Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

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It's funny / scary to me how we were all so worried about this coming from the Right. In 2016, Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, etc etc were all (probably rightly) a big source of concern that democratic norms were being abandoned and they would steamroll over institutions that were not prepared for people who didn't play by the rules.

Even before that, we have stuff like Watchmen and V for Vendetta from Alan Moore that predicts the slip into authoritarianism, but depicts it coming from the right.

And then either in response or just because they were not in the spotlight, the Left came in and completely abandoned norms and decided that they could just do whatever, from never accepting Trump's win (I don't like Trump, but the point is that shouldn't be required to accept someone's winning), to all the covid stuff, to misinformation, to what's going on now with the courts (I support abortion access, not protesting the supreme court).

  You watch your back but you're best to watch your front

  -GZA

Please don’t comment like that. HN guidelines:

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

You and I live in different realities

democrats didn’t storm congress that was trump supporters when they refused to accept his loss.

There is nothing wrong with protesting the Supreme Court decisions, that’s called freedom of speech. Aka something valued in non-authoritian value systems.

Covid misinformation like ivermectin? Or that it’s just flu? That’s not the left spreading those.

Hacker news isn’t a good place for political debates but the views you expressed have serious flaws/skews and do not reflect a factual/neutral observer. Take your rebuttal reply if you will but I’m not going to continue after this because hacker news shouldn’t be for political wars like your post is designed to bring on. In fact the HN guidelines ask people not to post like your comment.

This is a super ironic comment, but I guess has the value that even something that seems clear like forum guidelines are subject to wide (and ideological) interpretation.

No, it’s not ironic, it’s why the guideline is exists. If someone posts something that they know many others are going to strongly disagree with politically it’s against HN guidelines. I can point that out. I also can’t let what I view as false and slanted viewpoints go unchallenged. That’s exactly why the guideline exists, that type of top comment can lead to a back and forth after the first poster opens Pandora’s box. Don’t open the box.

I think everyone is becoming more Authoritarian.

The right will never stop because the survival of their traditions depend on it. The left will never stop because they know what's best for us.

The central idea of Liberalism is that societies grow best when their citizens have enough calm space to figure out their own lives. The internet constantly shows us lives we find heretical, and without conscious effort to calm ourselves down and let go, that calm is gone.

I guess we just mob up and go to war now.

EDIT:

In a sense, the internet has crashed hundreds of millions of people into the same village. We're still working out how to live with one another.

In practice it's people screaming for leaders to make sweeping rules to fight against the corrupting influence of whatever force they don't like in their mega-village, taking turns in an escalating battle.

I'm wondering what some signs might be that we are working out how to live with one another, like less sub tweeting or something.

I think we're still in the process of realizing we have new neighbors, judging by the rise in culture wars. We've got to peak soon, right?

Until then, I could see it getting worse - people from one state marching in another to protest their ways of life for example.

Certain events can be thought of as inflection points and peaks. Possibly elections and policies taking hold.

The bigger problems require all the more calm and collective action.

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