[claar]

I like your point and analogy about safe places being a normal aspect of society, where like-minded people gather. Perhaps you're right that it's not the end of the world to have multiple massive social networks.

Secondly, I find it so interesting that you come to HN for "contrary opinions" from your self-described "politically far left" viewpoint.

I hold a politically right viewpoint, and I come to HN for the same reason - it feels far left of my own world view.

I think it's pretty cool that HN can serve as a more neutral safe meeting place of minds.

[TRiG_Ireland]

HN is literally owned and operated by a VC company. And a lot of the conversation is absolutely celebrating capitalism. It's as far from "far left" as might be imagined.

[achierius]

Depends on what you mean by left. Some people, including many who would describe themselves as such, think "leftist" means things like pronouns and reparations, and are even happy to engage with capital when it supports their pet causes.

[bbor]

…source? I’ve literally never once met a capitalist leftist, only ones that still use the word to avoid alienating people, e.g. Sanders. No offense but I think this is a case of echo chambers in work impeding our discourse —- leftism is anti capitalism, and has been since its inception in France.

[gethoht]

I think it's more due to political ignorance and the overton window shifting right the last 50 years. People tend to equate modern liberalism, which is very much pro-markets and pro-capital, with leftism.

[Veen]

Two different things: left liberals and socialists.

[Aeolun]

It’s populated by a lot of leftists that, while unhappy with the right, can have a sort of reasonable discussion about it though.

I’m left, but I can listen to people that identify as right on HN and not roll my eyes, because they have good points as well.

If you pick a random person off the street (left/right), your chances aren’t nearly so good.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> HN is literally owned and operated by a VC company

So? I have never seen instances where YC's organizational viewpoint controlled the overall discussion, and I think dang is probably the best moderator on the planet.

Sure, HN has a focus around the "tech startup ecosystem", and that may attract a certain type of viewpoint, but I've never seen that viewpoint pushed from an institutional perspective.

[int_19h]

Speaking as someone who self-identifies as far left, the conversation here can go either way. I know it's a common trope that HN is dominated by "Silicon Valley libertarians", but in my experience that isn't really the case when you look at up- and downvotes.

[BeefWellington]

I think what you're noticing is that a simple left/right along a line is a poor way to express someone's political views.

I suspect that because a huge portion of the HN crowd are educated IT workers / would-be founders, overall there's both a strong support for capitalism mixed with progressive social views. That doesn't really connect well with the political landscape in most of the western world and typically gets you labeled a centrist, regardless of how important those particular issues are to you.

[int_19h]

What you say is partly true, but it goes beyond that. It's not that uncommon to see even straight up anti-capitalist comments here that still get upvoted, or the kind of "market solves all" talk getting downvoted into oblivion. So I'd say there's a hefty chunk of the userbase that is also leaning strongly left economically.

[TRiG_Ireland]

HN is a very strange beast. I do rather enjoy it, though.

[scarecrowbob]

I don't doubt that you find HN to be left of your political position.

A lot of folks I know find all kinds of things "left wing". A lot of my liberal friends think they are leftists, though most of my leftist friends would disagree. My conservative friends don't really draw that distinction between liberals and leftists, and at the same time my liberal friends often think my anarchist friends to be about on par with literal Nazis, horeshoe-theory wise.

I suspect a lot of the Dem establishment neo-liberals (who are rapidly becoming neocons ala Rumsfield/Cheney) who make up a lot of this site see themselves as slightly left. Rationally left, but not part of the "revolutionary" left.

Which, from my position, puts them fairly close to the Reagan conservatives, if you overlook some issues about gay folks and are took the 80s conservatives at their word rather than their deeds when it comes to race issues. However, I don't find this place to be a meeting of the minds.

I find that HN is a place where I can observe what the sociopaths who have real capital and thus material political power think about the world, or at least what the their sycophantic mandarins work for those folks might think.

I listen to what folks say here because I am genuinely curious about what their alien-to-me understandings of technology and political ethics will do in the larger world.

I listen to folks here for the same reason I listen to left-wing folks digest nazi propaganda, read a lot of history, and try to hear what conversations are happening at the red neck bars and at gun shops I hang around.

Cause that's who has no problem fucking with my world, and fuck with my world they have indeed.

HN is not a place where I think any of my actual politics will find an audience.

Though I am (likely unwisely) communicating now, I mostly just shut up when I am here, unless someone has something worthwhile to say about music.

[claar]

Thanks for being open - I've learned a lot in this thread.

I honestly had no idea that anyone "left of center" felt they couldn't openly share here, as I have always mentally categorized HN as a leftist echo chamber (hopefully that's not too blunt - it's just my honest perception).

I naively assumed that it was only those more right-of-center that felt their worldviews and opinions were unwelcome here, judging from the instantly dead posts I see of anything remotely right-aligned.

