4 ms·

HN is pretty conservative on average.

by mattacular 6y ago

centimeter 6y ago
If you think this, you live in an extremely progressive bubble.
saagarjha 6y ago
It's mostly technology workers, who tend to be largely liberal. Are you sure it's conservative?
- war1025 6y ago
  I would guess it's actually that HN has members who aren't from the major tech metros, and people outside of those areas tend to be more conservative (in a relative sense at the very least). For many, this would be the main place they ever come across those people, which would make it seem unusually conservative.
  - Steltek 6y ago
    As a theory, Y Combinator, thus HN, is strongly aligned with startups which, in less hip circles, are "small businesses". Small business tends conservative because regulation disproportionately impacts them (eg. regulatory capture). It would certainly be nicer if more regulation created a level playing field and actually prevented anti-competitive practices. To counter balance the above blatant and unfair stereotyping above, I'll add some devil's advocate too: "change the world" type leaders might also be more idealistic and would vote progressive anyway, even if it's not good business sense.
    - tremon 6y ago
      small business tends conservative because regulation disproportionately impacts them That doesn't make sense. If someone feels unduly burdened by the status quo, why would they vote to preserve it?
      - war1025 6y ago
        In US Politics, "conservative" often means someone who believes in small government and less regulation. Regulations tend to take a lot of money to comply with, making it difficult for small businesses to compete with larger ones. So it is in small business owners' interests to support candidates that claim to be in favor of removing regulatory restrictions. Which tends to be a Republican talking point (whether or not they actually do anything to advance the cause once elected)
    - 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
      There are people here all over the world. In large parts of Europe liberals prefer low taxes and small state to conservatives who want to give their old voters all sort of gifts and benefits. Probably the American idea of a libertarian is more suited.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  In the past I would have associated HN mostly with libertarians and socdems, but it seems to have shifted more conservative than I recall.
- paulmd 6y ago
  The cliche about engineers being STEMlords is not entirely untrue. There is certainly a thing where engineers like to think of themselves as smart, intelligent self-made men who justifiably earned their high salaries in contrast to, say, some dumb humanities major who's now making coffees. Often it's a libertarian flavor, particularly here in the startup community where the cliche of the self-made-person looms large. Libertarians have some overlap with liberal positions in some areas (personal freedoms in general, drugs specifically) but disagreements in others (government regulation and spending, etc). In practice though most libertarians today can generally be characterized as conservatives who want freedom in the areas that affect them personally. They want to smoke weed, or get gay married, so those things are good, but they're conservative in most other areas.
- mattacular 6y ago
  It's mostly technology workers ... WITH a strong entrepreneurial skew. That's why the conservative lean, I figure.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  You’re incorrectly contrasting two categories, conservatives and liberals. Mainstream American liberals are quite conservative by the measure of most developed countries’ political distributions, opposing things that the right wing in European countries generally respects (various welfare floors, universal healthcare, worker protections, etc). Although there’s a lot of blood spilt over narrow identitarian and culture war issues, the distinction between the two group is more that of center right vs. far right. I would say it’s plainly obvious that Hacker News is predominantly center right, reflecting the biases of well-paid professional class workers. Just go lookup a thread about the need for unions in tech to demonstrate this. It will be filled with most blatant right wing canards that would seem absurd to your average European with and experience of unions or the worker protections they provide.
echelon 6y ago
I'm shocked, but I get a sense there are more conservatives here than ever before. Or maybe they were always here but now find themselves less prone to self-censorship. I've been reading HN since the late 2000s and only noticed this post-election. It always seemed as if HN was incredibly liberal. Now there are conservative-leaning voices and opinions cropping up everywhere that are being upvoted as top comments. I'm seeing a markedly conservative shift in tone. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it feels new.
- war1025 6y ago
  I think the Trump era emboldened a lot of normally quiet conservatives to be more outspoken in their views. Particularly in the tech scene, you can get the feeling that everyone is very liberal, and so you better just be quiet and keep to yourself. Personally, I saw so many people completely overplay their hands when it came to things Trump said or did, that it made me more comfortable having them downvote me through the floor and tell me nasty things because honestly who cares? Someone on the internet disagrees with me. Neat. I can disagree back. Part of that is maybe just me being four years older though and really has nothing to do with the garbage fire that has been the news and media environment since 2016.
- DenisM 6y ago
  Is it possible that the community stayed with their convictions and it's just you drifting left? It's easy to not notice.
postalrat 6y ago
I don't consider myself conservative or an authoritarian yet here on this thread I'm being branded as such. I think its more likely that some HN users have gone so far to the left that any comment they don't support can only be from the right.
dang 6y ago
People with the opposite politics say exactly the opposite. Both are illusions—in fact they're the same illusion: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=notice%20dislike%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... Here's an example from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25389506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25389506. I could give you a hundred more. Both sides feel like the site is dominated by the other side, to a degree in proportion to the intensity of their own views. In fact this phenomenon is so reliable that one can use it to predict not only a person's politics but how strongly they feel about it. Other bits on this if anyone cares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=demons%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- throwanem 6y ago
  You know, you've got a sample size here that'd make for a hell of a study. Maybe get hold of Scott Alexander, I hear he's taking some tentative post-doxing-threat steps out of the bunker. Not even kidding. I'd participate, and I'd be fascinated to see the results.

