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/20...
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  But that doesn't mean that the Democratic party message comes from the far left. Biden can't pronounce the word "free healthcare" for fear of losing votes. That's what I was contesting: far right is right at the centre of the political scene side by side with Trump, far left is not because it has no direct representation in the political system. Unless you consider someone like Sanders a far left extremists, which is not. Far left movements are mostly extra-parliamentary
- andi999 6y ago
  What page in [1] do you refer to? While I believe it could be democrats are more left than european sozialdemocratic parties, I would doubt they are left to succesor party of the communidt aera.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > That used to be the case, but it has changed. No, it hasn't, meaningfully. > The last 10 years the extreme left in the US has shifted left, passing even the European left Whether or not it's true, the “extreme left” in the US that may or may not have shifted that way is politically irrelevant. Meanwhile, of the major parties the Democratic Party has been stable for decades while the Republican Party has shot to the extremes, a process that has continued at a rapid pace over the last decade. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/31/the-republican-party-has-lurched-towards-populism-and-illiberalism https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/31/the-repu...
skinkestek 6y ago
> @moderators: have I earned the automatic downvote? Whatever I post shows zero points as soon as it is posted. Not a mod, but I'll take an educated guess that this is what ires someone: > What is called far right in USA is the same thing we call neo-fascism anywhere else The rest of your post is spot on IMO but I hesitate to upvote because of that part, and not because there isn't a point but because it is a whole lot more nuanced: Yes: a number of wackos exist on the "far right" (I hate that term as it frames conservatives with totalitarian ones.) But there has also been a tendency by media to abuse the term as a rubber stamp for "anything conservative we don't like". It's either that or a large number of facists are the ones to defend the jews this year, and despite 2020 being odd I don't think that will ever happen. (I collected a fair number of downvotes myself last election season, seemingly from both sides, which is why I feel somewhat qualified to explain ;-)
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > Not a mod, but I'll take an educated guess that this is what ires someone: It was a simple question, I had the last 6-7 post immediately downvoted at zero points upon submission. Seconds later. Unless someone is tracking me , which would be rather incredible, I wanted to know if I triggered something. Have you ever heard of people shadow banned without warnings? A post among many to explain what I mean It's ok if the moderators do their job the way they are told to, it's more of a problem if you don't know why and especially if it happened to you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681860 To be honest I don't care if someone is ired or not, being ired is a choice and usually doesn't depend to what other people do, but how we react to them
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    I've never heard or seen anything like what you suggest. It has been admitted I think that one is aware of certain bots (not affiliated with YC) that vote in certain directions. I think I have even seen one popular HNer admit that he thought there was a bot who would upvote all his answer irregardless of who low quality they were. Maybe someone has something like that and have pointed it at you. More likely though you annoyed someone and they went in to your profile and looked at your other answers. Edit: I looked into your comments and here are two notes. 1. Your comments are a mixed bag. Saying Trump brought war to American soil for example isn't anywhere near true and also inflammatory. 2. Some of them are insightful but ires one side without delighting the other. The result is you get a downvote from those who are annoyed and no support from the other side. I've been hit by this a lot. Don't care to much.
webmaven 6y ago
> What is called far right in USA is the same thing we call neo-fascism anywhere else The US far-right includes camps that don't exactly fit that definition (though there is plenty of overlap), like christian dominionists, corporatist right-libertarians, and the misogynistic PUA/incell/MRA crowd (which is more of a feeder system than a political philosophy per se). It's a rather Big Tent™.
fredophile 6y ago
> @moderators: have I earned the automatic downvote? Whatever I post shows zero points as soon as it is posted. Hacker News tends to be pretty good about people not just downvoting posts because they disagree with them. However, that goes out the window when the discussion gets political. I'd be really interested in seeing the numbers for upvotes and downvotes on political topics vs other topics. I wouldn't be surprised if you could train a classifier to spot political articles based on this distribution.
- pvg 6y ago
  It's fine to downvote to disagree on HN and people do it all the time in all discussions.
  - fredophile 6y ago
    Down voting is a very blunt tool. Enough down votes can hide a comment. This means you aren't just saying "I disagree" but "this is so wrong no one should read it." It has its place but there's a reason you don't get to do it until your account has received enough upvotes.
Gibbon1 6y ago
The problem is dang thinks fascism is a 'bad word'

stone-monkey 6y ago

>It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left. Except it's not disengenuous to say that at all. We can see that by the candidates each party has supported. Biden is considered a pretty centrist democrat by pretty much any metric. Trump, however, can't be considered a moderate. He's enabled fascist White nationalist supporters. Biden hasn't done the same. Also, for the record, BLM and SJWs aren't equivalent extremist left compared to literal Nazis - the left wing extremist equivalent is Communism and the position to kill and eat the rich. That is the level of extremism that Trump has facilitated in office. If Biden also enabled people who explicitly call to overthrow the US government, I'd say you have a fairer point.

buran77 6y ago
The 2 extremes are indeed closer to each other than they are to the center, the Horseshoe theory. Of course, extremists on either side would hate to be bundled together, their ideology is different but their extremist approach is not. But I can't help but think this is a very asymmetrical horseshoe where the right side extends much further then the left side ever did. The problem is not even necessarily the particular ideology but rather that the right side is willing to be far more extreme in their views. That in itself is exceptionally dangerous no matter what the views are because it implies a very, very unpleasant life for those who don't share them. It's the reason why today the US is so divided, there's no more overlap, the 2 sides each sit in their corner. The only possible response to increasing extremism on one side is increasing extremism on the other side until one has enough power to quash the other.
- Garlef 6y ago
  > The only possible response to increasing extremism on one side is increasing extremism on the other side until one has enough power to quash the other. I think this statement is wrong. There are a lot of other possibilities. For example: "A minority that is agressively vocal for extremism in one aspect could be cushioned by a strong general consensus for a political culture of reasonable cooperation and discussion."

lumberingjack 6y ago

The photo of Biden at the top of this page has him wearing a big ass mask if that's not magnifying extreme leftism I don't know what is.

berdario 6y ago
Is Trump a leftist? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/20/trump-says-coronavirus-masks-are-patriotic-after-months-of-largely-resisting-wearing-one.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/20/trump-says-coronavirus-masks... Wearing a mask is just a simple precaution that everyone should take. Using pictures of you wearing a mask rather than not, is just leading by example. Other famous leftists wearing masks: https://img.etimg.com/thumb/msid-75093913,width-480,height-360,imgsize-199479,resizemode-4/pm-modi-wears-mask-during-video-conference.jpg https://img.etimg.com/thumb/msid-75093913,width-480,height-3... Narendra Modi https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/WireAP_3c4b927864dc4b2eb17c2703513586c0_16x9_608.jpg https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/WireAP_3c4b927864... Silvio Berlusconi https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/b201141e75ee4d29b83a39e11e646631/800.jpeg https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/b201141e75ee4d... Viktor Orban Etc.
rnentjes 6y ago
It's saddening to see that wearing a mask to prevent infection from a virus is in any way political.
- belltaco 6y ago
  Let alone extreme leftism.

gameswithgo 6y ago

Extreme wanting to be like denmark?

tripzilch 6y ago

> It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left. Except they're not. Your country has drifted so far right, every opposing voice may look like "extreme left", but it's not. Nowhere close. If you want to argue about the actual extreme left, go right ahead. I'm as left-leaning as they are, but I'll probably agree with you. There's some idiots. But the extreme left isn't really that vocal at all in the US right now. It's the moderate leftists trying to restore some sense of normalcy.