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Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side.

Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. It comes across as you posting this to make yourself feel good, and holy moly the sense of superiority from your camp needs a chill pill. Parson is evil. I'll be doing my duty as a citizen and trying to vote him out of office. But none of this was anti-science, nor did it have anything to do with COVID, and you've brought up both.

YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
I'm sorry you feel that the parent comment has an air of superiority about it. Perhaps you can help some of us out by demonstrating how we can have a more productive conversation about the data and the graphs in the cited poll. Can you give an example of how you'd like the poll discussed? And I'm honestly asking here, btw, for the sake of the quality of discussion.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. You're blaming other people for something that is 100% under your control. If you don't want to accept the truth because you don't like the types of people who share it, that's just spite on your part.
owlbynight 5y ago
This is a bad take. This new breed of Republicans thrive on personal attacks and ignore policy entirely when voting. Of course it's anti-science. You don't think this governor has advisors that told him the reporter looked at source code that anyone can look at it and it's not hacking? He's grandstanding for his constituency. Why? Because he knows his constituency won't understand nuance and won't hold him accountable, because he's attacking science, not guns.
NationalPark 5y ago
Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this?
- dvt 5y ago
  > Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? There are plenty of trends happening on the "other side" which are also veritably nuts, so I don't find this to be a very compelling argument. The ad hominem doesn't help, either.
  - carlisle_ 5y ago
    This is called “whataboutism”.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      Just a note: right-wing conservatives don't see "whataboutism" to be a fallacy.
    - foobar2021 5y ago
      > Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this? And now we’ve come full circle. Using “whataboutism” to avoid conversations about topics is a problem. Whether you’re using it to deflect to a different topic or using it as an excuse to avoid talking about a topic altogether. Someone could argue your comment is the latter and is just as harmful. But I think most of that is a limitation of text/internet communication that people don’t consciously notice. It’s much easier to have nuance in an in-person conversation.
      - carlisle_ 5y ago
        I don’t follow the logic. Saying something is whataboutism isn’t recursive.
      - danbmil99 5y ago
        Yes, I was very impressed by the nuance exhibited through in-person communication on January 6th
    - 5y ago
wayoutthere 5y ago
You can’t remove his actions from context though. They are only even possible because of a deliberate and calculated campaign to discredit science and knowledge and punish those who have it. They’re banking on people like you just looking to keep the peace at any cost. If you’re not actively working to dismantle the current Republican Party, we cannot be on the same side. I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house. I've never heard this phrase before, but it equally applies to the situation where one thinks only they can wield a weapon. We can't assume that because we are "right," we have nothing to fear from the people who are "wrong" using our worst tactics against us. This is wrong whether it's one side "lying for Jesus," or the other side "censoring for freedom." In the context of this thread, rising opposition on one side prompts a higher rise on the other side, in a vicious cycle. As parents are often heard to say, "I don't care who started it, I care who finishes it!" It's a bit cliche to refer to STTNG for life advice, but a minor plot point of this episode influenced me quite a bit when I was a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_N... All the adults saw a problem, so they kept raising their shields higher and higher, but raising the shields was causing the problem in the first place. It took a kid to notice that the scale of the problem correlated with the scale of the adults' defensiveness. This was, obviously, a metaphor for any human interaction. It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    > It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose. This only works when both sides engage in good faith. That is not the case currently. We are better off excluding them than letting them abuse the process in bad faith like they always do. The ones advancing this argument are always the ones with the least at stake.
deleted 5y ago
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hnaccy 5y ago
>It doesn't matter that you're probably right. I guess reality does have a well known liberal bias :)
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I really enjoyed Colbert's white house correspondents dinner back in 2006. That isn't what you were referring to is it? [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X93u3anTco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X93u3anTco
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    That phrase long pre-dates Colbert.
    - hairofadog 5y ago
      Does it? I'm pretty sure he coined it.
      - morelisp 5y ago
        Colbert's joke was based on a comment from a Bush staffer concerning the "reality-based community" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community): The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'. It's actually a poignant, forward-thinking point about the malleability of "reality" and "facts" under empire, but predictably the third-way neolibs that still dominate the party failed to grasp that and first made a joke out of it, and then out of themselves as it was realized.
charonn0 5y ago
> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. On the other side are ignorant and/or dishonest actors out to avoid being embarrassed. It's all on you if you pick the wrong one out of loyalty to a political party.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem There are a hell of a lot of computer scientists and engineers who vote republican, certainty not a majority but definitely a large enough minority you can't discount them. They just don't broadcast it for reasons that should be obvious to anyone reading these comments.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    Yeah, hi from the peanut gallery. I vote R because they support some things I value. I just don't talk about it at work, because I'm not suicidal.
  - ribosometronome 5y ago
    They're embarrassed to be seen supporting candidates that are so transparently anti-science, anti-education and anti-reason?
