[busterarm]

As a longtime attendee myself, this is absolutely true.

Also, DEFCON and DT specifically have not shifted anywhere. A large demographic of attendees shifted hard to the left, mirroring our culture in general. They are also not "counterculture" as these are mainstream/televised points of view.

I had to stop dealing with certain parts/people of DEFCON and infosec in general because of this intense noise. That's not pegging myself as being on the right, it's just that my DEFCON experience has always been about expanding my worldview and fun... this very loud and influential group isn't about either of those things.

[BLKNSLVR]

From what I see and hear, the US is moving to the left in a similar way to gravity lifting objects from the ground.

As far as I can tell both sides have their intensely loud groups, but only noticing one means you're closer (by varying degrees) to the other. And that's OK, but slightly less OK if you're not aware of it.

[joquarky]

Anyone who can't find the extremists in their own group should spend some time on self reflection.

[jvanderbot]

That's a true thing, but nonsequitur from GP's comments.

[graemep]

It can also depend on where you are and who you know. The groups are not evenly spread through society. In the UK and one side in politics dominates all my social circles - colleagues, people I went to school with, people I meet locally (to be fair, that does depend on what you do and who you meet - but I tend to "cultural" activities), people who share stuff on FB that I know (as opposed to the stuff in the feed - is which often ridiculously extreme both ways).

it might not be true, and surveys and voting patterns say otherwise, but it can definitely feel like one side is dominant. It can definitely be true that a particular place/activity/group is dominated by one side, which is what GP seems to be claiming, rather than that the US in general has shifted to the left?

[dmix]

> but only noticing one means you're closer (by varying degrees) to the other.

Maybe if you're talking about culture in general it will exist as some sort of U shape in general terms no doubt, but any hyper online subcultures turned into an IRL organization/insular collection of people like defcon is liable to go hard in identifiable directions which is distracting to more disinterested parties there for the original purpose of the show.

[sitzkrieg]

been going since forever but dont tell anyone that asks. cant stand it anymore

[StefanBatory]

If you don't mind, I have a genuine question. (as in, I'm not looking for a fight and I won't comment furthermore even if I can't agree.)

But genuinely, what do you define by saying that American culture has shifted hard to the left and what do you define by left.

I am really not looking into fight, but that's not a take I've heard often and I want to hear you out.

[anonym29]

I am not the person you are responding to, but I think the ground reality is nuanced. What follows is my opinion / perspective, which I do not assert as irrefutable fact, nor as the only opinion / perspective which should be considered.

Politics in the US have become more polarized, but a historical view shows this as more of a reversion to the mean than a novel phenomenon, as we are increasingly distanced from a period of greater economic prosperity for large swathes of the middle class, which seemed to have a (now disappearing) byproduct of a degree of psychological satiation with "big picture" concerns.

There is a documented tendency for the political left, at least in the US, to accept and tolerate a much narrower range of thought, that is to say, the left has a much smaller Overton Window, than the political right in the US, who mostly seem unified only around opposition to the policies of the political left. (https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso....)

I suspect, but do not necessary assert as fact, that the above effect on the left may be partially explained by a rigid adherence to the paradox of tolerance, which itself demands an unwillingness to tolerate people who hold intolerant ideas, views, or beliefs, even if those people do not act on those ideas, views, or beliefs to meaningfully practice intolerance. The end result, from my perspective as someone who fits cleanly in neither political camp (I'm more of a libertarian than anything else) is that the left makes little to no room for allies and increasingly engages in litmus testing with an end goal of ostracizing and socially shunning even LGBTQ+ people who don't fit neatly into the smaller Overton Window. As an example, it is considered intolerable by many on the left to merely be vocally supportive of adult LGBTQ+ rights, while expressing discomfort with the idea of children being exposed to pride parades with fully naked adults embracing all manner of sexual diversity and kinks, or discomfort with the idea of irreversible chemical gender affirmation therapy for minors on grounds of bodily autonomy / age of consent considerations. Meanwhile, to the surprise of some of my friends on the political left, large swathes of the political right (though not the most extreme fringes), in my lived experience as an LGBTQ person in Texas (which to be fair, may not be entirely representative of the rest of the country), hold more of a "live at let live" philosophy that, paradoxically, is more tolerant of LGBTQ+ persons with nuanced views than the political left is. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

I think as the emotional investment of typical political partisans increases, there is a widespread perception of hostility or outrage from the political left at nuanced positions that are nominally but insufficiently progressive, like the one in the example above. Anecdata for this might include the perspective of Bill Maher, who was once considered to be subversively progressive, then gradually seen as "center left", and is now perceived by many on the left as "right of center", in spite of a rock-solid track record of being notably left of Republicans on almost every issue.

