[throwawa66]

It's incredible how much downvotes you got for this without any explanation. Your proposal sounds sensible and I agree that we need to find a new system. It doesn't have to be this that you described but we should be open to change. Capitalism the way it is leads us in the wrong direction and socialism doesn't fare too much better in practice. We need to redraw a plan for the 21st century

[Qwertious]

If I were to guess, it's down voted because when SKIMMED, it sounds like an off-topic, far too long, and overly political comment.

It's a fair comment, but only if you actually read it.

[vinay_ys]

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html might be the reason why a lot of things here got downvoted. Specifically:

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

[bjoli]

Discouraging political discussions is a very political thing in itself. The comment we are discussing might not be a great example of encouraging curiosity, but being the person that says "don't be so political" is complacent and ignorant. We arrived at the current situation due to political decisions and a political process.

I am not accusing you of being that person, not anyone else. I am just tired of people not seeing that upholding the current situation is as political as criticizing it. This discussion made me try to put it in words.

[CRConrad]

But part of a curiosity-based discussion is also trying to satisfy the curiosity of others by providing answers. The most insightful and thought-provoking of those can sometimes be rather “political”, because the things we think about and are curious about are.

[pksebben]

this doesn't read like a battle, though. one could argue that opinions that run counter to the generally accepted norm are inherently good for curiosity.

[EGreg]

It is indeed incredible. As I said, you cannot “criticize the profit” in the USA without losing social standing. Capitalism is a national religion because people think the only alternative is socialism (collective ownership of the means of production - which btw isn’t scary on small levels) and the USA fought a cold war with USSR for decades.

That’s why there will be a third party in the USA that unites disaffected progressives on the left with disaffected paleoconservatives on the right. A lot of people are fed up with the divisions.

I welcome counterpoints and debate but as you can see — there are just silent downvotes instead

[isoskeles]

You're probably being downvoted because even if your critique might be thoughtful at some parts, it is also quite snarky and smarmy at the beginning, and sounds like it's posing an ideological battle. Starting at the third sentence, "This is what capitalism looks like, folks." In fact, you're still doing it, "Capitalism is a national religion..."

Do you think people on HN want to engage with your comments when you're saying they're foolishly clinging to a religious belief?

By the way, this was a decent point: "[W]e are all depending on your integrity and ability to rebuff life-changing amounts of money to not mine our data." Maybe this thread would be different if you stayed with points like that instead of accusing people of harboring religious beliefs that pulls the wool over our eyes, preventing us from seeing things your way.

[filleduchaos]

> Do you think people on HN want to engage with your comments when you're saying they're foolishly clinging to a religious belief?

To be fair you inserted "foolishly clinging", and are now blaming them for something they did not actually say.'

Capitalism is highly akin to religion - they're not the first and will not be the last to draw that comparison, and plenty of words have already been written on the topic. If your response to reading "capitalism is a national religion" is to assume you're being insulted, perhaps consider that the statement may be more true than you think.

[worik]

Off topic, but....

There is unlikely to be a third party in USA as the system is designed to have two parties.

There may be a third party that forces the Dems and GoP to unite, back to two...