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      All three of those labels can easily be applied to both major parties, just with different examples. Conservatives tend to not speak up because the hyperbolic vitriol has gotten out of hand.
      - joe5150 5y ago
        they could easily find a social circle and likely a workplace too where their views are accepted or even celebrated. why don't they?
jorblumesea 5y ago
How is it alienating to point out a trend that's clearly happening? I feel like this is exactly the problem, where refusing to acknowledge the problem is the problem. "Please don't bring these issues up, it's a problem I don't want to deal with". Are we expected to just pretend like there's not this huge anti-science movement on the Right because your feelings might get hurt? Look at all the anti mask, anti vaccine rhetoric. This isn't ok. Plenty of problems on the Left too, and we should talk about those too.
- deleted 5y ago
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arcticbull 5y ago
> Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. Every group of humans - indeed, thanks to the central limit theorem, every sufficiently large sampling - is going to be normally distributed and there are going to be folks on either side offset from the mean. However, that doesn't indicate that the mean isn't interesting or worthwhile to discuss, and isn't representative of the group as a whole.
- leephillips 5y ago
  That’s not what the central limit theorem says, and it’s not and cannot be true in practice.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I was taking humans political opinions as the sum of a sum of independent random variables :) still may have been a bit of flourish, I suppose.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Sorry, still doesn’t mean that the quantity that you’re averaging (position on the left-right political spectrum?) will be normally distributed. In fact, it almost certainly won’t be. But it’s a common error.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Well, thank you for letting me know!
- danbmil99 5y ago
  As someone else responded, in the case of United States politics in 2021, it's pretty clear that there is not a normal gaussian distribution of opinions on various matters. I suspect for all the hot-button issues it's extremely bimodal.
cornhole 5y ago
why should we have to coddle you
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Practical answer? Because their vote in the ballot box is exactly as strong as any other voter's. From a pure realpolitik standpoint, alienating voters who can be convinced to do the right thing is just foolishness.
  - zzzeek 5y ago
    with all due respect there is almost no evidence that republican voters ever "switch sides". it's not a thing. these people aren't voting against their own in any useful numbers no matter what.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      I think I'd have to see numbers on that (and those numbers are hard to build out without falling prey to a "No True Scotsman" fallacy). Virginia currently has a Democrat legislature for the first time in two decades, and it's paired with a Democrat governor for the first time I can remember. Either there was a massive demographic churn or someone switched sides. (Anecdotally: I have family in Virginia, and a lot of lifelong GOP voters in my family looked at the party's double- and triple-down support of Trump and went "Whatever this party is, it's not my GOP").
      - zzzeek 5y ago
        well we can start that virginia turnout was 3 points higher in 2020 than 2016: https://www.elections.virginia.gov/resultsreports/registrationturnout-statistics/ https://www.elections.virginia.gov/resultsreports/registrati... about 400000 more votes than 2016. How many points did D legislators win by compared to 2016? if they moved only three points to win, then it was likely mostly turnout related, not party switching. Also you need to accommodate for the GOP voter that says "not my party" is very likely to simply not vote, or vote third party, likely moreso than to vote for a Democrat. This would indicate "alienation" of such voters is a good strategy in fact. It's certainly the strategy that the GOP uses against Democrats in order to get us not to turn out. put another way, I have a lot of republicans in my family. There is zero chance of any of them ever changing. It's absurd that we all would need to be concerned about speaking the truth of the GOP party for fear of "alienating" these people. This is a silencing tactic, plain and simple. The GOP takes no such steps to avoid losing potential D switchers.
JohnTHaller 5y ago
The anti-science, anti-intellectualism, us vs them, anti-vaccine mindset that Parsons has is pretty emblematic of Southern Republican governors, senators, and congresspeople. Parsons responded in the expected, knee-jerk 'my political opponents are out to get me' that's been the theme of the GOP for a while now. Even though this security issue had nothing at all to do with politics. This was a consistent theme around Covid and vaccinations at both the state and national level. I think that's the background of the parent comment. Painting Parsons' response in his broader political actions and fellow party politicians' actions.
bastardoperator 5y ago
You're making it about sides. Facts are not one sided. If someone speaking truth makes you feel bothered, that's your problem, not theirs. We should be able to speak to one another without getting emotional about which team someone aligns with. Republicans are fostering anti-intellectualism which is (in fact) anti-science. From my perspective you'd be alienating yourself out of spite. This goes for Democrats or any political party.
- zepto 5y ago
  The problem is that democrats are also fostering anti-science anti-intellectualism. Which side is worse is a matter of opinion. Personally I think they are both dangerous and won’t identify myself with either party as a result. The result is that there is no point in leveling this accusation as part of a debate about something substantive, unless you just want to derail the conversation into a meaningless partisan bashing match.
  - fortyseven 5y ago
    We're still doing the "they're two sides of the same coin" thing in 2021, eh?
    - bush-bby 5y ago
      Group think is a hell of a drug in 2021, eh?
      - zepto 5y ago
        Care to explain?
    - zepto 5y ago
      Obviously that doesn’t reflect what I actually said, so no.
  - voltaireodactyl 5y ago
    > Which side is worse is a matter of opinion. What perspectives do you see coming from the Democrat side that have the same mortality rate as vaccine refusal? (Or are there indicators you give equal/greater significance than mortality?)
mdp2021 5y ago
