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I'd probably consider most closely aligning with libertarian-ism but honestly being part of any "ism" is just a drag. I don't see why you can't favor parts of

by robswc 4y ago

I'd probably consider most closely aligning with libertarian-ism but honestly being part of any "ism" is just a drag. I don't see why you can't favor parts of different ideologies while rejecting others. A funny example... I find socialists very good at identifying societal problems and even identifying their core causes... the only problem is I can't say I find a lot of the proposed solutions all that great. One of my favorite examples of an intention != consequence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_... TL;DR, Awhile back, Sweden decided to tax financial trades. It was a "tiny" tax of just 1%. This tax reduced revenues of various other taxes and completely destroyed their markets which haven't recovered, even to this day. Hundreds of millions evaporated in the span of years and potentially billions over the decades... not to mention the loss of jobs and opportunities for the country as a whole... That said, I'm glad HN is mostly apolitical... at least relative to other sites I visit, lol.

Apocryphon 4y ago
I'd say you'd probably fit into the archetypal libertarianish techie mould - "socially liberal, economically conservative", valuing pragmatism above all with a bias towards technological/engineered solutions, and perhaps generally apolitical and disliking of labels. Not to label you specifically, but I think that sort of soft-libertarian is a common engineering archetype, both on HN and other tech communities all the way back to the BBS era. I think it's still a pretty common political formulation to have around here, but with all of the messes and crises of the past couple of decades, I see on HN people might be more receptive to something to rein in large corporations, whether it be government or even organized worker power. Was the Swedish financial trade tax a Tobin tax?
- robswc 4y ago
  >Was the Swedish financial trade tax a Tobin tax? Mmmm... I'd say it could have been, yes. IIRC the main purpose was to raise revenue though (https://www.bis.org/publ/confp01s.pdf https://www.bis.org/publ/confp01s.pdf), while a Tobin is mainly aimed at curbing speculation. They have very similar effects though. >I'd say you'd probably fit into the archetypal libertarianish techie mould For sure. I see no sense in denying it. >I see on HN people might be more receptive to something to rein in large corporations I can also agree with this. I try not to absorb myself in political philosophy but more or less, that's why I can't say I would ever be 100% one thing or the other (yea, tired trope but see no reason it isn't valid) . Ask anyone that knows me, I _hate_ TikTok and a lot of actions taken by big corporations as of late.

by robswc 4y ago

Apocryphon 4y ago

I'd say you'd probably fit into the archetypal libertarianish techie mould - "socially liberal, economically conservative", valuing pragmatism above all with a bias towards technological/engineered solutions, and perhaps generally apolitical and disliking of labels. Not to label you specifically, but I think that sort of soft-libertarian is a common engineering archetype, both on HN and other tech communities all the way back to the BBS era. I think it's still a pretty common political formulation to have around here, but with all of the messes and crises of the past couple of decades, I see on HN people might be more receptive to something to rein in large corporations, whether it be government or even organized worker power. Was the Swedish financial trade tax a Tobin tax?

robswc 4y ago
>Was the Swedish financial trade tax a Tobin tax? Mmmm... I'd say it could have been, yes. IIRC the main purpose was to raise revenue though (https://www.bis.org/publ/confp01s.pdf https://www.bis.org/publ/confp01s.pdf), while a Tobin is mainly aimed at curbing speculation. They have very similar effects though. >I'd say you'd probably fit into the archetypal libertarianish techie mould For sure. I see no sense in denying it. >I see on HN people might be more receptive to something to rein in large corporations I can also agree with this. I try not to absorb myself in political philosophy but more or less, that's why I can't say I would ever be 100% one thing or the other (yea, tired trope but see no reason it isn't valid) . Ask anyone that knows me, I _hate_ TikTok and a lot of actions taken by big corporations as of late.