[techbrobane]

This is an ahistorical and backwards analogy. Historically the left/right political divide goes back to the French revolution where the rights side of their parliament supported the monarchy and the left opposed. From this perspective AI would seem more centralized, authoritarian, and right-wing, while open networks are more democratic, distributed, and left-wing.

[chrisco255]

In the US we never had that battle. We had Federalists (more aligned with a stronger federal government) vs Antifederalists (more aligned with weaker federal government and pushed for the bill of rights to limit government power). Neither one wanted or ever pushed for authoritarianism. It's about individual rights vs local vs national government, and how much authority is delegated to the national body. I think right vs left is an overused and over-simplistic tool for analyzing modern politics, especially across various cultures.

[TiberiusC]

In the US, higher small business tax rates are championed solely by the left. This fact is more accurate in characterizing left/right centralized authoritarianism than tech metaphors ever could.

[luma]

Is there someone out there campaigning on "increase taxes on small business"? I think this is a strawman, "tax the rich" doesn't mean "tax the corner baker".

[jhauris]

Nobody says "let's tax the corner baker", but often will advocate for tax policies that would negatively impact that baker in the name of taxing the "rich".

[inglor_cz]

IDK how is it in the US, but where I live, additional regulations are more of a burden than taxation per se, and compliance with new regulations is usually easier for established big players than for the corner bakers.

[TiberiusC]

This is true in the US too, but reducing taxation is easier than reducing regulation. That said the same rings true for regulation as it is predominately a weapon used by the left

[TiberiusC]

the corner baker is a llc last I checked

[luma]

Meaning? You do realize corporate taxes are also marginal, yes?

[TiberiusC]

Marginal for you, but not for the baker. Unless you too think 21%(+ about 9% in Cali) isn’t marginal. That doesn’t include all the misc taxes which push your overall rate of doing business closer to 50%. That’s just the llc(baker) rate

[adpirz]

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that seemed exactly backwards. Even with a cursory understanding of history, the extreme right wing regimes are considered fascist, aka extremely top down.

Considering the best faith argument here, I’m guessing he’s seeing the “right wing” being pro business as opposed to a pro government “left”, and in that view, business is considered “bottom up”. As you alluded to, though, this ignores a lot of actual historical and political context and seems more driven by punditry shorthand.

[lr1970]

> Even with a cursory understanding of history, the extreme right wing regimes are considered fascist, aka extremely top down.

IMHO the political spectrum has a circular topology where extreme left and extreme right merge into one point. As an illustration, consider Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union:

* Extremely brutal top-down dictatorship.

* Suppression of all dissent by means of secrete police (Gestapo vs NKVD).

* Single party rule (nazi party vs communist party)

* No meaningful elections.

Of course, there were many differences and nuances but the power structure was surprisingly similar.

EDIT: bullet formatting

[techbrobane]

You're describing authoritarianism which is inherently right-wing. Both Hitler and Stalin were anti-democratic right-wingers.

The left-wing has always been anti-authoritarian.

A better comparison would be like Hitler versus Emma Goldman.

[mypastself]

Perhaps a more likely split would be along authoritarian/libertarian lines.

That said, early enthusiasts notwithstanding, the majority of businesses are likely far more interested in the profit potential than political or ideological aspects of technology.

[Ar-Curunir]

Even so, the libertarian right is a much more recent beast than the libertarian left. The latter predates the former by over 100years.