To be clear, I'm not trying to assert normative views that either side is "right", morally superior or inferior to one another, just attempting to offer my perspective on what I think the underlying mechanisms driving the disconnect between perceptions of the political system itself (which is increasingly dominated by right-of-center figures in all three branches of the federal government, particularly at the SCOTUS level in the judiciary), and perceptions of cultural values. That cultural perception is probably further strengthened by widespread, rapid, and vocal adoption of DEI values across almost all institutional settings (academia, corporate America, public sector, even institutions that are traditionally conceptualized as right of center, like Wall Street firms) following the protests over the death of George Floyd; the relatively swift mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights (marriage equality went from fringe to mainstream in under two decades); climate change moved from "environmental issue" to a mainstream economic/social concern in roughly the same period; social media amplification of progressive voices and causes, including, at times; coordination between left-leaning administrations and social media companies to suppress right-leaning perspectives, some of which are now widely acknowledged to have likely been true (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files), to name a few large changes over both the last two decades and the last five years or so.

And again, I'm not asserting that any of these changes were good or bad (regardless of how I personally feel about any of the changes in question), nor am I trying to assert a normative framing one way or another, just attempting to dissect the mechanisms of the perception itself.

[xorcist]

> the left has a much smaller Overton Window

Above is a long text that completely rests on small statements such as the above, stated with full confidence. I could easily argue for the opposite. And historically speaking, where these terms originate, it's quite clear that the left had to build a larger tent, as the saying goes.

Without these small but confident statements of questionable veracity, the rest of the text sort of fizzles down to one big anecdote about Texas living. Which is nice, but Texas is big and while I have never lived there myself I understand there are large differences between big cities like Austin and the rest.

Much can be said about how forgiving the debate climate is, and how heterogenous different political groups are. But one observation I think can be made is that it shifts with where the center is, the center being the deciding socioeconomic group in a modern democratic society. The opposition needs to rally support and needs to be much more allowing and accepting, and their Overton window as you call it grows wider. The ones with the political wind in their backs, winning elections, will find the power to hone their political skills and sharpen their issues, thereby shrinking this window.

So I believe much of it can be explained by who are winning elections and whose questions are being heard. These are slow processes, society does not change every election, but we did have an almost decade long period where traditional leftist questions were being heard in mainstream media, but right now it's quite clear the wind is blowing in the opposite direction in most Western democracies.

[yndoendo]

When I think of the _Paradox of Tolerance_ I always think of Gödel's _incompleteness theorems_.

Say you are restaurant owner that is tolerant of any consumer, it brings in money. Left, right, center, no matter the political spectrum; gay, straight, bisexual, no matter the sexuality. You provide them a good meal and they gladly pay. Now comes in a client and he starts trashing the place, tipping over tables, spitting in people's food. Do you stay tolerant and let it happen or brake your tolerance and deal with the situation and get him out? Your clients will no longer be tolerant of you and your business if you keep letting having is way.

Reality, you have defined "tolerance of others" with axioms that they do not maliciously destroy the property in our restaurant and they don't spit in the food of your clients. _Paradox of Tolerance_ highly resembles an inconsistent formal system pertaining to the proof of tolerance. "Tolerance of others" is a constant formal system in order to be tolerant.

Both you and your clients have agree upon definition of tolerance. It is the man destroying your property, you, and your clients that have differences in the definition of behavioral tolerance. The three do not share the same axioms. A universal definition of tolerance cannot be obtained.

Tolerance is also contextual, based on set and setting; who else is around, making it a malleable definition. This means _tolerance_ is a set / highly parameterized function. Location of public or private is just one parameter of many. For instant the scenario above about the business would most likely be accept if the setting was on set for a scene in a move.

