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Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly servi

Everything you're saying can be true and co-exist with the reality, which is the current administration has been so vindictive, short-sighted, and nakedly serving the billionaire class, that its own supporters have had to completely disengage with everything The Executive Branch is doing. If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are completely tuned out to what is going on. They have to be. It's embarrassing. Instead, they are still talking about trans people and wokeness, because that is evergreen territory that can forever be raged about but never "solved," because it never affected them in the first place. You accuse HN of being in an echo chamber that you've disregarded an even simpler explanation: The cognitive dissonance of voting for someone who immediately backed out of everything he promised (no wars, releasing Epstein files, serving the middle class) that it has broken some people's perception of their own judgement, and they can't engage with it anymore. There's really no other reason to be suddenly quiet. This isn't 2021, just after Jan 6th. This is almost two years into Republicans having total control of the government. It's just been such a disaster people don't want to publicly root for them anymore.

MisterMower 23d ago
I think GP is right: this place has become an echo chamber. Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal, it would not be seriously considered, or worse, flagged. And why would anyone waste their time when they know their efforts will be immediately dismissed and memory holed?
- hackyhacky 23d ago
  > Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal You could easily test this by posting a thoughtful rebuttal. I've been posting actively on this thread and I haven't yet seen a thoughtful rebuttal, although there have been several comments in favor of the current administration's approach to voter enforcement via the USPS. Unfortunately, literally all of those comments were based on misinformation or make sweeping assertions, unsupported by evidence, about voter fraud in the US.
  - wallst07 23d ago
    The thread is about general echo chamber / liberal bias though, not specifically on USPS/voter fraud. Any/Every discussion that makes the top page on HN about politics will flood out most of the conservative discussion, further most of the comments are echo chamber 'me too, Trump fascist' that adds very little to the conversation.
    - hackyhacky 23d ago
      > Any/Every discussion that makes the top page on HN about politics will flood out most of the conservative discussion, further most of the comments are echo chamber 'me too, I keep waiting for all these well-thought-out, factually-based, good-faith arguments offered by conservatives but for some reason they never appear. It seems that the only comments written by conservatives are knee-jerk, xenophobic, semi-literate arguments based in half-truths and GOP talking points. Maybe we scared off all the "good" conservatives? > Trump fascist' that adds very little to the conversation. I agree that it adds little to the conversation, but it's not clear to me what else you'd like to hear. If you think that a federal takeover of state elections in absence of any real election crisis is not fascist behavior, feel free to make that argument here and I will respond in a temperate and measured tone.
      - wallst07 22d ago
        Are you talking about this particular topic, or all of them? Are you able to say one positive change current administration has purposefully done? "I agree that it adds little to the conversation" Do you think those comments should be flagged and [deleted] or they add value here and should be kept around?
        hackyhacky 22d ago
        > Are you able to say one positive change current administration has purposefully done? Not sure what kind of test this is supposed to be, but okay, I'll bite. He's done some things that could be good, but because of his unique pathology, he makes even good things bad. Look at the Trump Accounts. Creating a savings account for children is potentially a good thing. Here are the problems with it: during his presidency, he has single-handedly doubled the national debt, so this isn't a great opportunity to give away money; the move is ideological incoherent, coming from a guy who thinks that wealth redistribution is un-American; and of course he's a narcissist, so he's incapable of doing anything with stamping his name on it. It's hilarious that MAGAs decry "partisanship" but for some reason love obviously partisan, and likely Hatch Act-violating, nonense like this. > Do you think those comments should be flagged and [deleted] or they add value here and should be kept around? Some of those comments are flagged because they express non-constructive, hyper-partisan, anti-immigrant sentiment. They deserve to be flagged. Some are flagged because they are just unpopular on HN; those should not be flagged. I'd never claim that HN doesn't lean left, and it's always hard to be a minority in a community. The appropriate response from conservatives like you, in order to prevent your comments from being flagged, is to comment better: use factual evidence, logical arguments, and non-partisan language. Unfortunately, the few HN conservatives around here aren't doing that.
somenameforme 23d ago
There are currently 20 root level comments. 8 have been flagged. Which is again starting to look a lot like Reddit. Some of those flags are quite reasonable, but some are not. And this happens every single time you have a thread that brings out the partisan flaggers, which will discourage future conversation from those that did bother to try to discuss and got hit by them. Absent the flaggers existence, you'd have a ratio of discussion that would much more closely resemble what we see in things like support polls. But with it, you end up with an echo chamber that is not only uninformative, but malinformative because you now have absolutely no clue what people are thinking, why they're thinking that, what their relative numbers may be, or any opportunity to try to change their mind. So you just end up with polarization and both sides radicalizing themselves as they end up in echo chambers where a partisan view is taken as the baseline for normal.
- LeBit 23d ago
  If the quality comments that have been flagged are like what you see on /r/conservative , it might be that you subjectively see quality where others see something else. Can you point at the well thought out rebuttal that have been victim of flagging?
  - wallst07 23d ago
    You don't get it, or are not following through. The thread started with why a Conservative wouldn't post here. It's simple, it's not worth getting comments downvoted or flagged for having an unpopular opinion [not nationally but here]. You will say it's not a reasonable opinion, it's hate or fear and should be downvoted/flagged, but that is incorrect and exactly what leads to echo chambers. Which is ironic because HN is usually very pro-speech/thought... or used to be.
    - Capricorn2481 23d ago
      I can assure you plenty of conservative views get shared on HN, all the time. Saying otherwise means you must not be on here much. It's just that defending the current administration, at this state, does take a level of bad faith that people on all sides of the political spectrum are sick of hearing. To imply it's only hardcore liberals flagging these comments is wishful thinking
wallst07 23d ago
"If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are completely tuned out to what is going on." Really, where exactly? I'd say 100% polar opposite. I live in a county that has voted for a R president almost every election, and the conversations are very different. There is a lot of disagreement, but it's usually the disagreement on the HOW not the WHAT.
- hackyhacky 21d ago
  Oh I'm sure they're having conversations. Those conversations are about how evil immigrants are, how tariffs are not taxes, what color MAGA hat to buy, and why Trump is the most honest billionaire in history. Conversations not tethered to reality.
specialist 23d ago
Because Trump support is an identity, not a belief system. I'm currently immersed in MAGA world (eldercare, siblings). Their daily media diet is 1984's Two Minutes of Hate all day long on repeat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate I'm still unsure about the cultish aspects. Habitual hate and anger are akin to addiction. Which may be sufficient to explain the behavior I'm seeing. (They really hate their perceived enemies.) In favor of the cult theory, MAGA et al do check a lot of the boxes.