Re-read "anti-science" (a - relatively - minor collateral) with simply "bestial": refusing the value of a basic grasp of the world, and its function as a limiter. ("Bricks are not edible but that is not a valid reason to avoid eating them, when lower drives call". Very many are embracing the false and the absurd as "legitimate": it is just satanic.) By the way: «voting [that thing] out» is not enough. That thing having held the office is a very horrible incident, and it must be made very clear to all those who were distracted.
mogopugh 5y ago
I grew up and spent some of my adult life in Missouri. I interacted with folks in the Missouri GOP quite a lot in the mid-naughts and early 2010s. Lots of GOP state rep staffers, some state reps, some state-wide candidates who have been oscillating in and out of politics in the years since, etc. I even had a few long meals with Eric Greitens way back in the day when everyone knew he was going to run for something but he was still playing Veteran Charity Organizer and denying any intention to run. (Actually, I always pegged Eric for a moderate/conservative Democrat, but wasn't surprised to see him play the game he played given that his defining characteristic was always his careerism/ambition. I even mentioned after one of those meals that he'd probably prefer to run as a Dem but will definitely be running on the GOP ticket because he cares more about power and prestige than anything else & anyone with a brain knew running as a Dem in any statewide race in Missouri was a dead end. Actually, totally independent of this conversation, Eric is actually a really interesting case study in coalition politics; his resignation was as much about him snubbing folks with appointments than his sex scandal per se. Anyways.) My interactions with folks in MOGOP back then scared the hell out of me. I could see the party coalescing around a pretty dark sort of nihilism. And not even really in terms of policy per se. It's the individual people, divorced of their politics, that really made me scared. On a personal and individual level. The deeply concerning interactions and conversations I had with specific rising stars in MOGOP are actually one of the reasons I left the state. I understand your attitude toward partisanship, I really do, and I've voted for Missouri Repbulicans in the past as well. But that state party is in a really dark place right now. A few good apples -- and they do exist -- don't really matter when party leadership are scary as fuck narcissistic nihilists. (And, yeah, all politicians suck or whatever... but MOGOP is really something else. The rising stars from back then who are all either ascendant or in control now are not just gross politician types... they're genuinely just really scary human beings.)
hackersword 5y ago
- seneca 5y ago
  This kind of rhetoric really doesn't belong on HN.
  - IE6 5y ago
    I have strong opinions on this topic but I 100% agree.
  - urda 5y ago
    Absolutely, we do not need politics seeping into every single thread everywhere. Readers: HN is not the time or place for this.
- totalfaggot 5y ago
  FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT!
- deleted 5y ago
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- thesagan 5y ago
  This divisive rhetoric is what got us here in the first place; a breakdown in civil communication. The blue team mimics the red team in this respect. I wish we could have a more mature dialogue but I wonder if we're past that. Violent communication is normalizing.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    This has been "red team" strategy for a long time. Be insufferably stubborn and immoral, force the "blue team" to talk and talk and talk until they stop making sense or get frustrated, then point out how incoherent/irrational/emotional the blue team is and declare victory.
mmazing 5y ago
Quit electing people like this. There are signs WAY before you need to "try to vote him out of office".
zzzeek 5y ago
> Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. this event is completely political and is made possible by the fact that one party alone has decided that facts don't matter - a whole team of said people rushed behind this governor to start a politcal campaign based on fact-free made up realities, which is now the common mode of action for the right wing. The GOP also happens to be a party that claims to be extremely upset about liberals supposedly trying to ban speech that "hurts their feelings". this is after all where the terms "snowflake" and "cancel culture" come from, and in fact was a campaign slogan by the Trump campaign called "fuck your feelings", which you would see emblazoned on shirts worn by what we would assume were previously congenial grandparents. based on all of this, it would appear hypocritical for right wing voters to claim that speaking of these issues are "alientating". The grandparents wearing T shirts that said "fuck your feelings" was pretty alienating to see. Where were the right wing voices warning that liberals might feel "alienated" by that ? Does anyone on the right have the slightest concern for anyone not like them ? I've yet to see it.
klebe 5y ago
Everything good is on my side, everything bad is on the other. How dare you introduce nuance to such a clearly black and white conversation?
glenstein 5y ago
>You're alienating people like me from being on your side. You're alienating yourself by following reactionary impulses in response to true statements. I'm also honesty not sure how true this theory of reaction is generally. I'm sure it's true for some, but in many cases it functions as a rhetorical strategy to put people on the defensive who are making legitimate criticisms. >But none of this was anti-science, nor did it have anything to do with COVID, and you've brought up both. It's anti-intellectual, and therefore a pertinent comparison, and they used the term anti intellectual and covered all the necessary bases. The cultural and social forces driving both are the same, and here, again, I feel like saying "don't talk about this because it alienates me" is just a rhetorical strategy to put people on the defensive without addressing the merits of what they are saying.
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KennyBlanken 5y ago
Hello, tone argument. Throwing a temper tantrum when someone objectively mentions the ideology of a party - threatening to take your toys out of the sandbox - really doesn't help your case in the "superiority" department. The reason things are so "partisan" is because of the political extremist actions and policies from your party.
- dang 5y ago
  You've broken the site guidelines by calling names. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully and without swipes, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Edit: it looks like you've been doing this quite a bit, as well as using HN primarily for political/ideological battle. That's against the guidelines and we ban accounts that do it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
ashtonkem 5y ago
“You’re right but don’t say that” is not a persuasive argument.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
