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It's a shame comments like this require throwaway accounts on hacker news. People refuse to consider the other sides perspective, insisting that they are right

It's a shame comments like this require throwaway accounts on hacker news. People refuse to consider the other sides perspective, insisting that they are right without doing the mental exercise to even consider the other side having a shred of truth or valuable thought. There are very smart people on all sides of the political spectrum. What makes it worse, is if you don't take the time to consider the other side's perspective, YOU are fueling the hate and polarization. I'd strongly recommend https://www.allsides.com https://www.allsides.com for a relatively quick and easy way to get exposed to both sides.

m_mueller 6y ago
I'm not American, but is there really two sides to consider when one calls a US election stolen and has started to replace military officials? I call that an attempt at a coup.
- throwaway23452 6y ago
  The way I see it, there are three sides right now: the left, the right, and Donald Trump. Much (not all) of the right has been convinced that their only hope of saving the country from an evil, terrible fate is to throw in with Trump. Trump himself acts out of pure, unadulterated narcissism. I honestly think accusing him of attempted coup is giving him too much credit: he simply does whatever he wants, at any given moment. He doesn't want to lose, so he says he didn't lose (without any real plan to prevent it). He is a petulant child. Here's what I know: I have lots of family and some friends on the right. And as confusing and frustrating as the past four years have been, I continue to believe that most of them are good people. I have the ability to mentally frame things in such a way that I can see where they're coming from, how they slipped down this slope, why they think Trump really is their last hope. The reality of the situation - and all of the things that really are very wrong with it - is extremely complicated. But labeling all conservatives as nazis is not only wildly inaccurate, it further marginalizes people and pushes them towards more and more ethical compromises that they feel are necessary to ensure the continuation of their way of life. Nazis exist, and they do tend to align themselves with the right, but treating them as representative of the whole is a gross oversimplification that we can't afford to be making.
  - onecommentman 6y ago
    “Trump himself acts out of pure, unadulterated narcissism.” Is this a professional diagnosis? Do you know him personally? Or is this a projection? It sounds an awful lot like projection. Your post does this a lot about a lot of people... It may be correct. It may not. But it doesn’t help your case to play Freud on, what is in your case, pixels on a screen. You can’t seriously call someone a “petulant child” unless you’ve actually interacted with the person. This is a 74 year old whose best-known expertise is in constructing artificial personas to better negotiate deals. Think about that. He’s not your father. The commonly accepted term is “loose cannon”. It skips the psychoanalytic overhead very few people are in the position to do. You say “loose cannon” and, for a large group of people the situation, and how to mitigate it, comes into better focus. I’m sure your family and friends are delighted that you continue to think they are good people. And it is noble of you to have developed the ability to frame things in such a way as to not reflexively demonize those who disagree on this matter. But edit before you post.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- throwaway11320 6y ago
  "You can run the best campaign, you can even be the nominee. And you can have the election stolen from you" - Hillary Clinton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77i_pC3lp04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77i_pC3lp04) "Why is Trump making these controversial staffing changes now? No one knows for sure, but it’s probably not as sinister as some fear. When the resignations and appointments were announced, some worried that a sinister plot was afoot — that Trump loyalists were “burrowing” into the Defense Department so they couldn’t be removed when Biden takes office, or that there was some sort of coverup going on, or even that Trump was setting the stage for a coup. But experts I spoke to