HN is pretty conservative on average.

centimeter 6y ago

If you think this, you live in an extremely progressive bubble.

saagarjha 6y ago

It's mostly technology workers, who tend to be largely liberal. Are you sure it's conservative?

war1025 6y ago
I would guess it's actually that HN has members who aren't from the major tech metros, and people outside of those areas tend to be more conservative (in a relative sense at the very least). For many, this would be the main place they ever come across those people, which would make it seem unusually conservative.
- Steltek 6y ago
  As a theory, Y Combinator, thus HN, is strongly aligned with startups which, in less hip circles, are "small businesses". Small business tends conservative because regulation disproportionately impacts them (eg. regulatory capture). It would certainly be nicer if more regulation created a level playing field and actually prevented anti-competitive practices. To counter balance the above blatant and unfair stereotyping above, I'll add some devil's advocate too: "change the world" type leaders might also be more idealistic and would vote progressive anyway, even if it's not good business sense.
  - tremon 6y ago
    small business tends conservative because regulation disproportionately impacts them That doesn't make sense. If someone feels unduly burdened by the status quo, why would they vote to preserve it?
    - war1025 6y ago
      In US Politics, "conservative" often means someone who believes in small government and less regulation. Regulations tend to take a lot of money to comply with, making it difficult for small businesses to compete with larger ones. So it is in small business owners' interests to support candidates that claim to be in favor of removing regulatory restrictions. Which tends to be a Republican talking point (whether or not they actually do anything to advance the cause once elected)
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
    There are people here all over the world. In large parts of Europe liberals prefer low taxes and small state to conservatives who want to give their old voters all sort of gifts and benefits. Probably the American idea of a libertarian is more suited.
the_only_law 6y ago
In the past I would have associated HN mostly with libertarians and socdems, but it seems to have shifted more conservative than I recall.
paulmd 6y ago
The cliche about engineers being STEMlords is not entirely untrue. There is certainly a thing where engineers like to think of themselves as smart, intelligent self-made men who justifiably earned their high salaries in contrast to, say, some dumb humanities major who's now making coffees. Often it's a libertarian flavor, particularly here in the startup community where the cliche of the self-made-person looms large. Libertarians have some overlap with liberal positions in some areas (personal freedoms in general, drugs specifically) but disagreements in others (government regulation and spending, etc). In practice though most libertarians today can generally be characterized as conservatives who want freedom in the areas that affect them personally. They want to smoke weed, or get gay married, so those things are good, but they're conservative in most other areas.
mattacular 6y ago
It's mostly technology workers ... WITH a strong entrepreneurial skew. That's why the conservative lean, I figure.
claudeganon 6y ago
You’re incorrectly contrasting two categories, conservatives and liberals. Mainstream American liberals are quite conservative by the measure of most developed countries’ political distributions, opposing things that the right wing in European countries generally respects (various welfare floors, universal healthcare, worker protections, etc). Although there’s a lot of blood spilt over narrow identitarian and culture war issues, the distinction between the two group is more that of center right vs. far right. I would say it’s plainly obvious that Hacker News is predominantly center right, reflecting the biases of well-paid professional class workers. Just go lookup a thread about the need for unions in tech to demonstrate this. It will be filled with most blatant right wing canards that would seem absurd to your average European with and experience of unions or the worker protections they provide.

echelon 6y ago

I'm shocked, but I get a sense there are more conservatives here than ever before. Or maybe they were always here but now find themselves less prone to self-censorship. I've been reading HN since the late 2000s and only noticed this post-election. It always seemed as if HN was incredibly liberal. Now there are conservative-leaning voices and opinions cropping up everywhere that are being upvoted as top comments. I'm seeing a markedly conservative shift in tone. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it feels new.

war1025 6y ago
I think the Trump era emboldened a lot of normally quiet conservatives to be more outspoken in their views. Particularly in the tech scene, you can get the feeling that everyone is very liberal, and so you better just be quiet and keep to yourself. Personally, I saw so many people completely overplay their hands when it came to things Trump said or did, that it made me more comfortable having them downvote me through the floor and tell me nasty things because honestly who cares? Someone on the internet disagrees with me. Neat. I can disagree back. Part of that is maybe just me being four years older though and really has nothing to do with the garbage fire that has been the news and media environment since 2016.
DenisM 6y ago
Is it possible that the community stayed with their convictions and it's just you drifting left? It's easy to not notice.

postalrat 6y ago

I don't consider myself conservative or an authoritarian yet here on this thread I'm being branded as such. I think its more likely that some HN users have gone so far to the left that any comment they don't support can only be from the right.

dang 6y ago

People with the opposite politics say exactly the opposite. Both are illusions—in fact they're the same illusion: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=notice%20dislike%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... Here's an example from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25389506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25389506. I could give you a hundred more. Both sides feel like the site is dominated by the other side, to a degree in proportion to the intensity of their own views. In fact this phenomenon is so reliable that one can use it to predict not only a person's politics but how strongly they feel about it. Other bits on this if anyone cares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=demons%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

throwanem 6y ago
You know, you've got a sample size here that'd make for a hell of a study. Maybe get hold of Scott Alexander, I hear he's taking some tentative post-doxing-threat steps out of the bunker. Not even kidding. I'd participate, and I'd be fascinated to see the results.