There aren't sides! I'm not on your side, I don't even know you. No one here owes you anything. You're saying "you must woo me to do the right thing" and it's complete garbage (you've already admitted OP is "probably right"). If you're going to vote out of spite because people aren't "taking a chill pill" you can go pound sand. I'm tired of this "you didn't tell me in the perfect way, so I'm right and you're wrong" reductive nonsense.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Spoiler alert: there is no perfect way to tell them, that’s the point.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Right! that's what is so tiring about it. Maybe some people legitimately feel the way OP does, but more often than not it's just the ever-moving goalpost. It's impossible to tell the difference until you've wasted all your time. Once the goalposts are moved back to the point where you're practically begging, they'll turn around and try to assert dominance by calling you weak for trying to reason with them like a perosn.
spoonjim 5y ago
It is absolutely anti-science and anti-intellectual. To prosecute this person relies on destroying a meaningful distinction, which is the distinction between computer hacking and security research. "Why were you poking around the website? Developer Tools? Why were you using Developer Tools?" The governor is saying you should do what the government says rather than thinking for yourself.
debrice 5y ago
Can being a loyal Democrat or Republican diminishes your influence? It feels to me that most parties try much harder to please the undecideds than their base
natch 5y ago
Words like "your side" and "your camp" don't exactly de-escalate here. BTW I'm not trying to avoid making it a partisan issue, on the contrary. About that sense of superiority, it is relative to a pretty low bar, when people prioritize whether a person is on their side even over whether the person is right. The clustering of inane views amongst a particular identifiable group of people is fascinating. And inane views happen on both sides. I find it super interesting to see how each side chooses which bonkers views they do, and how they line up. Especially interesting is when they are not self consistent. For example, "my body, my rules," which is adopted by both sides in different contexts (abortion and vaccinations) both of which arguably are issues that involve personal choice but that also (again, arguably) affect the well being of others. Finding the partisan alignments amongst these things is super interesting and should not be a third rail (meaning an untouchable topic) in discussions, imho.
hluska 5y ago
Three things: 1.) This is an attack against a type of security researcher. Attacks against researchers are always anti-science. 2.) You’ve admitted to feeling alienated by truth. You might want to think that over and ask yourself some questions. That’s genuinely sad. 3.) If the truth genuinely alienates you, I don’t care about you or your feelings.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  >Attacks against researchers are always anti-science. that's blatantly untrue. If a researcher is malicious, attacking their person is not anti-science.
  - bialpio 5y ago
    I don't think this is true. If a scientist follows the methodology correctly, they are not malicious. And if they are not following the scientific method, then they are not scientists. The trick is to figure out which self-proclaimed scientists, aren't.
    - rpmisms 5y ago
      Andrew Wakefield?
      - bialpio 5y ago
        My point is that he stopped being a scientist the moment he stopped using scientific method, it just took a while for the rest of the world to realize that.
        rpmisms 5y ago
        Ah, so they're only a researcher as long as you want them to be? My point stands, attacking a researcher is not inherently anti-scientific, and attacking their research is... well, it's good science.
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ugh123 5y ago
He's just calling out whats mentioned in the polls. How is that alienating you?
ArchOversight 5y ago
> Please don't make this a partisan issue. It is a partisan issue though. Republicans across the United States are largely pushing to reject science and schooling and are increasingly pushing through laws and changes that make the populace dumber, and more easily controllable. You know this is happening, yet you still voted for republicans in the past. It's your own fault if you continue to do so even in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is destroying America. Whether or not you feel alienated is no concern, your feelings don't matter here, and the fact that you are feeling alienated means you have the capacity to change, because the people that keep voting against intellectualism don't feel alienated, they feel emboldened when someone calls them out, they feel pride in knowing they are doing something "the left hates me for", even if that something is destroying America in the process.
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aaroninsf 5y ago
"It doesn't matter that you're probably right." You're the problem.
- dang 5y ago
  Attacking others like this will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
tlogan 5y ago
This is not really intellectually honest answer. I really do not understand how it is possible to separate Parson from Republican Party in Missouri? They very very much the same. It is like saying that Gavin Newsom is something different than Democrats in California.
sam0x17 5y ago
This is literally the definition of an anti-science attitude from a camp that has demonstrated anti-science and anti-intellectual attitudes on a plethora of subjects for the last several years but even going as far back as 20-30 years ago. Heck Regan planted the seeds of anti-intellectualism in the (R) party decades ago and they have done nothing but take hold and flourish. Alienation is exactly the type of thing one should use to combat this. Rationally minded people in the (R) camp SHOULD feel alienated by their intellectual peers when they spew anti-intellectual rhetoric and pass/support anti-intellectual policies or willingly associate, without protest, with people or groups known for doing so. You can't flip the script and say you feel alienated by your intellectual peers (HN) for not jumping with you onto the anti-intellectual band-wagon and/or for calling systemic anti-intellectualism out for what it is. Doing so would be as ridiculous as arguing that you find same-sex couples alienating/offensive/triggering because they tread on your precious sensibilities as an anti-LGBT person. In that scenario, you should feel alienated, because that is the primary societal force that will pressure you into recanting being an anti-LGBT person. Intellectuals are alienating you because they want you to get rid of the rest of your bad opinions, not just the select few you have already shed, before you can take your place at the table.

