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Comment by swingandamiss | Hacker News Reader

I truly hate what HN has become. It has all the expected comments about Musk, fascism, etc. This is exactly why I stopped going to reddit.

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Just a friendly gesture that there's still independents/non-partisan's here. We're a dying breed, but it seems to the the inevitable outcome when politics becomes a religion.

Buddy, ICE is chasing down and killing US citizens. Musk is openly supporting European neo-Nazis. The US tech sector is supporting the genocide of Palestinians, and interfering with foreign elections.

See, the problem is that each side has moved so far to the extreme that any middle of the road comment is perceived as supporting the other side. But thanks for the demonstration, I guess.

Swing and a miss buddy. The point is that big tech is political by its own choice, and you have to be extremely ignorant to look past that.

No, you just blatantly assumed none of those things mattered to me. You do realize you can have morals and opinions but also be non-partisan, right? Of course big tech is political, I completely agree. But you never asked me that question. Which again, really just keeps driving my point home. It's rabid.

The parties have morals and opinions which are quite diametrically opposed. If you have any at all, then you necessarily align with one or the other - being in the exact middle is an extreme rarity (and also quite a stupid position, because it implies you can't decide whether it's better to have free healthcare or to torture immigrants). Most people who claim to be in the exact middle are in fact not.

Being non-partisan or independent has nothing to do with being in the "exact middle." I don't even think that's a real thing, nor did I ever imply it was. A better example is that, given an election ballot, I might split party lines rather than toe it unconditionally. I register as neither party because I generally disagree enough I don't wish to be affiliated with their policies. It doesn't mean I don't agree with some. Perhaps one election cycle I swing more left than right and the next I swing more right than left. It doesn't mean one cycle I identify as a Democrat and the other a Republican.

Since you keep baiting me with your straw man, I'll address the example: I neither want to torture immigrants nor do I want to give free healthcare to non-taxpayers. So, given your straw man, that would posit I'm in neither party's camp.

This is not the definition of non-partisan.

"Nonpartisan means free from party affiliation, bias, or political party alignment."

You're not even being genuine at this point.

Do you find yourself aligning with one party more than the other or is it an exact 50/50 split?

It's never a 50/50 split, and thus far it has yet to stay consistent with the tumultuous election cycles we've seen recently. I answered your straw man, which you ignored. Perhaps you can instruct me on what my true party affiliation is based on my answer to it? That might clear things up.

Which party does the split favour?

Amazing that you continue to ignore the strawman, lol. Clearly you're trolling.

A middle of the road comment would be "we need taxes, but not too high" or "children shouldn't be going hungry, but very sadly we can't afford to feed them from the city budget". What's actually being responded to above is the complete lack of a comment.

"We'll just shoot protestors a little bit"

The left: we need free healthcare and less market capture.

The right: we need to torture immigrants and more market capture.

The center: I can't decide between these two equally appealing, equally moral options.

This is a naive perspective. Both extremes are losing people to independents for a reason. What we want is less of this and more of civil discourse. Most people are not tuned into the details, are focusing on their family, and vote based on how their wallet feels and the things they hear 2-3 weeks before the election.

Perhaps if the far left and hard right didn't dominate primaries (many reasons for this), we could have less extreme candidates in November. But it is what it is until we start having civil conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, and community. We could be having conversations about how we improve our democracy.

You comment lends to being part of the problem. Please stop demeaning everyone with blanket statements.

As an independent volunteering with Indivisible, my main effort has been to moderate the members on the far left.

I have heard of precisely three people in American politics who are left at all, much less far left. Those are AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani. The left is certainly not dominating any primaries.

They are democratic socialists, the far left is a much bigger camp.

The rule of thumb I use is, do they say things like "win at all costs" or talk about how they want to dominate others, forcing their views on all Americans.

guy whose blog is capstoned with "vive la résistance" bragging about spending his free time moderating the left

man, the wannabe trolls are out today

quality first comment buddy, leave that stuff on Musk and Zuck Social please

So where are the quotes of hard left politicians (and not some fringe politician) saying they want to dominate everything. Also how is that even part of a left/right definition. In fact in my experience the ones who most talk about eliminating others in politics are the self declared moderates, who at every opportunity talk about how we need to eliminate the extremes from politics.

the culture war between the groups has ample examplar

lots of top down rules for everyone, rather than the "trickle up" governance experiments we need to runin order to (1) figure out what works in practice (2) convince others they should try it to

So the answer is no quotes.