[anonym29]

The issue I think arrives when there is an unwillingness to tolerate people who hold intolerant ideas, views, or beliefs, even when those people do not act on those ideas, views, or beliefs - i.e. when the people with intolerant views are not actually practicing intolerance.

It's one thing to shun a customer for practicing intolerance, it's another to shun a customer for holding intolerant beliefs without actually practicing intolerance or materially affecting the quality of life of anyone around them, is it not?

[lazyasciiart]

Someone who takes no actions based on their beliefs effectively doesn’t hold those beliefs, as far as anyone else knows, and doesn’t get shunned for them. So you’re trying to define some level of advertising your beliefs as “not acting on them”. What’s that level? An op-ed on the problem of gay people, or just a casual remark that of course gay marriage is a sin?

[int_19h]

The vast majority of people take no meaningful actions based on their beliefs.

[anonym29]

I'm thinking more along the lines of the OpenSUSE project banning contributors who wouldn't concede to a demand to wave a trans pride flag, referring to all conservatives as "Rotten Flesh", NixOS purging "Nazis" (read: people who didn't openly and vocally support all aspects of LGBTQ+ culture), etc. And I say this as someone who is themselves not heterosexual, and who has a non-cisgender partner.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like having to fear for my safety around genuinely bigoted and threatening people, I just don't like the "wave our flag or you're a literal nazi / rotten flesh / subhuman who should be excommunicated from the entire linux community" type of messaging coming from the opposite camp either. Those extremes both make me feel profoundly uncomfortable and unsafe.

[lazyeye]

What if the restaurant gets a customer who is perfectly polite, tips well but is wearing a red maga hat?

[cess11]

It shouldn't get that far. Once you invite one fascist, and the first one is typically polite, there will be more coming so you've got to "nip it in the bud".

https://www.reddit.com/r/punk/comments/1ama4ld/the_nazi_bar_...

[lazyeye]

What if your the fascist?

[platevoltage]

The same thing they should do if someone walks in with a red arm band on.

[some_furry]

> Meanwhile, to the surprise of some of my friends on the political left, large swathes of the political right (though not the most extreme fringes), in my lived experience as an LGBTQ person in Texas (which to be fair, may not be entirely representative of the rest of the country), hold more of a "live at let live" philosophy that, paradoxically, is more tolerant of LGBTQ+ persons with nuanced views than the political left is.

Texas has more registered Democrats than Republicans, interestingly enough.

(But neither Democrats nor Liberals are leftists.)

[tracker1]

I've definitely taken preference to the term leftist or progressive over "liberal"... I don't think the modern left could be described as liberal in any classic sense of the term. That said, I don't think many on the left are particularly progressive either.

[some_furry]

Do you believe our society should value tradition and hierarchy?

Yes -> right-leaning

No -> left-leaning

"Progress" implies there is an inevitable way forward, for which other beliefs are leading society astray from.

When it comes to things like "Are you prejudiced against groups of people?" the progressive answer is always "no". People on both "sides" can find valid reasons to say "no" to this question, but it's hard to maintain an internally consistent worldview if you're left-leaning (oppose hierarchies) and still want others to be lesser (which requires a hierarchy). Mainstream racism, homophobia, etc. naturally concentrate on the political right, but up until a few years ago, opposition to same-sex marriage was a mainstream position for liberal Democrats, too.

This is all to say, there is no actual significant leftist representation in American politics.

[StefanBatory]

It's been a while, but I will thank you for detailed response.

[wkat4242]

> in my lived experience as an LGBTQ person in Texas (which to be fair, may not be entirely representative of the rest of the country), hold more of a "live at let live" philosophy that, paradoxically, is more tolerant of LGBTQ+ persons with nuanced views than the political left is

For what it's worth as a European who has never been to the US (and certainly won't now!) I've spoken to many US LGBTQ people and the ones from Texas mentioned this "live and let live" thing as a specifically Texan thing. Texas seems to be more open in that sense than other Southern states.

However like I said this is just hearsay but the two Texan people I spoke to mentioned exactly this phenomenon independently.

And yeah I can imagine you consider us leftists more purist. But I don't think you can say that America is heading leftward. Compare Trump with even a hard-line right winger like George W Bush and the latter is like a model president. I recently saw his congratulation speech to Obama and it exuded respect and sanity. It's kinda amazing that a president we considered pretty bad is now a role model.

