2 ms·

We need to return nuance to everything. And we don't need team politics any more. San Fran has major problems. It's under much better control now, than it wa

by b112 1y ago

We need to return nuance to everything. And we don't need team politics any more. San Fran has major problems. It's under much better control now, than it was a decade ago. Admitting and realising that truth, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong in Portland. This whole "All (red|blue) cities are (bad|good) is insane. Yet I see both sides playing it. Playing it, because one (bad|good) somehow means all are?! Madness.

k310 1y ago
Nuance seems to have gone out the window long ago with blatant lies being stated and posted everywhere. Any nuanced statement, meaning out of lockstep with The Information Ministry, is attacked, and with the usual ad-hominem. Seriously, if you disagreed on some point, say, "Portland is reduced to smoldering rubble" and came under attack via media and death threats, how would you nuance that? We in the U.S. have not experienced what other countries have experienced, at least since the Civil War, and any outside view, presumably nuanced, comes down hard on outright lies and personal and group threats. And other countries have fought fascism on their homelands and see the big picture.
RickJWagner 1y ago
“We don’t need team politics any more.” Perhaps the single greatest sentence on Hacker News, for quite some time. Thank you.
anigbrowl 1y ago
Team politics are a seemingly unavoidable outcome of the way our electoral system is structured: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law San Francisco has ranked choice voting, but it's available to only about 14 million voters, about 6% of the eligible voter population. It tends to be mostly on progressive districts, conservatives are implacably opposed to it in my experience. The federal requirements for single member districts are also part of the problem in my view. Some states have multi-member districts but the practice seems to be in decline over the last century. I also think the strictly scheduled elections in the US are a problem. It's made electioneering into an industry and led politicians to engage in all sorts of abusive behaviors, knowing they can run out the clock. You can see the sam mindset in US-centric sports like American Football and basketball, where coaches and teams habitually exploit the clock period by retaining possession if they ahead or forcing fouls to to create turnover opportunities if not. Fouling has become part of the game and this is a Bad Thing. The same is true of politics. The US would, in my view, be far better off with parliamentary government and a little less institutional stability, so as to limit the overwhelming advantages of incumbency, and the abuses that accompany it.

by b112 1y ago

k310 1y ago

Nuance seems to have gone out the window long ago with blatant lies being stated and posted everywhere. Any nuanced statement, meaning out of lockstep with The Information Ministry, is attacked, and with the usual ad-hominem. Seriously, if you disagreed on some point, say, "Portland is reduced to smoldering rubble" and came under attack via media and death threats, how would you nuance that? We in the U.S. have not experienced what other countries have experienced, at least since the Civil War, and any outside view, presumably nuanced, comes down hard on outright lies and personal and group threats. And other countries have fought fascism on their homelands and see the big picture.

RickJWagner 1y ago

“We don’t need team politics any more.” Perhaps the single greatest sentence on Hacker News, for quite some time. Thank you.

anigbrowl 1y ago

Team politics are a seemingly unavoidable outcome of the way our electoral system is structured: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law San Francisco has ranked choice voting, but it's available to only about 14 million voters, about 6% of the eligible voter population. It tends to be mostly on progressive districts, conservatives are implacably opposed to it in my experience. The federal requirements for single member districts are also part of the problem in my view. Some states have multi-member districts but the practice seems to be in decline over the last century. I also think the strictly scheduled elections in the US are a problem. It's made electioneering into an industry and led politicians to engage in all sorts of abusive behaviors, knowing they can run out the clock. You can see the sam mindset in US-centric sports like American Football and basketball, where coaches and teams habitually exploit the clock period by retaining possession if they ahead or forcing fouls to to create turnover opportunities if not. Fouling has become part of the game and this is a Bad Thing. The same is true of politics. The US would, in my view, be far better off with parliamentary government and a little less institutional stability, so as to limit the overwhelming advantages of incumbency, and the abuses that accompany it.