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Comment by floren | Hacker News Reader

I believe that tweet was intended as comedy.

It might not be true, but it is so revealing of the mindset of people who think that way.

> It might not be true, but it is so revealing of the mindset of people who think that way.

Is this sarcasm/irony? Or are you doing precisely what this post talks about? Or perhaps I am parsing your words incorrectly?

The CS Lewis quote from the article:

> Wishing that black was blacker, conviction that false stories reveal deep truths about opponents

Now you're falling victim to it!

heh, its a recursive cultural meme :)

The definition of the word “irony” should simply be a link to your comment.

We live in a post-irony world where any utterance may be claimed to mean what it says or its exact inverse as the situation or changing winds of culture causes its author to see fit.

Many people believe the caricatures

Ask any politically independent or moderate person, and they can tell you everyone else only sees caricatures of the other side

Is "most people with X politics only sees caricatures" not a caricature?

Generalizing about one's political enemies is the pastime of all people, including "moderates".

I would more greatly weigh the learned experiences of people who actually talk to the other side

The notion that there are sides and not a web of gradients is built on caricatures. It's the same kind of thinking that makes people believe the color painted over a state on the news tells you anything about an individual there.

The notion that there are sides and not a web of gradients (in the US) is built on polls. The real mystery I want an answer to is why the country us split 50/50 on almost everything.

The nature of democracy. There's a strong selection bias for positions which attract more votes.

Ergo, all parties continually optimize their positions, and apparently meet at a boundary that's usually about half the elective.

> The nature of democracy.

Not really. There are basically no countries in Europe with a 50/50 split.

> There's a strong selection bias for positions which attract more votes

Again, no, not really in Europe with proportional representation or similar systems.

* Winner take all democracy

If 50+1 wasn't the magic number, it makes sense you'd see parties optimizing for other things.

Even a very well-designed poll has limited resolution on an individual's views.

We're only split 50/50 on issues, and things are issues because we are split 50/50. If a large majority of people agree on both what to do and how to do it, we just do that.

You don't exactly need a poll for "issues" like should we legalize necrophilia or should we go to war with Australia.

> The real mystery I want an answer to is why the country us split 50/50 on almost everything.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

https://twitter.com/Hbomberguy

You can just check. It's not typing a name into google is difficult.

The parent comment says "were the people reacting to it actually in on the joke". He's not asking whether the tweet exists, but whether it was ironic.

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