Whereas Trump started the Capitol raid when Biden wijand now wants to redact history at the Smithsonian if it doesn't suit his narrative.

[lrvick]

Grew up in Texas, and while southern kindness and acceptance can certainly be found, it is often surface level. I was raised to refer to black people as the N word, and that athiests, muslims, and LGBT people are dangerous, and that we should carry guns just in case they try to hurt us.

I was also taught in my state-approved Saxon science books that the earth is 6000 years old, and bad weather is because God is mad at sinners. The worst of which of course being the gays which go directly to hell no matter how kind they are.

Also was raised very sexist, that women paying for things or working is a result of the men in their lives failing them, and that they are property to be earned like capturing a wild horse.

Texas outside of the cities is a deeply backwards uneducated place full of people living in constant fear of attack by sinners.

Incidentally Texas is also home to NASA and Moody Gardens, and my many visits to those gave me an interest in science and technology that allowed me to confirm everything I was taught was propaganda and nonsense and ultimately go my own way in life.

[tracker1]

George W. Bush was never hard-right. For that matter, Trump isn't hard-right either. GW was pretty centrist all around (as far as US politics is concerned) and Trump is a right-leaning populist, which is kind of a weird position.

I've leaned pretty libertarian most of my life... I have conservative friends and pretty progressive friends (and those that I do NOT talk politics with).

A lot of this will come down to is definitely regional. A lot of the U.S. identity itself isn't the same, and different regions are very different. Texas itself is larger than like 80% of the countries in the world. The U.S. as a whole is massive. It's every bit as diverse in some ways as going anywhere in the E.U. despite mostly speaking the same language.

As to the U.S. and going left or right... it varies and depends. I think a lot of the left's "big tent" is falling, in that there is a very outspoken subset of the left that has shifted farther away from where most people are comfortable with. It's fractured, but there. There's also a bit of a yearning towards some more conservative values and a return to a stronger national identity. Both can be, and are true.

In my experience, most people in the US have a pretty live and let live pov... that of course stops to a large extend at coercion of children.

[dragonwriter]

> Trump is a right-leaning populist, which is kind of a weird position.

“populist” isn't an ideological position at all, its a rhetorical approach that can go with positions pretty much anywhere in ideological space.

[tracker1]

Yes, and it isn't exactly conservative or otherwise hard-right.

[anonym29]

The original claim, which my message was trying to substantiate towards the post I was replying to that expressed confusion at the , was the idea that American culture has shifted hard to the left, which is not the same as saying that the American government or political system has necessarily shifted hard to the left. To the contrary, I attempted to clearly distinguish this in my post by noting that all three branches of government in the US have indeed been moving to the political right in the last decade or so, even has the wider culture did appear to be shifting towards the left for much of that time period.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the mainstream cultural values of the US should have set the political preference for the US government in what is nominally supposed to be a "democratic" country - that entirely logical and rational assumption increasingly appears to be false.

As weird as it might sound, I think the "live and let live" thing is actually quite sociologically interesting - it seems to present a framework rooted in individualism that achieves social tolerance outcomes comparable to China's ideas around "social harmony" (which I admittedly am far from an expert on). Perhaps it's just a rehashing of "the golden rule" wearing a cowboy hat, but as someone who leans towards what Europeans would call classical liberalism, it's hard for me to not appreciate the parallels with the "non-aggression principle", as well.

And for what it's worth, I harbor no ill will towards anyone from any political background or perspective, even the purists. I'm fond of the idea of treating everyone with dignity, kindness, and compassion, even when I disagree with their ideas or would criticize their actions.

[chrisco255]

> It's kinda amazing that a president we considered pretty bad is now a role model.

Why do you consider him a role model? Based on how he spoke instead of the actions he took? Most politicians, put on a facade. They play the crowd, kiss the babies, etc. They change their positions with whatever way the polls go. What good is a smile and manners if someone is robbing you when you're not looking?

Bush started an entire war on a completely fabricated lie. And Obama carried the torch, despite running originally against the Iraq war! Maybe you don't feel the consequences of this because you don't have to pay the bill and your family members were never deployed to a war zone.

