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by ak_yo 3137 days ago
This is an interesting perspective but it doesn't really mesh with my experience. If I had to describe the typical political sympathies of HN, it would be "somewhat right of center on everything, except far left on tech policy" (e.g. strongly pro net neutrality [1], lukewarm on race/gender disparities in hiring [2]). Can you think of a big thread that drew a solidly left-leaning reaction on a social issue?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14754772

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=diversity&sort=byPopularity&pr...

2 comments

Not really right.

Anti-surveillance, anti-war, mildly anti-consumerist, mildly pro-immigration, mildly anti-religion, anti-nationalism, anti-monopoly, anti-drug-war, anti-1%

Right-wing politicians campaign on the exact opposite of all of these positions. It's not too different than libertarian, but right has almost nothing in common with libertarian anymore.

Anything related to universal basic income? UBI is a hard left policy - it's essentially welfare+++
Much of the support for UBI comes from a segment of the libertarian right which sees it as a way to eliminate welfare bureaucracy and regulation (not just regulation in the public benefit space, but also minimum wages and some others.)

It's not really a “hard left” policy, it's more a policy of pragmatic libertarians on both left and right, opposed by both dogmatic libertarians (because it remains a public intervention, if lighter-touch than the status quo policies it would displace immediately or over time) and those on the left and right with a stronger preference for government control and direction.