5 ms·

Talking to people in real life (rather than forming opinions based on posts on any online platform) quickly reveals that the vast majority straddle the politica

Talking to people in real life (rather than forming opinions based on posts on any online platform) quickly reveals that the vast majority straddle the political divide. The vast majority of people, anywhere in the world, are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Simply stated: One could not live well in most societies were this not true. You have to be careful about how you use the money you earn. If you run a business, this lesson is front-and-center every day of your life. You can't throw money around carelessly and survive. This applies to both a business and individuals. With regards to social behavior. A society could not achieve a high overall level of wellness, productivity and quality of life without individuals having various degrees of tolerance and consideration for others as well as caring for the well-being of various groups around you. Anyone who has experienced bad neighbors knows full-well how ugly it can be to live without caring for others around you. The problem with political systems such as that of the US is that we don't get to vote on individual issues. We have to choose "kings" and "queens". And so, as an example, if you do not agree with abortion --and this is important to you-- you have no choice but to vote republican and blindly accept everything else they stand for. The same is true of a list of issues favored by democrats. As a further hypothetical case, an individual has no way to vote in favor of the second amendment (firearms) and, at the same time, support climate change action. These two issues are trapped on opposite sides of a political divide. Despite what some might think, people are almost never 100% aligned with a political party. Those who claim to be, upon closer inspection, will typically reveal that their perception of their alignment as compared to how they live their lives do not verify the claim. In my opinion, the truth of the matter is that, if we could vote on individual issues rather for people, you would see a different distribution of votes. And, I would argue, we might just deliver better outcomes overall. This is the proverbial "throwing out the baby with the bath water" American saying. We have dumbed things down to the point where your choices are: Republican, Democrat or don't vote. Independents can't achieve scale anywhere I know of, and election mechanism truly rob votes away from them (example, presidential elections in CA are winner-take-all, which means that all independent votes are pretty much always converted to democrat votes...talk about voter suppression). Changing a complex multivariate system is not easy and should not be done impulsively. I think we desperately need to isolate the issues from party affiliation. In other words, a more direct form of democracy of some sort where we do not vote for kings and queens who will despotically wield party strength at every level in government, but rather make decisions on issues of interest. If such a thing could be implemented, our politicians would be reduced to administrators of our decisions rather than powerful partisan actors. At the end of the day what makes our lives better is when we all do better. No political party has the monopoly on this. In fact, one could argue political parties have devolved into existing for the sake of their own power structure rather than to benefit society. Taking that power away from them might be more helpful in charting a path that benefits all. Not sure, just what I've been thinking over the years as I watch just how pointless the shit-show we've had in front of us for decades has become. We can't get anything done, and whatever we do get done is a mess.

jlkuester7 5y ago
This is what I love about HN. Just when I start to feel like the only sane person left on Earth, someone comes on here and takes the time to post something both rational and thought-provoking. Thank you for reminding me to have more hope in "the vast majority of people" (even if the vast majority of elected officials (and their talking-head counterparts) seem utterly brainless).
- robomartin 5y ago
  I think it is very important to get out and touch reality as frequently as possible. Even places like HN have extreme ideological end-points and edges. Social media is a complete shit-show that has very little to do with what you encounter when you sit down for a cup of coffee with someone, even a complete stranger. Reality isn't that bad. Politicians are merchants of fabricated fear and doubt because that's the easiest currency for them to convert into votes. I often think of them as an entirely different species, one devoid of humanity.
skissane 5y ago
> The vast majority of people, anywhere in the world, are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The majority of the world's population is probably fiscally liberal and socially conservative by Western standards. Pick a random person in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. They likely have views on many social issues which are very much at the conservative end of those debates by Western standards, even though their positions would be moderate by the standards of their own society. On the other hand, they are unlikely to share the free market / small government / etc orthodoxy which defines so much of Western economic/fiscal conservatism. Talking to people is a very skewed sample, because anyone you personally talk to from country X is unlikely to be representative of the general population country X. They are more likely to be an emigrant, more likely to be English-speaking, likely to be better educated – all influences which can lead to them having different views than the majority of the population of their country of origin.
- robomartin 5y ago
  > Talking to people is a very skewed sample, because anyone you personally talk to from country X is unlikely to be representative of the general population country X. The argument you present does not match reality. Having traveled to about twenty countries and lived in two continents I can tell you, with nearly 100% certainly that the vast majority of people are fiscally conservative. There are degrees when it comes to social issues, some having to do with the differences in cultures around the world. If I can claim the hypothesis, I’ll say that fiscal conservatism and social liberalism (or tolerance) are a necessary average normal from an evolutionary perspective.

jlkuester7 5y ago

This is what I love about HN. Just when I start to feel like the only sane person left on Earth, someone comes on here and takes the time to post something both rational and thought-provoking. Thank you for reminding me to have more hope in "the vast majority of people" (even if the vast majority of elected officials (and their talking-head counterparts) seem utterly brainless).

robomartin 5y ago
I think it is very important to get out and touch reality as frequently as possible. Even places like HN have extreme ideological end-points and edges. Social media is a complete shit-show that has very little to do with what you encounter when you sit down for a cup of coffee with someone, even a complete stranger. Reality isn't that bad. Politicians are merchants of fabricated fear and doubt because that's the easiest currency for them to convert into votes. I often think of them as an entirely different species, one devoid of humanity.

skissane 5y ago

> The vast majority of people, anywhere in the world, are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The majority of the world's population is probably fiscally liberal and socially conservative by Western standards. Pick a random person in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. They likely have views on many social issues which are very much at the conservative end of those debates by Western standards, even though their positions would be moderate by the standards of their own society. On the other hand, they are unlikely to share the free market / small government / etc orthodoxy which defines so much of Western economic/fiscal conservatism. Talking to people is a very skewed sample, because anyone you personally talk to from country X is unlikely to be representative of the general population country X. They are more likely to be an emigrant, more likely to be English-speaking, likely to be better educated – all influences which can lead to them having different views than the majority of the population of their country of origin.

robomartin 5y ago
> Talking to people is a very skewed sample, because anyone you personally talk to from country X is unlikely to be representative of the general population country X. The argument you present does not match reality. Having traveled to about twenty countries and lived in two continents I can tell you, with nearly 100% certainly that the vast majority of people are fiscally conservative. There are degrees when it comes to social issues, some having to do with the differences in cultures around the world. If I can claim the hypothesis, I’ll say that fiscal conservatism and social liberalism (or tolerance) are a necessary average normal from an evolutionary perspective.