Trump, for all his flaws, his instincts are for negotiation and peace. He just negotiated a peace deal between Rwanda and Congo:

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/rwanda-democratic-repub...

And again between Azerbaijan and Armenia: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39dzl1lzrgo

He also seemed to handle the Iran-Israel conflict in a way that for befuddling reasons to me, actually deescalated the situation, despite the controversy at the time.

I'll take mean tweets and strong negotiation over smiling faces and reckless invasions any day of the week.

[xorcist]

> is instincts are for negotiation and peace

That's a pretty wild statement given that he just invaded Iran. He's also made direct military threats towards allied Denmark, even in press conferences. There's also the less overt threats about making Cananda a US state and giving Ukranian land to Putin.

Pretty militant for the first six months, even from an objective historical context. Should he keep up that tempo for a full term of office, that would measure up with the more intervention oriented presidents including Nixon himself.

[tracker1]

I'm not aware of any ground forces holding onto positions in Iran or controlling any ongoing surface movement at all, in any way.

[wkat4242]

I meant a role model relatively speaking to trump. He was at least presidential.

I totally agree he did a lot of actions that were very questionable like the iraq war and also the extreme surveillance. I just meant Trump makes him look good :)

I disagree about Trump but I don't want to get into that.

[somenameforme]

And I think what he is saying is that a person should be judged by their actions, and consequences, rather than their rhetoric. This is even more true in modern times when people generally have no clue what people who they don't like are actually saying. Because they are listening to media that also generally don't like the same people and who will regularly take things out of context, disingenuously interpret them, or even just plain lie. And since we're talking about people that are disliked by somebody, they'll never know any better - because it's not like they're ever going to actually go seek out what the person said; they want their biases confirmed.

This issue is most embodied by the various little social experiments on YouTube where people will ask college students what think about action [x], [y], and [z] that they invariably agree with, then they're told it was done by a politician they don't like, and you can see, in real time, the cognitive dissonance kick in where they suddenly try to figure out why they don't "actually" like these actions. Or vice versa for disliked actions by a politician they do like. This, more than anything, sums up the divides in America today.

[immibis]

Trump literally just invaded Washington DC, which he has the right to do because the constitution says so, but that's what it is.

[wkat4242]

Well, he only had that right for 48 hours if I understand correctly.

[BLKNSLVR]

The Twitter Files you linked to seems to be a pretty tenuous "likely to be true" example.

Especially given the very questionably censorious nature of its new owner, who placed himself at the centre of that particular "conspiracy theory".

[somenameforme]

Not the GP, but I feel the same. The reason is that my views haven't really changed, yet somehow my political positioning went from quite liberal to something most people, below a certain age, would consider conservative. I value: free speech, equality of opportunity, antiwar, anti political correctness, anti megacorp, and view the liberty of the individual mattering vastly more than than dictates of authority/hierarchy.

More generally, I think politics has shifted such that left/right is no longer meaningful, as people tend to be much more split on libertarian/authoritarian world views - particularly on the degree to which accredited individuals ought be able to impose their views on society in an effort to 'tweak' people's behaviors. That nuance, more or less, immediately leads to the shifting winds on the issues I mentioned.

[immibis]

All the values you cited are so vague they can encompass almost any position. For example, "antiwar" can mean refusing to bomb other countries to get their resources and it can also mean that if another country threatens to bomb your house you give them whatever resources they want. Free speech can mean free to challenge the government, free to spam or free to brainwash. Liberty of the individual to shoot or liberty of the individual to not be shot?

I suspect that your individual position within each of those axes has drastically changed even though the axis labels have not.

"Left" and "right" remain meaningful. Right means supporting stronger hierarchies and left means supporting weaker hierarchies. They have always meant this since they were originally coined about the french pro/anti monarchist parties. It's "liberal" and "conservative" that have poorly defined meanings. You will not find much right at CCC.

Scientific studies show a real difference in brain structure - the part of the brain that processes fear is bigger in rightists - so it appears to be an intrinsic evolutionary thing and it makes sense it remsins the same thing in each generation.

[ghostpepper]

> Scientific studies show a real difference in brain structure - rightists have enlarged fear centers - so it appears to be an intrinsic evolutionary difference and it makes sense it remains the same across time.

can you point to a few studies on this topic? I am struggling to imagine how one would design a study to measure this

[j4coh]

Also curious what is a fear center and what an enlarged one would look like if removed via surgery.