YossarianFrPrez 5y ago

I'm sorry you feel that the parent comment has an air of superiority about it. Perhaps you can help some of us out by demonstrating how we can have a more productive conversation about the data and the graphs in the cited poll. Can you give an example of how you'd like the poll discussed? And I'm honestly asking here, btw, for the sake of the quality of discussion.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. You're blaming other people for something that is 100% under your control. If you don't want to accept the truth because you don't like the types of people who share it, that's just spite on your part.

owlbynight 5y ago

This is a bad take. This new breed of Republicans thrive on personal attacks and ignore policy entirely when voting. Of course it's anti-science. You don't think this governor has advisors that told him the reporter looked at source code that anyone can look at it and it's not hacking? He's grandstanding for his constituency. Why? Because he knows his constituency won't understand nuance and won't hold him accountable, because he's attacking science, not guns.

NationalPark 5y ago

Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this?

dvt 5y ago
> Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? There are plenty of trends happening on the "other side" which are also veritably nuts, so I don't find this to be a very compelling argument. The ad hominem doesn't help, either.
- carlisle_ 5y ago
  This is called “whataboutism”.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    Just a note: right-wing conservatives don't see "whataboutism" to be a fallacy.
  - foobar2021 5y ago
    > Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this? And now we’ve come full circle. Using “whataboutism” to avoid conversations about topics is a problem. Whether you’re using it to deflect to a different topic or using it as an excuse to avoid talking about a topic altogether. Someone could argue your comment is the latter and is just as harmful. But I think most of that is a limitation of text/internet communication that people don’t consciously notice. It’s much easier to have nuance in an in-person conversation.
    - carlisle_ 5y ago
      I don’t follow the logic. Saying something is whataboutism isn’t recursive.
    - danbmil99 5y ago
      Yes, I was very impressed by the nuance exhibited through in-person communication on January 6th
  - 5y ago

wayoutthere 5y ago

You can’t remove his actions from context though. They are only even possible because of a deliberate and calculated campaign to discredit science and knowledge and punish those who have it. They’re banking on people like you just looking to keep the peace at any cost. If you’re not actively working to dismantle the current Republican Party, we cannot be on the same side. I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

nitrogen 5y ago
I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house. I've never heard this phrase before, but it equally applies to the situation where one thinks only they can wield a weapon. We can't assume that because we are "right," we have nothing to fear from the people who are "wrong" using our worst tactics against us. This is wrong whether it's one side "lying for Jesus," or the other side "censoring for freedom." In the context of this thread, rising opposition on one side prompts a higher rise on the other side, in a vicious cycle. As parents are often heard to say, "I don't care who started it, I care who finishes it!" It's a bit cliche to refer to STTNG for life advice, but a minor plot point of this episode influenced me quite a bit when I was a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_N... All the adults saw a problem, so they kept raising their shields higher and higher, but raising the shields was causing the problem in the first place. It took a kid to notice that the scale of the problem correlated with the scale of the adults' defensiveness. This was, obviously, a metaphor for any human interaction. It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  > It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose. This only works when both sides engage in good faith. That is not the case currently. We are better off excluding them than letting them abuse the process in bad faith like they always do. The ones advancing this argument are always the ones with the least at stake.

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hnaccy 5y ago

>It doesn't matter that you're probably right. I guess reality does have a well known liberal bias :)

arcticbull 5y ago
I really enjoyed Colbert's white house correspondents dinner back in 2006. That isn't what you were referring to is it? [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X93u3anTco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X93u3anTco
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  That phrase long pre-dates Colbert.
  - hairofadog 5y ago
    Does it? I'm pretty sure he coined it.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      Colbert's joke was based on a comment from a Bush staffer concerning the "reality-based community" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community): The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'. It's actually a poignant, forward-thinking point about the malleability of "reality" and "facts" under empire, but predictably the third-way neolibs that still dominate the party failed to grasp that and first made a joke out of it, and then out of themselves as it was realized.

charonn0 5y ago

> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. On the other side are ignorant and/or dishonest actors out to avoid being embarrassed. It's all on you if you pick the wrong one out of loyalty to a political party.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem There are a hell of a lot of computer scientists and engineers who vote republican, certainty not a majority but definitely a large enough minority you can't discount them. They just don't broadcast it for reasons that should be obvious to anyone reading these comments.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  Yeah, hi from the peanut gallery. I vote R because they support some things I value. I just don't talk about it at work, because I'm not suicidal.
- ribosometronome 5y ago
  They're embarrassed to be seen supporting candidates that are so transparently anti-science, anti-education and anti-reason?
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    All three of those labels can easily be applied to both major parties, just with different examples. Conservatives tend to not speak up because the hyperbolic vitriol has gotten out of hand.
    - joe5150 5y ago
      they could easily find a social circle and likely a workplace too where their views are accepted or even celebrated. why don't they?

jorblumesea 5y ago

How is it alienating to point out a trend that's clearly happening? I feel like this is exactly the problem, where refusing to acknowledge the problem is the problem. "Please don't bring these issues up, it's a problem I don't want to deal with". Are we expected to just pretend like there's not this huge anti-science movement on the Right because your feelings might get hurt? Look at all the anti mask, anti vaccine rhetoric. This isn't ok. Plenty of problems on the Left too, and we should talk about those too.

