4 ms·

Exactly the things that a well meaning society should provide to its citizens. What's the point of "progress" if we can't provide the basics to the majority?

garciasn 1y ago
Just look at the name of each of the primary groups in the US: - Progressives - Moderates - Conservatives Progressives, by definition, want 'progress'. Conversely, Conservatives do NOT want progress; if anything, they want regression and thus their desire to roll everything back done in the name of Progress(ives). Moderates just want to play both sides and find some sort of middle ground; something that doesn't really play well in the US in the current political climate.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  This is not the right framing. The left vs right battle was invented so people wouldn't think about the up vs down battle. It's wealthy people vs everyone else but the wealthy people convinced everyone else that it's red vs blue.
  - deadbabe 1y ago
    This is also overly simplified. It suggests the battlefield is on a two axis graph but really there’s 3 dimensions.
  - an0malous 1y ago
    This is absolutely correct, just observe how both parties attack Zohran Mamdani in spite of his wild popularity
    - huhkerrf 1y ago
      The wild popularity of... checks... getting 56% of ranked-choice votes (44% of first place votes) in a Democratic Party primary in one of the most reliably Democratic cities in the US.
      - an0malous 1y ago
        Yes exactly. It doesn’t matter that it’s a democratic city because, as you said, it was the democratic primary so every candidate was a democrat.
- jameslk 1y ago
  The progressive movement is not representative of the whole Democratic Party (it’s widely liberals vs conservatives, not progressives) Republicans also don’t simply roll everything back that democrats do, as you can see with tariffs Moderates can be found to have ideas from more than simply two camps. In fact there are many different ideas and movements in the US (liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, neolibs, neocons, social democrats, classical liberalism, …)
- ImHereToVote 1y ago
  Progress towards what? Conserving what exactly? What is moderation between the progress goal, and the conservation of the past?
- huhkerrf 1y ago
  > Progressives, by definition, want 'progress'. Conversely, Conservatives do NOT want progress; if anything, they want regression and thus their desire to roll everything back done in the name of Progress(ives). I don't know what this logical fallacy is called, but it's a logical fallacy nonetheless. I'm going to take you at face value, and assume you're talking about the idealized state and not the parties as they stand right now. (Because the Republicans are increasingly reactionary and not at all conservative in their governing.) Saying that someone called conservative means that they, by definition, do not want progress is silly. First, it's better to say "change" than progress, because a lot of what has been put in place by the "progressive" party is not necessarily better and a direction forward. Second, you can want change in a conservative manner, and you can be of the belief that small changes are better for society than massive changes, Chesterton's Fence, all that. This kind of thinking is something most people leave behind after freshman year in University.
  - jameslk 1y ago
    > I don't know what this logical fallacy is called, but it's a logical fallacy nonetheless. It’s a straw man. The US is usually represented by liberals vs conservatives, not progressives. Also progressivism doesn’t simply mean “progress” conceptually
    - huhkerrf 1y ago
      I was thinking more the fallacy of "the name I give it must obviously accurately represent something."
- potato3732842 1y ago
  The "we oughtta run society in a way that <bible mumbo jumbo>" stuff that "conservatives" spew is literally textbook "progressivism", just not in a direction that anyone who self identifies as a "progressive" wants.
- jpadkins 1y ago
  so if a junior dev checks in 4k lines of crap code in the codebase, is that progress? And what do you call the more senior engineer that advises we make changes carefully, and that there are subtle, important reasons why systems are working well today. Is that engineer a conservative?
- Exoristos 1y ago
  Taking political labels at face value is stunningly naive. Parties' rhetoric is similarly untrustworthy to the point of irrelevance. In reality, major parties are just different combinations of graft, which for obvious reasons is not shared with the public. But even if that were not the fact, taking some label that arose a century ago (progressive) or four centuries (conservative, in England) -- under circumstances that are barely remembered and may have been mendacious even at the time -- and have changed continuously since -- is common enough, I guess, but sheer childishness.
thuuuomas 1y ago
In the United States, the working poor are considered deserving of their burdens in an immutable, moralizing, Calvinist way. “They make bad choices.” “They have bad culture.” “They have bad genes.”
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - sirbutters 1y ago
    Define "strong". sipstea
diet_jerome 1y ago
If market forces were allowed to operate, these needs would be fulfilled. Instead, the usa and a lot of europe have an enormous amount of regulation and government involvement in housing, healthcare, and food. Those of us who want progress and the world to be a better place to live should politically push for deregulation in these three markets/industries.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  An unregulated (or just less-regulated) free market is not going to fix health care cost. The problem is we treat it as a market, full of middle-men spooning away profit, and where people get care generally proportional to the amount they spend.
- _1tem 1y ago
  This is a No True Scotsman fallacy. If America, the #1 champion of free market capitalism cannot get it right, then it may be impossible. Communists claimed the same: they say it didn't work because we haven't tried "true communism" yet.
lanfeust6 1y ago
The US is the only odd one out in the first-world for healthcare, so we'll leave that aside (most people are covered through their employer, but many people aren't) Everyone eats in the US. The tweaker on the corner eats. People can acquire food through a dozen different institutions like charities, soup kitchens, the church, etc. I don't see how a system that would coerce everyone to rely on fixed-number rations is meaningfully superior. At best the argument seems to be "spare someone the indignity of getting free food, by forcing everyone to get free food" Housing is part-way. Homelessness scales with cost of housing, given the data. There are mediating services like shelters and low-income housing. It's not enough but it's not nothing. The solution is to do as cities do where cost is better: build more, enact zoning reform.