[somenameforme]

It was a 2011 study that found a 0.28 correlation in amygdalae size vs conservative political identity among a tiny group of college students. A replication attempt dropped that correlation to 0.068 which is basically nothing, and completely failed to replicate at all the other, even weaker, findings of the previous study. And the media called the amygdala the "fear center", which is dumb. It plays a key role in memory - especially long term memory, emotional processing, the understanding of social cues, and more. Removing it would render someone extremely mentally retarded.

---

I'd also add on this issue that considering political issues among college students is itself silly. Our political positions on things is impacted by our life experience, and at the point of college one has very little life experience to formulate views off of. Political identity will often shift radically from age 20 to 40, which against suggests a genetic basis as being farcical - at least beyond the point that your brain structure will typically correlate, to some degree, with the development of skills, identity, etc.

[somenameforme]

They're not vague in the least, but pointing this out drives anger and cognitive dissonance in people because people want to imagine that they support these values, particularly if they did so when they were younger. For the most unambiguously and plainly obvious - free speech means free speech, not approved speech. You can actually see this cognitive dissonance play out most overtly in Wikipedia's definition of authoritarianism. [1] The meaning of the term has been edited to the point of completely redefining it, relative to its definition of 20 years ago [2], even though the definition of authoritarianism has itself not really changed in that time frame, and the older definition matches the normal definition (and connotation) of it vastly more than the 'modern' version.

The study you mentioned was, even at the time of its publication, quite dubious - finding a negligible correlation (0.23) in amygdalae size in a very non-representative sampling. In a replication attempt that correlation was found to overstate it by more than 3x, finding a correlation of 0.068, which is essentially statistical noise. There's nothing there except clickbait media doing their thing. I'd also add that framing the amygdala as the 'fear center' is itself also quite ridiculous. There also remains the question of identity. I consider myself liberal. I imagine you would object. Who's right? Ah modern 'science', but there I go again challenging that hierarchy.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Authoritarianism&...

[frickinLasers]

> You can actually see this cognitive dissonance play out most overtly in Wikipedia's definition of authoritarianism.

I'd say a more overt example is playing out on the national stage, where protests in support of (murdered, raped, and starving) Palestinians in Gaza are crushed, because the alternative is to have the executive branch try to extort a $Billion dollars from the host campus, putting universities in peril, to help buy another gold-plated plane or something.

[immibis]

"Free speech means free speech" is a tautology and does absolutely nothing to counter the idea that it could mean either freedom to oppose the government, freedom to spam, or freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater. In fact it's very conspicuously a purely emotional statement with zero logical content; anyone who uses this response is conspicuously asserting that they don't care about logical argument.

The assertion that Wikipedia has more content than it did in 2004 is also logically void.

[somenameforme]

The 'freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater' argument against free speech is such a perfect illustration of the issue. That was an argument made by Mr. Eugenics himself, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, in a famous case Schneck vs United States. [1]

In it Charles Schneck was convicted for an absolutely abhorrent crime. He sent out fliers to men drafted for WW1 informing them of a legal defense against the draft - of it constituting involuntary servitude, which was prohibited by the 13th Amendment, and encouraging them to consequently assert their legal rights and work to resist the draft.

For this, he was arrested and put in prison, with the government claiming that his mailed fliers were akin to 'shouting fire in a crowded theater.' This is why free speech means free speech. Limitations are invariably weaponized by authoritarian forces to shoehorn essentially everything into that limitation.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

[int_19h]

Actual hard left (as opposed to milquetoast liberals calling themselves "democratic socialists") is most certainly not a mainstream or televised point of view.

[msgodel]

Yeah that's the thing about counterculture, eventually large portions of it end up mainstream culture so if you like being contrarian you have to constantly be on the move.

[protocolture]

>A large demographic of attendees shifted hard to the left, mirroring our culture in general.

I had always identified hacker culture as principally left. Maybe the US is specifically different.