From your short share, I see that the echo-chamber is unwelcoming to a much broader sphere of humans than I realized. I find that super helpful to understand - so thank you for sharing.

[defrost]

HN is largely US centric and largely suffers the blinkered bimodal view that the US itself mostly suffers from.

It's a problem amplified by Murdoch type media outlets who have weaponised the us-vs-them worldview for clickbait outrage and spread that dumbing down as far across the world as they are able.

For those of us not within that mindset such views seem very childlike and unsophisticated, there's a slew of nuance to the world that doesn't easily reduce to L v. R, "woke agenda" and all that et. al. jazz.

FWiW IMNotACommunist .. but I have an endearing love of this short interaction twixt Piers Morgan ( UK outrage talking head ) and Ash Sarkar for higlighting the pitfalls of not paying attention to what people actually think and believe in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD7Ol0gz11k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Sarkar

[claar]

I'm not politically informed, and I don't watch traditional media, so I had to Google "Murdoch".

If I understand you correctly, you feel it's the right-leaning outlets like Fox News that have weaponized us-vs-them mindset?

The origin feels flipped to me, but regardless who started it, I see little to no actual respectful and thoughtful discourse these days - mature discourse where each side is willing to listen and acknowledge the elements of truth and assume positive intent in the other side's positions.

As you say, the media on both sides, including social media, feels extremely childlike and unsophisticated.

[defrost]

"Murdoch type media" outlets are those with a greater interest in pure profit, exercising influence, and serving owner interests that extend outside of media alone. The balanced presentation of news is of minor interest and a means to an end rather than a primary goal.

This, with Murdoch, harks back in a lesser way to his father, then to his expansion into the UK Fleet Street and eventual transition in US media, in Canada with Conrad Black, in the US pre Murdoch with Hearst, Pulitzer, Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, in the UK pre Murdoch with Alfred Harmsworth and the like.

These are people who have all had large significant media outlets that have engaged in extremely partisan positions with respect to wars, the economy, favoured political candidates and dumbing down discourse.

> I see little to no actual respectful and thoughtful discourse these days

    In the 1890s the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal caused both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime and graphic horrors. 

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer

[aryonoco]

As an Australian here, I just had my mind blown that someone in the anglosphere didn't know "Murdoch".

Murdoch is more than Fox News. Just ask any Australian or Brit .

[claar]

I guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000! https://m.xkcd.com/1053/

[UtopiaPunk]

Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is great place for anyone wanting to learn more about the various biases that influence what gets covered in the media, and how it is discussed. It's a book, but there's also a great documentary of the same name that's half about Noam Chomsky's life, and half the ideas discussed in the book.

It's from the late 80s, but it is still relevant (and it also helps it feel a little above the current political hot-topics of today.

[Jerrrrrrry]

Remember, the Gentleman's agreement of "no politics" was left unsaid until one party broke it, which divided america.

[flooow]

You're being downvoted but as a lefty European tech worker this rings true. I come to HN for interesting technical content (obviously) but I find the politics of the site by turns confusing and hard to stomach.

It is certainly the case that many well-meaning, Dem-voting Americans don't seem to know what leftist politics is (having never been exposed to it), and don't seem to realize that they are right-wing. It's an interesting phenomenon, but quite alarming when the consequences for the rest of the world are Not Good.

[kmeisthax]

>it feels far left of my own world view.

Strange, because I've noticed over the past few years that HN has been sliding further to the right. Or at the very least it's susceptible to brigading. To be clear, it's not "right winger equals brigade[0]", it's "oh gee someone posted a story about EU external immigration and now the comments are full of people angry about asylum seekers who think the correct solution[1] is to shut down international law and start retroactively deporting citizens".

For the sake of full transparency: I'm an open borders maniac, which makes me left wing by American standards and basically persona non grata in Europe.

[0] I live with right-wingers, so I kinda have to be tolerant of them

[1] If this had been anticipated and dealt with ahead of time, the correct solution would have been to invest in integration and have generous family visas. That's why the US doesn't have a migrant integration crisis like the EU does - we know how to welcome and inculturate people. The EU doesn't really do integration, it assumes everyone is a self-motivated tech worker who will do all the integration work themselves.

[Seanambers]

>The EU doesn't really do integration, it assumes everyone is a self-motivated tech worker who will do all the integration work themselves.

The EU consists of welfare states. Thus the incentive structure for an immigrant is totally different than in the US. Further more MENA immigration which is what Europe has most of is not the same kind of immigration that the US enjoys. The amount of state expenditure on facilitating and integrating immigrants in western Europe is insane.

Western Europe has bendt over backwards the last 50 years to accommodate people of cultures that have pretty much nothing in common with European culture, values and historically has been the enemy both culturally and religiously - the world did not start in 1945 as many on the left in Europe thinks.

