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Not to mention arguably the worst aspect of Karma belief: that the successful deserve it. This kind of belief is what causes so many people in America to vote

Not to mention arguably the worst aspect of Karma belief: that the successful deserve it. This kind of belief is what causes so many people in America to vote squarely against their own interests for their entire lives.

eshvk 13y ago
The problem with a flowery eastern concept misinterpreted and adopted in the west is that the original meaning gets distorted. Karma is merely a way of understanding "cause and effect". > This kind of belief is what causes so many people in America to vote squarely against their own interests for their entire lives. That is patronizing. There is a wide spectrum of reasons why one might say vote for lower/higher taxes between "they worked hard, so they deserve it" and "fuck you, I want mine".
- akiselev 13y ago
  I don't know if my American history books were particularly biased (although I had a great and seemingly unbiased one in AP US History), but expressing aspiration through voting has been a long common thread through US history. For example, slaves were expensive so only a small small minority owned them. The vast majority supported it because (or at least some of the primary reasons cited by my history books) it a) established someone lower on the social ladder than them and b) they all aspired to the "American dream" which at that time was owning slaves and didn't want to end it before they even became wealthy.
  - eshvk 13y ago
    Yeah, I have heard of that narrative; Steinbeck did say “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”. I still find it patronizing; it is reductive. The model assumes a caricature of a poor man who votes for slavery in the hope of owning a slave one day. Maybe, he just doesn't like black people? Maybe, he worries that his precarious job will be lost by new competition? Maybe, Colonel George from the plantation threatened him if he votes for abolition?
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      Interesting that not a single one of your proposed counter-options is any nicer than the one you dislike.
      - eshvk 13y ago
        You are missing the point; I don't dislike or like any of the reasons. I am merely pointing out that a simplistic model is crude.
    - VLM 13y ago
      All so close, seeing the trees, but not the forest. HN is pretty good at programming and startups, but even the shortest expedition into history gets even the most amateur historians all wound up and LOL. The fundamental problem was regionalism and federalism vs states rights. Not talked about for obvious political reasons now a days because that would bring up obvious difficult questions... All the issues mentioned were trees in the forest being fought over as PR fodder for the bigger issue of the south wanted to be the south and didn't want some yankee telling them anything, even if the yankee was correct. Extreme stubbornness on both sides. Then the war of northern aggression started because the southerners told the northerners to F off and leave them alone too many times. If you could have magically removed slavery and plantations from the history of the south and reinsert another set of trees like space alien contact and medieval era 3-d printers, the forest would remain and the civil war would have been fought more or less the same way over PLA vs ABS figurines of intellectually protected property of images of space aliens or something. The Trees Just Don't Matter (compared to the forest) To some extent I believe this comes from the HN population consisting of many unmarried people. Trust me, once you get married you can bicker over stuff that has nothing to do with the real issue all day if you want.
      - flyinRyan 13y ago
        I'm very aware of the reasons the North actually went to war. It was, incidentally, that southern stubbornness that lost the South the war since France would have almost certainly come in on their side (and from the Northern front where Grant couldn't have hoped to deal with them) had Robert E. Lee been half as smart as Lincoln and simply claimed they wanted to be a separate country. But you can't ignore the slavery though. Without it, there would have been no wealth in the south worth going to war for (nor enough resources to support succession).
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  >That is patronizing. There is a wide spectrum of reasons why one might say vote for lower/higher taxes between "they worked hard, so they deserve it" and "fuck you, I want mine". Since I never clarified what I meant and you came up with such a specific notion, it would appear you're projecting some defensiveness here. But I will go ahead and clarify my position: The fact of the matter is, the US is a combative system. For it to work properly, each side has to take the extremes of their own position so the result ends up in the middle. The rich don't need the poor or middle class to vote as a rich person, they can literally pay people to do that for them if they wish. A poor person should vote for issues that help them specifically and directly. Forget trickle-down even if you're ignorant enough to believe in it. A perfect example is right-to-work states. Within the last year or so I read a story about a husband in (I believe it was) Kentucky who was sent out on a neglected platform to do some work, it collapsed and he died. The family was simply out a husband, father and provider. They couldn't even sue because the way the laws worked in that state meant the company would have literally had to try and murder the man for the family to be able to sue over the indecent. I bet if you talked to most people in that state, they would be for this law because they don't want people suing McDonald's over hot coffee, for example. But why would they care? They're closer to the burned woman than they are McDonald's, voting their interests would mean they vote for the ability to sue McDonald's if they accidentally burn themselves. Of course ditto-heads will scream "yea but if we did that it would ruin the whole country!" and indeed if the poor and middle class always got their way it would. But that wouldn't happen. Voting their own interests would simply pull the final result closer to the middle. That is, it would present ridiculous situations like a family not even being able to sue a company for a true case of near-criminal negligence and wrongful death.
  - eshvk 13y ago
    > Since I never clarified what I meant and you came up with such a specific notion, it would appear you're projecting some defensiveness here. Correct, I was taking up an example, which is why I used the phrase "one might say". I didn't advocate a specific position (higher or lower taxes). I am completely detached; I don't participate in the political system in America (neither do I plan to ever) so I simply don't care. I am not in disagreement with your thesis. The problem that bugs me is this presumption that the people are not cognizant of what is good for them. Maybe, the people do something for a reason which is of interest to them (but not the reason that someone else thinks is right for them). E.g. maybe, the people who sue McDonalds don't want their neighbor becoming rich while they are poor. This of course is not limited to the poor; this is a human thing. I would argue that it is not in Warren Buffett's self interest to vote for higher taxes; then again that is my opinion and is not necessarily the same as his. If you examined your decisions over a certain period of time, you will find that the reasons you do something are not necessarily in accordance with what society (or $person whom you think is smarter than you) does them for.