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arcticbull 5y ago

> Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. Every group of humans - indeed, thanks to the central limit theorem, every sufficiently large sampling - is going to be normally distributed and there are going to be folks on either side offset from the mean. However, that doesn't indicate that the mean isn't interesting or worthwhile to discuss, and isn't representative of the group as a whole.

leephillips 5y ago
That’s not what the central limit theorem says, and it’s not and cannot be true in practice.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I was taking humans political opinions as the sum of a sum of independent random variables :) still may have been a bit of flourish, I suppose.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Sorry, still doesn’t mean that the quantity that you’re averaging (position on the left-right political spectrum?) will be normally distributed. In fact, it almost certainly won’t be. But it’s a common error.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Well, thank you for letting me know!
danbmil99 5y ago
As someone else responded, in the case of United States politics in 2021, it's pretty clear that there is not a normal gaussian distribution of opinions on various matters. I suspect for all the hot-button issues it's extremely bimodal.

cornhole 5y ago

why should we have to coddle you

shadowgovt 5y ago
Practical answer? Because their vote in the ballot box is exactly as strong as any other voter's. From a pure realpolitik standpoint, alienating voters who can be convinced to do the right thing is just foolishness.
- zzzeek 5y ago
  with all due respect there is almost no evidence that republican voters ever "switch sides". it's not a thing. these people aren't voting against their own in any useful numbers no matter what.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    I think I'd have to see numbers on that (and those numbers are hard to build out without falling prey to a "No True Scotsman" fallacy). Virginia currently has a Democrat legislature for the first time in two decades, and it's paired with a Democrat governor for the first time I can remember. Either there was a massive demographic churn or someone switched sides. (Anecdotally: I have family in Virginia, and a lot of lifelong GOP voters in my family looked at the party's double- and triple-down support of Trump and went "Whatever this party is, it's not my GOP").
    - zzzeek 5y ago
      well we can start that virginia turnout was 3 points higher in 2020 than 2016: https://www.elections.virginia.gov/resultsreports/registrationturnout-statistics/ https://www.elections.virginia.gov/resultsreports/registrati... about 400000 more votes than 2016. How many points did D legislators win by compared to 2016? if they moved only three points to win, then it was likely mostly turnout related, not party switching. Also you need to accommodate for the GOP voter that says "not my party" is very likely to simply not vote, or vote third party, likely moreso than to vote for a Democrat. This would indicate "alienation" of such voters is a good strategy in fact. It's certainly the strategy that the GOP uses against Democrats in order to get us not to turn out. put another way, I have a lot of republicans in my family. There is zero chance of any of them ever changing. It's absurd that we all would need to be concerned about speaking the truth of the GOP party for fear of "alienating" these people. This is a silencing tactic, plain and simple. The GOP takes no such steps to avoid losing potential D switchers.

JohnTHaller 5y ago

The anti-science, anti-intellectualism, us vs them, anti-vaccine mindset that Parsons has is pretty emblematic of Southern Republican governors, senators, and congresspeople. Parsons responded in the expected, knee-jerk 'my political opponents are out to get me' that's been the theme of the GOP for a while now. Even though this security issue had nothing at all to do with politics. This was a consistent theme around Covid and vaccinations at both the state and national level. I think that's the background of the parent comment. Painting Parsons' response in his broader political actions and fellow party politicians' actions.

bastardoperator 5y ago

You're making it about sides. Facts are not one sided. If someone speaking truth makes you feel bothered, that's your problem, not theirs. We should be able to speak to one another without getting emotional about which team someone aligns with. Republicans are fostering anti-intellectualism which is (in fact) anti-science. From my perspective you'd be alienating yourself out of spite. This goes for Democrats or any political party.

zepto 5y ago
The problem is that democrats are also fostering anti-science anti-intellectualism. Which side is worse is a matter of opinion. Personally I think they are both dangerous and won’t identify myself with either party as a result. The result is that there is no point in leveling this accusation as part of a debate about something substantive, unless you just want to derail the conversation into a meaningless partisan bashing match.
- fortyseven 5y ago
  We're still doing the "they're two sides of the same coin" thing in 2021, eh?
  - bush-bby 5y ago
    Group think is a hell of a drug in 2021, eh?
    - zepto 5y ago
      Care to explain?
  - zepto 5y ago
    Obviously that doesn’t reflect what I actually said, so no.
- voltaireodactyl 5y ago
  > Which side is worse is a matter of opinion. What perspectives do you see coming from the Democrat side that have the same mortality rate as vaccine refusal? (Or are there indicators you give equal/greater significance than mortality?)

mdp2021 5y ago

Re-read "anti-science" (a - relatively - minor collateral) with simply "bestial": refusing the value of a basic grasp of the world, and its function as a limiter. ("Bricks are not edible but that is not a valid reason to avoid eating them, when lower drives call". Very many are embracing the false and the absurd as "legitimate": it is just satanic.) By the way: «voting [that thing] out» is not enough. That thing having held the office is a very horrible incident, and it must be made very clear to all those who were distracted.