garciasn 1y ago

Just look at the name of each of the primary groups in the US: - Progressives - Moderates - Conservatives Progressives, by definition, want 'progress'. Conversely, Conservatives do NOT want progress; if anything, they want regression and thus their desire to roll everything back done in the name of Progress(ives). Moderates just want to play both sides and find some sort of middle ground; something that doesn't really play well in the US in the current political climate.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
This is not the right framing. The left vs right battle was invented so people wouldn't think about the up vs down battle. It's wealthy people vs everyone else but the wealthy people convinced everyone else that it's red vs blue.
- deadbabe 1y ago
  This is also overly simplified. It suggests the battlefield is on a two axis graph but really there’s 3 dimensions.
- an0malous 1y ago
  This is absolutely correct, just observe how both parties attack Zohran Mamdani in spite of his wild popularity
  - huhkerrf 1y ago
    The wild popularity of... checks... getting 56% of ranked-choice votes (44% of first place votes) in a Democratic Party primary in one of the most reliably Democratic cities in the US.
    - an0malous 1y ago
      Yes exactly. It doesn’t matter that it’s a democratic city because, as you said, it was the democratic primary so every candidate was a democrat.
jameslk 1y ago
The progressive movement is not representative of the whole Democratic Party (it’s widely liberals vs conservatives, not progressives) Republicans also don’t simply roll everything back that democrats do, as you can see with tariffs Moderates can be found to have ideas from more than simply two camps. In fact there are many different ideas and movements in the US (liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, neolibs, neocons, social democrats, classical liberalism, …)
ImHereToVote 1y ago
Progress towards what? Conserving what exactly? What is moderation between the progress goal, and the conservation of the past?
huhkerrf 1y ago
> Progressives, by definition, want 'progress'. Conversely, Conservatives do NOT want progress; if anything, they want regression and thus their desire to roll everything back done in the name of Progress(ives). I don't know what this logical fallacy is called, but it's a logical fallacy nonetheless. I'm going to take you at face value, and assume you're talking about the idealized state and not the parties as they stand right now. (Because the Republicans are increasingly reactionary and not at all conservative in their governing.) Saying that someone called conservative means that they, by definition, do not want progress is silly. First, it's better to say "change" than progress, because a lot of what has been put in place by the "progressive" party is not necessarily better and a direction forward. Second, you can want change in a conservative manner, and you can be of the belief that small changes are better for society than massive changes, Chesterton's Fence, all that. This kind of thinking is something most people leave behind after freshman year in University.
- jameslk 1y ago
  > I don't know what this logical fallacy is called, but it's a logical fallacy nonetheless. It’s a straw man. The US is usually represented by liberals vs conservatives, not progressives. Also progressivism doesn’t simply mean “progress” conceptually
  - huhkerrf 1y ago
    I was thinking more the fallacy of "the name I give it must obviously accurately represent something."
potato3732842 1y ago
The "we oughtta run society in a way that <bible mumbo jumbo>" stuff that "conservatives" spew is literally textbook "progressivism", just not in a direction that anyone who self identifies as a "progressive" wants.
jpadkins 1y ago
so if a junior dev checks in 4k lines of crap code in the codebase, is that progress? And what do you call the more senior engineer that advises we make changes carefully, and that there are subtle, important reasons why systems are working well today. Is that engineer a conservative?
Exoristos 1y ago
Taking political labels at face value is stunningly naive. Parties' rhetoric is similarly untrustworthy to the point of irrelevance. In reality, major parties are just different combinations of graft, which for obvious reasons is not shared with the public. But even if that were not the fact, taking some label that arose a century ago (progressive) or four centuries (conservative, in England) -- under circumstances that are barely remembered and may have been mendacious even at the time -- and have changed continuously since -- is common enough, I guess, but sheer childishness.

thuuuomas 1y ago

In the United States, the working poor are considered deserving of their burdens in an immutable, moralizing, Calvinist way. “They make bad choices.” “They have bad culture.” “They have bad genes.”

Der_Einzige 1y ago
[flagged]
- sirbutters 1y ago
  Define "strong". sipstea

diet_jerome 1y ago

If market forces were allowed to operate, these needs would be fulfilled. Instead, the usa and a lot of europe have an enormous amount of regulation and government involvement in housing, healthcare, and food. Those of us who want progress and the world to be a better place to live should politically push for deregulation in these three markets/industries.

ryandrake 1y ago
An unregulated (or just less-regulated) free market is not going to fix health care cost. The problem is we treat it as a market, full of middle-men spooning away profit, and where people get care generally proportional to the amount they spend.
_1tem 1y ago
This is a No True Scotsman fallacy. If America, the #1 champion of free market capitalism cannot get it right, then it may be impossible. Communists claimed the same: they say it didn't work because we haven't tried "true communism" yet.

lanfeust6 1y ago

The US is the only odd one out in the first-world for healthcare, so we'll leave that aside (most people are covered through their employer, but many people aren't) Everyone eats in the US. The tweaker on the corner eats. People can acquire food through a dozen different institutions like charities, soup kitchens, the church, etc. I don't see how a system that would coerce everyone to rely on fixed-number rations is meaningfully superior. At best the argument seems to be "spare someone the indignity of getting free food, by forcing everyone to get free food" Housing is part-way. Homelessness scales with cost of housing, given the data. There are mediating services like shelters and low-income housing. It's not enough but it's not nothing. The solution is to do as cities do where cost is better: build more, enact zoning reform.