doubt those explanations, and suspect what’s really going on is that Trump finally had an opening to clean house at the Pentagon with the election now over, and that he’s putting in people more amenable to his wishes in order to finally accomplish some of the policies the Esper-led Pentagon had pushed back on — such as withdrawing all remaining US troops from Afghanistan before Christmas." https://www.vox.com/21560260/trump-pentagon-defense-secretary-esper-afghanistan https://www.vox.com/21560260/trump-pentagon-defense-secretar... Yes, there are other sides to consider. There always are. Now you decide how reasonable they are--but you cannot skip taking the time to understand the other side.
  - throwaway23452 6y ago
    I'm skeptical about part of that story, seeing as Esper literally earned the nickname "Yesper" for being a floor-mat to the president's wishes. But I also think the likelihood of a coup is way overblown. After Esper was pushed out, the other three people resigned; they weren't fired. People said the same thing about a coup when he was first elected, when characters like Steve Bannon were in the White House whispering in his ear. At peak Trumpism across the country, before his approval rating started going down, that probably would have been a better time to do such a thing if it were going to happen. And yet... it just didn't. Lots of callous and shortsighted and regressive policy-making ensued, to be sure, but nothing like a coup.
    - m_mueller 6y ago
      I really hope you’re right. At the end of the day, if he doesn’t concede then only the military can remove him on January 20th, which he can try to get sufficient control over. I think people are not taking his disregard of the election seriously enough.
- rjkennedy98 6y ago
  We have to go all the way back to 2000 when Bush v Gore happened and Democrats claimed the election was stolen. Actually no, we just have to go back literally to just the last election when Hilary asked for recounts after conceding and then the Democrats used false claims of Russian interference to discredit the election. Heard of the Muller probe? This is a highly unorthodox election due to the high number of mail-in ballots. We have unprecedented censorship of social media by corporations that function as arms of a political party. Trump has a right under law to challenge it. Hillary asked for recounts very late in the process in just the last election with no evidence of corruption. It is not a coup to challenge under law an election process and refuse to concede till then. It’s happened literally multiple times in US history. You are not from the US but you may be surprised to learn the US is not a direct democracy but has a system in place called the electoral college which is there for managing electoral disputes.
  - m_mueller 6y ago
    There is a very big difference between asking for recounts and declaring yourself winner and the election stolen before there is even an attempt to discover any evidence. Aldo in Gore's case it actually was extremely close, unlike in current elections. So, I'm sorry, but this just reads like standard whataboutism.
- tarsinge 6y ago
  No opinions here, but as a thought experiment to get a perspective on the other side, what if it was indeed stolen? Of course in reality there is no proof, but that's the danger of conspirations: in that case, you are on the good side, here something like "trying to prevent communists from taking over America with fake votes". Until the "truth" on facts is agreed (here no fake votes), both sides live in their reality trying to make what is right given their respective premise.
  - m_mueller 6y ago
    I do actually always try to get multiple angles from different angles on a topic, but when even most of Fox News doesn't support Trump's narrative in something I don't have to look further into it. People who support this narrative are simply too far gone and there's nothing to discuss with them anymore.
    - throwaway23452 6y ago
      Too far gone in terms of a warped reality (in this case), yes. Fundamentally evil, no. That's the important distinction here.
      - m_mueller 6y ago
        I think there is no such thing as fundamentally evil.
- thrwaway2112 6y ago
  Consider that the military officials being forced out were just reported to having been lying to the President about troop numbers in conflict zones... Then think about which direction the coup may have been coming from