By that metric Donald Trump is far left, so I don't think it's a good metric.

it's a metric for the extremes, both far left and hard right

the rest of us want debates and compromise

Compromise like

Person A: let's torture immigrants

Person B: let's not

Person C: whoa whoa hold on. Isn't there space in the middle that will please everyone? Let's only torture half the immigrants

There's a reason "enlightened centrist" is such a maligned stereotype. As stupid as person A is in the mock exchange above, person C is clearly even stupider.

This person seem content with summarizing the entire choice of a political party into a single point of torturing immigrants. It's no wonder we're in the state we are.

> until we start having civil conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, and community. We could be having conversations about how we improve our democracy.

You don't have much idea what some of our family, friends, and neighbors are like do you? I have nothing to say to fascists, Nazis, and anyone who advocates for the things MAGA advocates for. Spare us the "oh we should just talk it out" BS. The time for discourse ended when people started advocating for racist fascism. And if you're unable to spot the racist fascism, then you likely support it.

How do you expect them move away from those awful mindsets if we don't talk to them?

There is firm historical precedent on how to talk to Nazis.

Blue MAGA (what you sound like) is no better than Trump's MAGA

Please leave your political extremism at home when coming to HN. Musk Social is the place for that, if you need to let off the steam and yell into the void

No idea what blue MAGA is. But I know a fascist apologist when I hear one. And that fascism is the political extremism here, so you might consider leaving it behind.

You know what Blue MAGA is, they are people who are too online, too caught up in their echo chamber, and say hyperbolic things like you have, putting anyone who doesn't agree with them into their evil list, unable to understand nuance or the center / independents

There is a reason both extremes are losing support, it's people who say things like you have here. The rest of us are tired of you and you undermine the causes you care about. Touch some grass, talk to people in real life.

I'll have you know, I'm estranged from my parents and a best friend over these things. You do not need to talk to them all, but we do need to talk with them collectively if we are to move minds. I let my sister work on my parents, she has always had a much closer relationship.

Oh, so blue MAGA is just someone you don't like, I see.

You are either are blind to the things going on in this country, or you approve of them. Elon Musk did a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration. Twice. Trump invited a known white supremacist to dinner. ICE is disappearing people. Trump had his goons raid a sitting congresswoman, in an obvious attempt to intimidate naturalized citizens and immigrants. He is implementing Project 2025, which is white Christian nationalism. He already attempted a coup, and has every intention of interfering in the midterms. Oh and he's clearly a pedo.

And you think people opposed to those things are "extreme"? What exactly do you say to people who support things that Nazis literally supported? As I said, you either support these things, or you are willfully ignorant of them.

There is no center with fascism. You are for or against. I don't give a goddamn if you are tired of hearing about it. People less fortunate than you are living it.

> ... I see

you don't see, you stand on a soap box and tell everyone how bad they are for not saying things exactly like you do

you are part of the problem in this country

do you think relentlessly attacking people is the way to win them to your causes or way of thinking?

I'm opposed to the same things you are, but you don't move people when you say things they way you say them

Sure pal. It's not the fascists and the pedos and the white supremacists and the warmongering oligarchs, it's anyone who points out what they are doing.

I'm starting to think you do support all of that. Why else would you whine about anyone mentioning it? What alternative is there? You clearly have no idea about the people you think should be talked to, they cannot be reached because they like what's going on.

It took a goddamn world war to stop Nazis from doing what they did. Talking won't do anything to people like that.

you're only making yourself more miserable thinking and speaking like this

you are as bigoted as you portray them to be, text book projection, because you've never talked with them, you see what bots promote on social media and attribute it to large swaths of humans, that's textbook fascism bud

Aww, thanks for the concern. Your problem is you are not nearly mad enough about what is going on, and where things are heading (assuming you're not fully on board, which is seeming likely). Enjoy your head full of sand.

dwell on this, keep checking back to see how much winning you did, it's totally healthy for you /s

Have you tried to understand why Trump won the popular vote in 2024?

