Comment by skore | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skore | Hacker News Reader

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I'm very tired of this brand of relativism that is unfortunately rather popular in tech circles, no matter how progressive we like to think ourselves.

"Similar Parallels"

No, there is a looooong gradient along which the issues you mention (and issues like homophobia) can be placed. Society moves in a certain direction - if you graph public attitude towards homosexuals, there is a clear trend. Similar graphs can be drawn for abortion, womens rights and immigration reform.

On the other hand, directly equating "raising taxes" with robbery sits at a very steady equilibrium of whoever currently uses that sort of logic to kill arguments. Most recently (ie. past couple of years), it is mostly being picked up by the libertarian mindset which is in turn utilized by the more mainstream political right in the US.

We all make choices and our combined choices influence how that graph progresses, but you can directly compare an individuals position with the median position in society. Removing or blocking people from powerful positions when they seem to be too removed from that median is a fundamentally and democratically sound mechanic.

Except in this case, the median Californian voted for Prop 8.

That's besides the point: My argument is that we need to understand it in a historical context.

52% of Californians voted for Prop 8 in 2008. But: Had you asked 10, 25, 50, 100 years before that, what would the outcome have been? Draw a graph along that line through 2008 and you can track the development of public opinion.

Except I disagree that blacklisting people for political views is a valid democratic mechanism.

You're basically making the "be on the right side of history" argument, but you presume to much. For example public opinion on abortion has been roughly flat for fifty years.

> For example public opinion on abortion has been roughly flat for fifty years.

Maybe in the US, but internationally is another matter entirely.

Also: I'm not agreeing with your wording of "blacklisting people for political views". I do, however, think that the higher your potential impact on society, the higher the scrutiny towards the outlier nature of some of your opinions should be.

In other words: The further up an employee in a company or a politician in the respective political field moves on their ladder, the more is it justified to hold them closer to the standard set by median public opinion on certain matters.

U.S. abortion law is far to the left of even Western Europe. And there was never a legislative action in the U.S. that legalized abortion per se. Instead, it was a very controversial court decision. This has clearly frozen and polarized the debate. It's not out of the realm of possibilities the same could happen in the gay marriage debate.

There's only a "clear trend" on homosexuality if you limit your timeframe.

Attitudes toward homosexuality in ancient Greece, for example, were pretty liberal. They were also really different from anything we have today, such that it defies putting it anywhere on a spectrum that modern folks would be familiar with.

Society moves in many directions, often simultaneously, and we should be careful not to confuse the movement of the last century or so with either inevitability or rightness.

(I personally think that consenting adults should be allowed to have whatever sort of sex and marriage they feel like, I just object to the idea that there's a clear trend on the issue overall.)

> Attitudes toward homosexuality in ancient Greece, for example, were pretty liberal.

As they were in India. That's why it's usually more instructive to look at the median, rather than the outliers.

Furthermore: It's debatable to what extent it makes sense to include historical timeframes on which we have lacking or inconclusive data.

How much of history do we really have good data on it, though? How do you figure out the median with so much missing data?

All in all, it sounds like you're agreeing with me: it's wrong to claim a trend.

> All in all, it sounds like you're agreeing with me: it's wrong to claim a trend.

I'm undecided, but leaning towards seeing a trend (yes, even with historical uncertainties). I'm absolutely willing, though, to attest that to the fact that I'm seeing a trend that would suit me.

I don't see any problem at all with pointing out a local trend. Abolition, women's suffrage, civil rights, desegregation, women's rights, gay rights - in every case, a low-status class of people promoted to more equal rights. Also, in every case, xenophobia replaced by inclusion.

Just because half the population is still dragging their heels about the latest oppressed group to get this kind of attention, like they always do, does not mean that there's anything special or more complicated about this case. It's still privileged people being asses to less privileged people for as long as they can possibly get away with. Like they always do. Imagine if people could be accepting in the general case, without being dragged to it?

I agree that there's no problem with pointing out a local trend, but I didn't read it as being local in the original comment. Statements like "Society moves in a certain direction" make it sound like a statement that's supposed to apply universally, and it very much does not.

Sure, all of your examples point in the same direction, because you chose examples that point in that direction. There are plenty of examples to be had of the opposite direction.

We happen to be in a locale, both in space and time, where there's a strong trend towards more inclusion and more rights. But if you expand out to the planet and the long term, I simply don't see the trend. Things get better in some times and places, and worse in others, and overall we just sort of oscillate around.

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