m_mueller 6y ago

I'm not American, but is there really two sides to consider when one calls a US election stolen and has started to replace military officials? I call that an attempt at a coup.

throwaway23452 6y ago
The way I see it, there are three sides right now: the left, the right, and Donald Trump. Much (not all) of the right has been convinced that their only hope of saving the country from an evil, terrible fate is to throw in with Trump. Trump himself acts out of pure, unadulterated narcissism. I honestly think accusing him of attempted coup is giving him too much credit: he simply does whatever he wants, at any given moment. He doesn't want to lose, so he says he didn't lose (without any real plan to prevent it). He is a petulant child. Here's what I know: I have lots of family and some friends on the right. And as confusing and frustrating as the past four years have been, I continue to believe that most of them are good people. I have the ability to mentally frame things in such a way that I can see where they're coming from, how they slipped down this slope, why they think Trump really is their last hope. The reality of the situation - and all of the things that really are very wrong with it - is extremely complicated. But labeling all conservatives as nazis is not only wildly inaccurate, it further marginalizes people and pushes them towards more and more ethical compromises that they feel are necessary to ensure the continuation of their way of life. Nazis exist, and they do tend to align themselves with the right, but treating them as representative of the whole is a gross oversimplification that we can't afford to be making.
- onecommentman 6y ago
  “Trump himself acts out of pure, unadulterated narcissism.” Is this a professional diagnosis? Do you know him personally? Or is this a projection? It sounds an awful lot like projection. Your post does this a lot about a lot of people... It may be correct. It may not. But it doesn’t help your case to play Freud on, what is in your case, pixels on a screen. You can’t seriously call someone a “petulant child” unless you’ve actually interacted with the person. This is a 74 year old whose best-known expertise is in constructing artificial personas to better negotiate deals. Think about that. He’s not your father. The commonly accepted term is “loose cannon”. It skips the psychoanalytic overhead very few people are in the position to do. You say “loose cannon” and, for a large group of people the situation, and how to mitigate it, comes into better focus. I’m sure your family and friends are delighted that you continue to think they are good people. And it is noble of you to have developed the ability to frame things in such a way as to not reflexively demonize those who disagree on this matter. But edit before you post.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway11320 6y ago
"You can run the best campaign, you can even be the nominee. And you can have the election stolen from you" - Hillary Clinton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77i_pC3lp04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77i_pC3lp04) "Why is Trump making these controversial staffing changes now? No one knows for sure, but it’s probably not as sinister as some fear. When the resignations and appointments were announced, some worried that a sinister plot was afoot — that Trump loyalists were “burrowing” into the Defense Department so they couldn’t be removed when Biden takes office, or that there was some sort of coverup going on, or even that Trump was setting the stage for a coup. But experts I spoke to doubt those explanations, and suspect what’s really going on is that Trump finally had an opening to clean house at the Pentagon with the election now over, and that he’s putting in people more amenable to his wishes in order to finally accomplish some of the policies the Esper-led Pentagon had pushed back on — such as withdrawing all remaining US troops from Afghanistan before Christmas." https://www.vox.com/21560260/trump-pentagon-defense-secretary-esper-afghanistan https://www.vox.com/21560260/trump-pentagon-defense-secretar... Yes, there are other sides to consider. There always are. Now you decide how reasonable they are--but you cannot skip taking the time to understand the other side.
- throwaway23452 6y ago
  I'm skeptical about part of that story, seeing as Esper literally earned the nickname "Yesper" for being a floor-mat to the president's wishes. But I also think the likelihood of a coup is way overblown. After Esper was pushed out, the other three people resigned; they weren't fired. People said the same thing about a coup when he was first elected, when characters like Steve Bannon were in the White House whispering in his ear. At peak Trumpism across the country, before his approval rating started going down, that probably would have been a better time to do such a thing if it were going to happen. And yet... it just didn't. Lots of callous and shortsighted and regressive policy-making ensued, to be sure, but nothing like a coup.
  - m_mueller 6y ago
    I really hope you’re right. At the end of the day, if he doesn’t concede then only the military can remove him on January 20th, which he can try to get sufficient control over. I think people are not taking his disregard of the election seriously enough.
rjkennedy98 6y ago
We have to go all the way back to 2000 when Bush v Gore happened and Democrats claimed the election was stolen. Actually no, we just have to go back literally to just the last election when Hilary asked for recounts after conceding and then the Democrats used false claims of Russian interference to discredit the election. Heard of the Muller probe? This is a highly unorthodox election due to the high number of mail-in ballots. We have unprecedented censorship of social media by corporations that function as arms of a political party. Trump has a right under law to challenge it. Hillary asked for recounts very late in the process in just the last election with no evidence of corruption. It is not a coup to challenge under law an election process and refuse to concede till then. It’s happened literally multiple times in US history. You are not from the US but you may be surprised to learn the US is not a direct democracy but has a system in place called the electoral college which is there for managing electoral disputes.
- m_mueller 6y ago
  There is a very big difference between asking for recounts and declaring yourself winner and the election stolen before there is even an attempt to discover any evidence. Aldo in Gore's case it actually was extremely close, unlike in current elections. So, I'm sorry, but this just reads like standard whataboutism.
tarsinge 6y ago
No opinions here, but as a thought experiment to get a perspective on the other side, what if it was indeed stolen? Of course in reality there is no proof, but that's the danger of conspirations: in that case, you are on the good side, here something like "trying to prevent communists from taking over America with fake votes". Until the "truth" on facts is agreed (here no fake votes), both sides live in their reality trying to make what is right given their respective premise.
- m_mueller 6y ago
  I do actually always try to get multiple angles from different angles on a topic, but when even most of Fox News doesn't support Trump's narrative in something I don't have to look further into it. People who support this narrative are simply too far gone and there's nothing to discuss with them anymore.
  - throwaway23452 6y ago
    Too far gone in terms of a warped reality (in this case), yes. Fundamentally evil, no. That's the important distinction here.
    - m_mueller 6y ago
      I think there is no such thing as fundamentally evil.
thrwaway2112 6y ago
Consider that the military officials being forced out were just reported to having been lying to the President about troop numbers in conflict zones... Then think about which direction the coup may have been coming from