I was like you, then I swore off Big Social and anything with reposts and quote posts, and the echo chamber media that has replaced newspapers. I found new sources for better information and ideas, and started working with my local political organizations instead. Much happier and healthier these days. Able to make more difference than yelling at people online ever will.

This only gets fixed in meat space, not digital space

Cool story bro. I assume you are white enough and wealthy enough that you are barely inconvenienced by what is going on and are able to "digital detox" or whatever. I assume you also are not an immigrant and no one you care about is at risk of being murdered by ICE. Really happy for you.

HN is the only social media site I use, btw.

We need to be clear here. Elon isn't bad or a nazi because he did the salute. He's a nazi because he supports racial supremacy, imperialism, and putting his enemies in death/torture camps, which are what a nazi is. The salute is just a loyalty test - to see how obvious he can make it before people stop excusing it.

Ding ding ding. The salute is just shorthand so everyone knows what he supports.

Just to clarify I'm not american and I don't support either us main party, but your comment that the hard left and hard right are dominating the primaries sums it up pretty clearly. From an outside perspective only absolute miniscule fraction of politicians in the US are hard left. Most of US politics would be anywhere between moderate conservative to extreme right in the rest of the world.

Or,

The left: let’s do empty gestures and those who are supposed to help just commit fraud instead. Let’s support genocide but be “sad” about it online.

The right: let’s make sure that people aren’t hindered in leading the lives that they want and everyone benefits from this.

The center: the left claims to do nice things and the right doesn’t seem friendly.

Which part of exiling people and torturing other people is "making sure they aren't hindered in leading the lives that they want"

Or do those ones not count as people?

Buddy, I think you would benefit from getting your news from other sources.

In current times only cowards and deadbeats are non partisan.

Non-partisan doesn't mean lack of engagement or action. Maybe that's why there's so much confusion here.

By non-partisan, it is meant that a person will apply reasoning instead of blindly following the partisan narrative.

Yeah it's a really bad echo chamber, hard to find any system that is not built around group thinking

The mental gymnastics on display here by so many is quite impressive. Many are now saying term limits are bad. They want the government to control media outlets. They take on face value vague accusations against META doing something wrong.

True.

> I truly hate what HN has become

Account created 3 months ago

As if alt accounts don't exist

O'Sullivan's First Law: "Any organization not explicitly right-wing will eventually become left-wing"

Usually laws are based on some kind of observable reality.

Here are a couple examples of initially neutral or moderate organizations that became left wing bastions:

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

Writers Guild of America

Directors Guild of America

National Education Association

American Federation of Teachers

American Psychological Association

American Sociological Association

Modern Language Association

American Historical Association

Association of American Universities

Columbia University

Harvard University

Yale University

University of California, Berkeley

Oberlin College

Reed College

NPR

PBS

The New York Times

The Washington Post

The Guardian

Human Rights Campaign

GLAAD

Good luck finding examples of the opposite direction.

The "left" has a well-known reality bias.

The New York Times and The Washington Post left wing bastions?

Either your list is way out of date or the Overton Window is so far to the right in the US that this statement is somehow possible.

There are many more institutions on that list that are explicitly not left wing by non-US standards.

the Overton Window in the US is so far to the right that it's not even on the wall any more. It's just hanging in space, off somewhere outside the whole building (aka physical reality).

Here are a few examples of initially neutral or moderate organisations that are using their time machines to harbor enemies of His Majesty Homer Simpson:

(Pretend I wrote the exact same list)

So you're not against fascism?

A shocking number of people aren't against fascism, as long as you don't use the actual word to describe what they support.

And when you correctly use the word to describe what they are supporting, you are inciting violence.

Example?

Anglo-American media spend the 2000s and 2010s accusing Denmark of being fascist.

The word is absolutely meaningless now.

The word may be ill defined but it's a useful term for the current trend of right wing populist autocratic leaders.

Unfortunately those on the left seem to have fascist tendencies.

Well some of them. You can always use another word for those. Socialist tends to get used. It's kind of funny how politics corrupts all terms from their original meaning.

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