MisterMower 23d ago

I think GP is right: this place has become an echo chamber. Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal, it would not be seriously considered, or worse, flagged. And why would anyone waste their time when they know their efforts will be immediately dismissed and memory holed?

hackyhacky 23d ago
> Even if someone posted a thoughtful rebuttal You could easily test this by posting a thoughtful rebuttal. I've been posting actively on this thread and I haven't yet seen a thoughtful rebuttal, although there have been several comments in favor of the current administration's approach to voter enforcement via the USPS. Unfortunately, literally all of those comments were based on misinformation or make sweeping assertions, unsupported by evidence, about voter fraud in the US.
- wallst07 23d ago
  The thread is about general echo chamber / liberal bias though, not specifically on USPS/voter fraud. Any/Every discussion that makes the top page on HN about politics will flood out most of the conservative discussion, further most of the comments are echo chamber 'me too, Trump fascist' that adds very little to the conversation.
  - hackyhacky 23d ago
    > Any/Every discussion that makes the top page on HN about politics will flood out most of the conservative discussion, further most of the comments are echo chamber 'me too, I keep waiting for all these well-thought-out, factually-based, good-faith arguments offered by conservatives but for some reason they never appear. It seems that the only comments written by conservatives are knee-jerk, xenophobic, semi-literate arguments based in half-truths and GOP talking points. Maybe we scared off all the "good" conservatives? > Trump fascist' that adds very little to the conversation. I agree that it adds little to the conversation, but it's not clear to me what else you'd like to hear. If you think that a federal takeover of state elections in absence of any real election crisis is not fascist behavior, feel free to make that argument here and I will respond in a temperate and measured tone.
    - wallst07 22d ago
      Are you talking about this particular topic, or all of them? Are you able to say one positive change current administration has purposefully done? "I agree that it adds little to the conversation" Do you think those comments should be flagged and [deleted] or they add value here and should be kept around?
      - hackyhacky 22d ago
        > Are you able to say one positive change current administration has purposefully done? Not sure what kind of test this is supposed to be, but okay, I'll bite. He's done some things that could be good, but because of his unique pathology, he makes even good things bad. Look at the Trump Accounts. Creating a savings account for children is potentially a good thing. Here are the problems with it: during his presidency, he has single-handedly doubled the national debt, so this isn't a great opportunity to give away money; the move is ideological incoherent, coming from a guy who thinks that wealth redistribution is un-American; and of course he's a narcissist, so he's incapable of doing anything with stamping his name on it. It's hilarious that MAGAs decry "partisanship" but for some reason love obviously partisan, and likely Hatch Act-violating, nonense like this. > Do you think those comments should be flagged and [deleted] or they add value here and should be kept around? Some of those comments are flagged because they express non-constructive, hyper-partisan, anti-immigrant sentiment. They deserve to be flagged. Some are flagged because they are just unpopular on HN; those should not be flagged. I'd never claim that HN doesn't lean left, and it's always hard to be a minority in a community. The appropriate response from conservatives like you, in order to prevent your comments from being flagged, is to comment better: use factual evidence, logical arguments, and non-partisan language. Unfortunately, the few HN conservatives around here aren't doing that.