[Wytwwww]

> The EU consists of welfare states

That's a stretch... those welfare states aren't that universal and realistically most people in such situations would be barely above subsistence level.

But yeah, Europe generally gets people who can't get into US with all the outcomes of that.

[Seanambers]

Well yeah, I should've stated Western Europe more with regards to the welfare state, - Central/Eastern Europe hasn't been that enthusiastic about MENA immigration and they don't have that level of social security nets.

Also even the illegal immigrants that come to the US is easier to integrate than the immigrants from MENA in Europe. Culturally they are much closer, even though there has been a influx of illegal immigrants from other places than Americas last couple of years.

This is a very deep difference in immigration in EU vs US that is quite foreign to many Americans.

[KronisLV]

I feel like people's perceptions around certain topics might shift quite a bit, depending on how those are implemented.

Suppose you have a fairly open border policy. Lots of folks get to contribute to the economy, there’s some cultural exchange, it’s pretty okay.

What if there isn’t a good plan in place for making people integrate with the local culture and you end up with large groups of people whose beliefs and behaviour are incompatible with those of the local population, e.g. calls for religious rule in an otherwise democratic country and increased violence? Not the blown out of proportion election claims in the US, but rather the real question of what happens to people after they cross the border? If that detail is unaddressed then people might grow to desire more closed borders, even if the issues lie elsewhere.

It’s a bit similar to the self-described “pro-life” movement, except when you look past those strongly held beliefs, things get more complex. For example, if children are born in families that can’t really afford them, will there be enough government assistance to school and feed them? What about daycare? What about neither of the people being mature enough to be good parents? That’s setting the personal freedom argument aside for just a second, it’s like they care about the births but don’t have the rest figured out, similarly to the discourse about borders.

I think you’re correct that the right solution would involve focusing on integration.

[account42]

> What if there isn’t a good plan in place for making people integrate with the local culture and you end up with large groups of people whose beliefs and behaviour are incompatible with those of the local population, e.g. calls for religious rule in an otherwise democratic country and increased violence? Not the blown out of proportion election claims in the US, but rather the real question of what happens to people after they cross the border? If that detail is unaddressed then people might grow to desire more closed borders, even if the issues lie elsewhere.

Integration is primarily a numbers game. Most people don't integrate into the local culture unless they are cut off from their own. If you have so many immigrants that you either need to build immigrant housing or fill up entire towns with them then you don't get immigrans assimilating into the local culture but rather them bringing their own culture no matter what other measueres are implemented. So yes, a good implementation of immigration needs closed borders at least for foreign cultures - these things are not independent.

[msm_]

>That's why the US doesn't have a migrant integration crisis like the EU does - we know how to welcome and inculturate people

I believe you got this other way around. The US doesn't have a migrant immigration crisis like the EU does, because it's a big isolated island with relatively strict immigration policy. The people who immigrate to the US are exactly the kind of self-motivated workers who do the integration work themselves.

Many here believed that investing in integration will magically make open borders policies work, and the countries did. Less people in Europe believe it now.

Another thing is, how much immigration does US get? In Europe, many countries can have a significant fraction (a few percent) of their population immigrate over a few years (for example check how big UA immigration was). That makes integration much harder.

To be clear, I'm not against immigration, but it's a complex topic and I believe you're a bit too optimistic and extreme about it.

>For the sake of full transparency: I'm an open borders maniac, which makes me left wing by American standards and basically persona non grata in Europe.

I don't get dividing people into two neat categories (left and right). And you're welcome in Europe, it would be great to have you and I'm sure you would do well here!

[valval]

It’s just an objective fact that in any political thread the top comments are one of either:

1. A lazy attempt at seeming impartial while holding a subtle, elitist anti-republican opinion.

2. A not-so-subtly marxist or socialist outburst.

Under each comment the top 3 direct replies are an agreeing sentiment that pretends to add some nuance to the discussion. The fourth might be a contrarian (either right wing or conservative) opinion that gets barraged by downvotes and angry responses.

[Jerrrrrrry]

The audience here skews towards those the truth.

Of course, the ones that cannot tolerate any dissenting opinion will either whine or leave.

[artimaeis]

> The audience here skews towards those the truth.

The truth is that this sentence is believed by every audience ever convened.

[Jerrrrrrry]

    > The audience here skews towards those the truth.

  The truth is that this sentence is believed by every audience ever convened.

Actually you are correct, I should had known better to type "truth", as if a thing existed.

This site definitely skews towards objectivity.

[Jerrrrrrry]

However, this format doesn't immediately squash critical opinions (besides ␟ stuff), which eventually allows critical discourse to actually occur.

Other side promote engagement. This site still rewards discourse.