mogopugh 5y ago

I grew up and spent some of my adult life in Missouri. I interacted with folks in the Missouri GOP quite a lot in the mid-naughts and early 2010s. Lots of GOP state rep staffers, some state reps, some state-wide candidates who have been oscillating in and out of politics in the years since, etc. I even had a few long meals with Eric Greitens way back in the day when everyone knew he was going to run for something but he was still playing Veteran Charity Organizer and denying any intention to run. (Actually, I always pegged Eric for a moderate/conservative Democrat, but wasn't surprised to see him play the game he played given that his defining characteristic was always his careerism/ambition. I even mentioned after one of those meals that he'd probably prefer to run as a Dem but will definitely be running on the GOP ticket because he cares more about power and prestige than anything else & anyone with a brain knew running as a Dem in any statewide race in Missouri was a dead end. Actually, totally independent of this conversation, Eric is actually a really interesting case study in coalition politics; his resignation was as much about him snubbing folks with appointments than his sex scandal per se. Anyways.) My interactions with folks in MOGOP back then scared the hell out of me. I could see the party coalescing around a pretty dark sort of nihilism. And not even really in terms of policy per se. It's the individual people, divorced of their politics, that really made me scared. On a personal and individual level. The deeply concerning interactions and conversations I had with specific rising stars in MOGOP are actually one of the reasons I left the state. I understand your attitude toward partisanship, I really do, and I've voted for Missouri Repbulicans in the past as well. But that state party is in a really dark place right now. A few good apples -- and they do exist -- don't really matter when party leadership are scary as fuck narcissistic nihilists. (And, yeah, all politicians suck or whatever... but MOGOP is really something else. The rising stars from back then who are all either ascendant or in control now are not just gross politician types... they're genuinely just really scary human beings.)

hackersword 5y ago

seneca 5y ago
This kind of rhetoric really doesn't belong on HN.
- IE6 5y ago
  I have strong opinions on this topic but I 100% agree.
- urda 5y ago
  Absolutely, we do not need politics seeping into every single thread everywhere. Readers: HN is not the time or place for this.
totalfaggot 5y ago
FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT!
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thesagan 5y ago
This divisive rhetoric is what got us here in the first place; a breakdown in civil communication. The blue team mimics the red team in this respect. I wish we could have a more mature dialogue but I wonder if we're past that. Violent communication is normalizing.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  This has been "red team" strategy for a long time. Be insufferably stubborn and immoral, force the "blue team" to talk and talk and talk until they stop making sense or get frustrated, then point out how incoherent/irrational/emotional the blue team is and declare victory.

mmazing 5y ago

Quit electing people like this. There are signs WAY before you need to "try to vote him out of office".

zzzeek 5y ago

> Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. this event is completely political and is made possible by the fact that one party alone has decided that facts don't matter - a whole team of said people rushed behind this governor to start a politcal campaign based on fact-free made up realities, which is now the common mode of action for the right wing. The GOP also happens to be a party that claims to be extremely upset about liberals supposedly trying to ban speech that "hurts their feelings". this is after all where the terms "snowflake" and "cancel culture" come from, and in fact was a campaign slogan by the Trump campaign called "fuck your feelings", which you would see emblazoned on shirts worn by what we would assume were previously congenial grandparents. based on all of this, it would appear hypocritical for right wing voters to claim that speaking of these issues are "alientating". The grandparents wearing T shirts that said "fuck your feelings" was pretty alienating to see. Where were the right wing voices warning that liberals might feel "alienated" by that ? Does anyone on the right have the slightest concern for anyone not like them ? I've yet to see it.

klebe 5y ago

Everything good is on my side, everything bad is on the other. How dare you introduce nuance to such a clearly black and white conversation?

glenstein 5y ago

>You're alienating people like me from being on your side. You're alienating yourself by following reactionary impulses in response to true statements. I'm also honesty not sure how true this theory of reaction is generally. I'm sure it's true for some, but in many cases it functions as a rhetorical strategy to put people on the defensive who are making legitimate criticisms. >But none of this was anti-science, nor did it have anything to do with COVID, and you've brought up both. It's anti-intellectual, and therefore a pertinent comparison, and they used the term anti intellectual and covered all the necessary bases. The cultural and social forces driving both are the same, and here, again, I feel like saying "don't talk about this because it alienates me" is just a rhetorical strategy to put people on the defensive without addressing the merits of what they are saying.