somenameforme 23d ago

There are currently 20 root level comments. 8 have been flagged. Which is again starting to look a lot like Reddit. Some of those flags are quite reasonable, but some are not. And this happens every single time you have a thread that brings out the partisan flaggers, which will discourage future conversation from those that did bother to try to discuss and got hit by them. Absent the flaggers existence, you'd have a ratio of discussion that would much more closely resemble what we see in things like support polls. But with it, you end up with an echo chamber that is not only uninformative, but malinformative because you now have absolutely no clue what people are thinking, why they're thinking that, what their relative numbers may be, or any opportunity to try to change their mind. So you just end up with polarization and both sides radicalizing themselves as they end up in echo chambers where a partisan view is taken as the baseline for normal.

LeBit 23d ago
If the quality comments that have been flagged are like what you see on /r/conservative , it might be that you subjectively see quality where others see something else. Can you point at the well thought out rebuttal that have been victim of flagging?
- wallst07 23d ago
  You don't get it, or are not following through. The thread started with why a Conservative wouldn't post here. It's simple, it's not worth getting comments downvoted or flagged for having an unpopular opinion [not nationally but here]. You will say it's not a reasonable opinion, it's hate or fear and should be downvoted/flagged, but that is incorrect and exactly what leads to echo chambers. Which is ironic because HN is usually very pro-speech/thought... or used to be.
  - Capricorn2481 23d ago
    I can assure you plenty of conservative views get shared on HN, all the time. Saying otherwise means you must not be on here much. It's just that defending the current administration, at this state, does take a level of bad faith that people on all sides of the political spectrum are sick of hearing. To imply it's only hardcore liberals flagging these comments is wishful thinking

wallst07 23d ago

"If you talk to Trump supporters in real life, they are not having nuanced discussions about the state of our country, they are completely tuned out to what is going on." Really, where exactly? I'd say 100% polar opposite. I live in a county that has voted for a R president almost every election, and the conversations are very different. There is a lot of disagreement, but it's usually the disagreement on the HOW not the WHAT.

hackyhacky 21d ago
Oh I'm sure they're having conversations. Those conversations are about how evil immigrants are, how tariffs are not taxes, what color MAGA hat to buy, and why Trump is the most honest billionaire in history. Conversations not tethered to reality.

specialist 23d ago

Because Trump support is an identity, not a belief system. I'm currently immersed in MAGA world (eldercare, siblings). Their daily media diet is 1984's Two Minutes of Hate all day long on repeat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate I'm still unsure about the cultish aspects. Habitual hate and anger are akin to addiction. Which may be sufficient to explain the behavior I'm seeing. (They really hate their perceived enemies.) In favor of the cult theory, MAGA et al do check a lot of the boxes.