eshvk 13y ago

The problem with a flowery eastern concept misinterpreted and adopted in the west is that the original meaning gets distorted. Karma is merely a way of understanding "cause and effect". > This kind of belief is what causes so many people in America to vote squarely against their own interests for their entire lives. That is patronizing. There is a wide spectrum of reasons why one might say vote for lower/higher taxes between "they worked hard, so they deserve it" and "fuck you, I want mine".

akiselev 13y ago
I don't know if my American history books were particularly biased (although I had a great and seemingly unbiased one in AP US History), but expressing aspiration through voting has been a long common thread through US history. For example, slaves were expensive so only a small small minority owned them. The vast majority supported it because (or at least some of the primary reasons cited by my history books) it a) established someone lower on the social ladder than them and b) they all aspired to the "American dream" which at that time was owning slaves and didn't want to end it before they even became wealthy.
- eshvk 13y ago
  Yeah, I have heard of that narrative; Steinbeck did say “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”. I still find it patronizing; it is reductive. The model assumes a caricature of a poor man who votes for slavery in the hope of owning a slave one day. Maybe, he just doesn't like black people? Maybe, he worries that his precarious job will be lost by new competition? Maybe, Colonel George from the plantation threatened him if he votes for abolition?
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    Interesting that not a single one of your proposed counter-options is any nicer than the one you dislike.
    - eshvk 13y ago
      You are missing the point; I don't dislike or like any of the reasons. I am merely pointing out that a simplistic model is crude.
  - VLM 13y ago
    All so close, seeing the trees, but not the forest. HN is pretty good at programming and startups, but even the shortest expedition into history gets even the most amateur historians all wound up and LOL. The fundamental problem was regionalism and federalism vs states rights. Not talked about for obvious political reasons now a days because that would bring up obvious difficult questions... All the issues mentioned were trees in the forest being fought over as PR fodder for the bigger issue of the south wanted to be the south and didn't want some yankee telling them anything, even if the yankee was correct. Extreme stubbornness on both sides. Then the war of northern aggression started because the southerners told the northerners to F off and leave them alone too many times. If you could have magically removed slavery and plantations from the history of the south and reinsert another set of trees like space alien contact and medieval era 3-d printers, the forest would remain and the civil war would have been fought more or less the same way over PLA vs ABS figurines of intellectually protected property of images of space aliens or something. The Trees Just Don't Matter (compared to the forest) To some extent I believe this comes from the HN population consisting of many unmarried people. Trust me, once you get married you can bicker over stuff that has nothing to do with the real issue all day if you want.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      I'm very aware of the reasons the North actually went to war. It was, incidentally, that southern stubbornness that lost the South the war since France would have almost certainly come in on their side (and from the Northern front where Grant couldn't have hoped to deal with them) had Robert E. Lee been half as smart as Lincoln and simply claimed they wanted to be a separate country. But you can't ignore the slavery though. Without it, there would have been no wealth in the south worth going to war for (nor enough resources to support succession).
flyinRyan 13y ago
>That is patronizing. There is a wide spectrum of reasons why one might say vote for lower/higher taxes between "they worked hard, so they deserve it" and "fuck you, I want mine". Since I never clarified what I meant and you came up with such a specific notion, it would appear you're projecting some defensiveness here. But I will go ahead and clarify my position: The fact of the matter is, the US is a combative system. For it to work properly, each side has to take the extremes of their own position so the result ends up in the middle. The rich don't need the poor or middle class to vote as a rich person, they can literally pay people to do that for them if they wish. A poor person should vote for issues that help them specifically and directly. Forget trickle-down even if you're ignorant enough to believe in it. A perfect example is right-to-work states. Within the last year or so I read a story about a husband in (I believe it was) Kentucky who was sent out on a neglected platform to do some work, it collapsed and he died. The family was simply out a husband, father and provider. They couldn't even sue because the way the laws worked in that state meant the company would have literally had to try and murder the man for the family to be able to sue over the indecent. I bet if you talked to most people in that state, they would be for this law because they don't want people suing McDonald's over hot coffee, for example. But why would they care? They're closer to the burned woman than they are McDonald's, voting their interests would mean they vote for the ability to sue McDonald's if they accidentally burn themselves. Of course ditto-heads will scream "yea but if we did that it would ruin the whole country!" and indeed if the poor and middle class always got their way it would. But that wouldn't happen. Voting their own interests would simply pull the final result closer to the middle. That is, it would present ridiculous situations like a family not even being able to sue a company for a true case of near-criminal negligence and wrongful death.
- eshvk 13y ago
  > Since I never clarified what I meant and you came up with such a specific notion, it would appear you're projecting some defensiveness here. Correct, I was taking up an example, which is why I used the phrase "one might say". I didn't advocate a specific position (higher or lower taxes). I am completely detached; I don't participate in the political system in America (neither do I plan to ever) so I simply don't care. I am not in disagreement with your thesis. The problem that bugs me is this presumption that the people are not cognizant of what is good for them. Maybe, the people do something for a reason which is of interest to them (but not the reason that someone else thinks is right for them). E.g. maybe, the people who sue McDonalds don't want their neighbor becoming rich while they are poor. This of course is not limited to the poor; this is a human thing. I would argue that it is not in Warren Buffett's self interest to vote for higher taxes; then again that is my opinion and is not necessarily the same as his. If you examined your decisions over a certain period of time, you will find that the reasons you do something are not necessarily in accordance with what society (or $person whom you think is smarter than you) does them for.