[chrisco255]

The left used to be more individualist in the U.S. (circa 90s most definitely) but it developed a toxic groupthink as it came to dominate pop culture and media in the 00s and 10s, and began to leverage that to employ censorship, deplatforming, doxxing, etc and it became incredibly dogmatic and if anyone diverged from a particular narrative (ie skeptical covid came from wet market), they would be ridiculed, shouted down, laughed off, shamed, kicked off social media platforms, ostracized, etc which is cult like behavior.

The left of the 90s would have never stood for that. They were the die hards for free speech then. Something shifted.

[immibis]

Yeah, the left of the 90s would never excommunicate anyone for being completely certain Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that climate change was a hoax, and the moon was made of cheese, and bringing these things up at every opportunity, because the left of the 90s believed in free speech.

[notthemessiah]

Individualism has been failing Americans, while the quality of life has improved dramatically in less individualist cultures, in many ways surpassing Americans (health care, housing, education, upward mobility, etc), so it shouldn't be surprising that collectivism is starting to win mindshare.

Don't fool yourself, conspiracy theories are usually marginalized in US culture, the left didn't welcome conspiracy theories back then either.

Also, now that political correctness and censorship mostly coming from the right again (with the Moral Majority going after music then, and video games/porn now), we now see the civil libertarian elements of the left standing up to fight censorship once again.

[bearl]

The boomers got old. They were flawed but the heavy anti-authoritarian vibe of the old left was largely carried over from the 60s. Imagine a zoomer lefty burning their covid card the way hippies burned their draft cards. Nope! The thing that shifted was authoritarianism; the terminal end-stage of socialist ideology.

[platevoltage]

This is equally funny if you read it in both RFK Jr, and Elon Musk's voice.

[vkou]

Hacker culture is principally 'don't tell me what to do'.

Which in the US puts it somewhat orthogonal to the left-right divide.

It mirrors the divide on the public at large - a disappointingly large number of people are wildly ready to jump on the authoritarian bandwagon, because the alternative has a few leftist ideas that make them feel icky.

[joquarky]

If I had a debug console on reality, I'd be curious to query how big the intersection is between those who thrive in hacker culture and people with PDA.

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

[Der_Einzige]

I've been trying to figure out a name for whatever the heck the MC of this game had! Thank you!

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

[aleph_minus_one]

To me, the Wikipedia page of "Pathological demand avoidance" looks like those in power are again inventing some new psychological disorder to pathologize (and perhaps hospitalize) non-docile people.

[graemep]

Interesting. In the UK it tends to be right wing ideas people find icky about the alternative. Maybe one party on the left but it is really small.

The problem here is that society and culture in general has got more authoritarian so it cut across the left-right divide (which IMO has got meaningless anyway since it no longer reflects a consistent difference in economic policy) but leaving the non-authoritarians practically without politically representation.

[vkou]

The definition of authoritarianism has widely expanded into uselessness, because it colors with the same brush concepts as disparate as:

* Throwing a bag over your head and sending you to a tropical gulag for life without trial or access to a lawyer, contrary to the explicit ruling of a judge reviewing your case.

* Requiring you to wear a piece of cloth on your face in the middle of a deadly pandemic that's killing millions of people.

(Its not that we can't tell the difference between them, any child above the age of 8 can grasp the distinction, it's that people who love the former and are mildly annoyed by the latter are being deliberately obtuse about it.)

[billy99k]

During Covid, many of the Hackers in the infosec community supported government-mandated vaccination (this was what I saw through Twitter). I think this changed my view of activists and hackers after this.

It's authoritarian-minded people that don't want to listen to anyone (and want to force you to do what they want through hacking). When they get want they want, they don't care about trampling on the rights of or oppressing the people that disagree.

[saagarjha]

It’s shocking to me that people whose job is to find and fix vulnerabilities would support vaccinations!

[kilpikaarna]

I sure hope opposition to government-mandated infosec measures would be a complete nobrainer.

Microsoft lobbying for mandatory TPM to get on a network or whatever.

[graemep]

He did say "government mandated". It is perfectly possible to think people should have vaccinations (I did - and had them myself) without thinking the government should force them to have vaccinations.

[billy99k]

My body, my choice. Shocking indeed.

[saagarjha]

It is your choice.

[mattmanser]

No where else in the world would describe anything in American politics as going hard left.

All of your politics and news has been swinging hard right for over a decade.