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KennyBlanken 5y ago

Hello, tone argument. Throwing a temper tantrum when someone objectively mentions the ideology of a party - threatening to take your toys out of the sandbox - really doesn't help your case in the "superiority" department. The reason things are so "partisan" is because of the political extremist actions and policies from your party.

dang 5y ago
You've broken the site guidelines by calling names. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully and without swipes, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Edit: it looks like you've been doing this quite a bit, as well as using HN primarily for political/ideological battle. That's against the guidelines and we ban accounts that do it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

ashtonkem 5y ago

“You’re right but don’t say that” is not a persuasive argument.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

There aren't sides! I'm not on your side, I don't even know you. No one here owes you anything. You're saying "you must woo me to do the right thing" and it's complete garbage (you've already admitted OP is "probably right"). If you're going to vote out of spite because people aren't "taking a chill pill" you can go pound sand. I'm tired of this "you didn't tell me in the perfect way, so I'm right and you're wrong" reductive nonsense.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Spoiler alert: there is no perfect way to tell them, that’s the point.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Right! that's what is so tiring about it. Maybe some people legitimately feel the way OP does, but more often than not it's just the ever-moving goalpost. It's impossible to tell the difference until you've wasted all your time. Once the goalposts are moved back to the point where you're practically begging, they'll turn around and try to assert dominance by calling you weak for trying to reason with them like a perosn.

spoonjim 5y ago

It is absolutely anti-science and anti-intellectual. To prosecute this person relies on destroying a meaningful distinction, which is the distinction between computer hacking and security research. "Why were you poking around the website? Developer Tools? Why were you using Developer Tools?" The governor is saying you should do what the government says rather than thinking for yourself.

debrice 5y ago

Can being a loyal Democrat or Republican diminishes your influence? It feels to me that most parties try much harder to please the undecideds than their base

natch 5y ago

Words like "your side" and "your camp" don't exactly de-escalate here. BTW I'm not trying to avoid making it a partisan issue, on the contrary. About that sense of superiority, it is relative to a pretty low bar, when people prioritize whether a person is on their side even over whether the person is right. The clustering of inane views amongst a particular identifiable group of people is fascinating. And inane views happen on both sides. I find it super interesting to see how each side chooses which bonkers views they do, and how they line up. Especially interesting is when they are not self consistent. For example, "my body, my rules," which is adopted by both sides in different contexts (abortion and vaccinations) both of which arguably are issues that involve personal choice but that also (again, arguably) affect the well being of others. Finding the partisan alignments amongst these things is super interesting and should not be a third rail (meaning an untouchable topic) in discussions, imho.

hluska 5y ago

Three things: 1.) This is an attack against a type of security researcher. Attacks against researchers are always anti-science. 2.) You’ve admitted to feeling alienated by truth. You might want to think that over and ask yourself some questions. That’s genuinely sad. 3.) If the truth genuinely alienates you, I don’t care about you or your feelings.

rpmisms 5y ago
>Attacks against researchers are always anti-science. that's blatantly untrue. If a researcher is malicious, attacking their person is not anti-science.
- bialpio 5y ago
  I don't think this is true. If a scientist follows the methodology correctly, they are not malicious. And if they are not following the scientific method, then they are not scientists. The trick is to figure out which self-proclaimed scientists, aren't.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    Andrew Wakefield?
    - bialpio 5y ago
      My point is that he stopped being a scientist the moment he stopped using scientific method, it just took a while for the rest of the world to realize that.
      - rpmisms 5y ago
        Ah, so they're only a researcher as long as you want them to be? My point stands, attacking a researcher is not inherently anti-scientific, and attacking their research is... well, it's good science.

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ugh123 5y ago

He's just calling out whats mentioned in the polls. How is that alienating you?

ArchOversight 5y ago

> Please don't make this a partisan issue. It is a partisan issue though. Republicans across the United States are largely pushing to reject science and schooling and are increasingly pushing through laws and changes that make the populace dumber, and more easily controllable. You know this is happening, yet you still voted for republicans in the past. It's your own fault if you continue to do so even in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is destroying America. Whether or not you feel alienated is no concern, your feelings don't matter here, and the fact that you are feeling alienated means you have the capacity to change, because the people that keep voting against intellectualism don't feel alienated, they feel emboldened when someone calls them out, they feel pride in knowing they are doing something "the left hates me for", even if that something is destroying America in the process.

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aaroninsf 5y ago

"It doesn't matter that you're probably right." You're the problem.

dang 5y ago
Attacking others like this will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

tlogan 5y ago

This is not really intellectually honest answer. I really do not understand how it is possible to separate Parson from Republican Party in Missouri? They very very much the same. It is like saying that Gavin Newsom is something different than Democrats in California.

sam0x17 5y ago

This is literally the definition of an anti-science attitude from a camp that has demonstrated anti-science and anti-intellectual attitudes on a plethora of subjects for the last several years but even going as far back as 20-30 years ago. Heck Regan planted the seeds of anti-intellectualism in the (R) party decades ago and they have done nothing but take hold and flourish. Alienation is exactly the type of thing one should use to combat this. Rationally minded people in the (R) camp SHOULD feel alienated by their intellectual peers when they spew anti-intellectual rhetoric and pass/support anti-intellectual policies or willingly associate, without protest, with people or groups known for doing so. You can't flip the script and say you feel alienated by your intellectual peers (HN) for not jumping with you onto the anti-intellectual band-wagon and/or for calling systemic anti-intellectualism out for what it is. Doing so would be as ridiculous as arguing that you find same-sex couples alienating/offensive/triggering because they tread on your precious sensibilities as an anti-LGBT person. In that scenario, you should feel alienated, because that is the primary societal force that will pressure you into recanting being an anti-LGBT person. Intellectuals are alienating you because they want you to get rid of the rest of your bad opinions, not just the select few you have already shed, before you can take your place at the table.