The problem is what can be done? The usual arrangement of letter writing or donating and voting is just more of the same cycle.
I'm not by any means in favor of what's going on, but some steam has to be let out of the system. And the real problem is trust in our institutions. What can be done about that?
My thoughts exactly. I certainly have throes of people on Facebook complaining about this, but what shall I, the individual, do about this?
I have my causes to which I devote great time and personal effort, but if I stopped my life for every minor disaster I would spend my life shaking my fist at my computer.
I quite like my life and I don’t intend to spend it getting rage baited by never-ending news cycles.
Give me an action to take, not an emotion to feel.
I'm nearly 50 and have watched politics swing back and forth all my life.
That's not what is currently happening. It's not a minor disaster. It's something we'll take generations to recover from, if ever.
We can't do much, individually. Find people in your community working on stuff you care about and get out there and pitch in. Get involved. Make sure your local school district isn't banning books or being cruel to trans kids. Make sure you have good city councilors.
How old are you? What is happening now at the NSF and NIH will knock the US off its technological perch in less than 15 to 20 years. We are already fighting to maintain an edge as it is.
What this means to you personally and other tech workers is that many of the well-paying tech jobs will be going elsewhere.
It's not a bad thing...for those other countries. As an American you're not going to be able to get those jobs. You think a Chinese company is going to want to hire a remote American worker, who is 10 time zones away, doesn't speak the language, doesn't know the culture, and who wants to work only 40 hours a week? Maybe not even if you're willing to work for $20/hour.
In addition i'd also suggest looking at deep roots of why half the country is cheering it up. They don't want their country to go down the drain. Then why? It was pretty illustrative how MAGA was cheering the stopping of condoms money to Kenya in the Trump's speech. It looked like a caricature example of the government waste. Well, condoms there is one of the most effective ways to slow down HIV spreading. I'd bet MAGA wouldn't want more people there to get HIV. I'd bet MAGA just didn't know it. To me the "[not]know" is the root keyword in all that destruction happening now.
If it were free, I guarantee every single maga republican I know would be ok with it.
It's an issue of tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs were never clearly articulated even to me the most staunch supporter of foreign aid. We've just accepted it and all such programs because we can see, because we trust, that the analysis was done and is valid.
Government does not currently have that level of trust with half the country, and worse has active distrust.
I think it’s less that they “WANT” more people to get HIV but instead they do know that doing this type of thing will cause more cases and they’re fine with it because “gods will” and a bigger plan and all that.
Even this is completely uncharitable. Every maga republican I know is just concerned with poorly articulated cost/benefits of such programs.
We the liberal elite grew up with institutions making these kinds of decisions and we trust it to a certain extent.
There's a trust gap. Even the staunchest republican I know will gladly volunteer to help their local community for the most part. That's their priority.
The institutions have lost trust by sneaking political decisions through under the guise of science. Science can tell you what will happen if you make a certain decision, but it can't tell you what decision to make because that is a fundamentally non scientific question. They can regain trust by acting in a trustworthy manner.
Yeah I agree with this. If these tradeoffs were articulated and then everyone was allowed to personally buy "foreign aid bonds" then people could put their money to work in what mattered to them.
Instead the whole country funds programs that half of them don't trust, regardless of who is in charge.
Chain yourself to a Tesla dealership. I'm serious. Getting Elon Musk to cry about how unfair he's being treated on TV amidst the damage he's doing will do more to hasten his departure than any letter or check you can write.
Sure, go back in time and talk to the Abolitionists or those who opposed Civil Rights. It's not gray, that's a big misconception. Dang is completely wrong about censoring and flagging discussion on a fucking coup in America. If the discussion devolves a million times, then let it devolve a million times. It's necessary.
Notice that your ability to label things with a strong moral charge refers to a handful of historical events from the past 200 years. Everything before that gets really fuzzy, is multi-faceted, and doesn’t evoke emotion.
Absolute monarchy was worse than systems that shared power with an aristocracy which in turn was worse than restricted democracy which was worse than universal suffrage.
Feudalism was worse than capitalism which in turn was worse than the results of the labor movement.
Forced conversion was worse than religious discrimination which in turn was worse than religious freedom.
> which in turn was worse than restricted democracy which
That’s not true. In aristotle’s politics he explores the major forms of government of which demagoguery is a corruption of democracy. And he gives examples.
and what do you mean by better? Do you claim that Every democracy that’s ever existed functions better than every aristocracy in fulfilling its governing role? Better for who in and what regard?
> capitalism and fuedalism
There are absolutely no tradeoffs between feudalism and capitalism? Capitalism is an absolute good in comparison?
And you’re only highlighting the major movements it the progressive narrative and ignored all the twists and turns. Was Catholicism better than Protestantism? What about agrarian hunter/gatherer vs capitalism?
Like what? Do you mean like should we or shouldn't we enslave people to build the Pyramids? Is that what you mean? Like, that's just how it was back then and so its like, okay? So like, that's just how it is now days, so like, whatever Dang is doing with this is like, morally alright?
1) I cannot use my sensibility to look at the last 200 years (huh? okay.)
2) I need to now make sense of geopolitical beef between England and France around 1300.
3) Then I need to tie this all back to how this all leads to not be being able to determine, morally, what's going on today.
Are these the rules to becoming the pokemon master in your gym? I'll continue if I have all the rules down. I'm excited to attend your world class mental gym and get the greatest of all mental gymnastics training.
People would struggle to answer because "which side do you support in the hundred years war" is the wrong question. A better question would be "do you support the social structures (e.g. nationalism, monarchy, etc.) that contributed to the hundred years war".
Or stated another way, the premise implied by your question is incorrect. Its perfectly possible that both England and France were on the wrong side of history.
No. because the issues that France and England fought over do not serve any modern day political purpose. Nobody can use them to fuel their cause. But the idea that it’s due to “nationalism” still does which is why you are able to confidently boil down a hundred years into one word.
And once again, not me the absence of emotion. Saying “they’re both right” or “they’re both wrong” elicits nothing.
Can you boil down the Inquisition into one word? I'm confused, so you found an example that works for you and then like, our examples are not workable I guess? I'm very open to you being brilliant with an incredible thesis at hand, but like, seriously give me your thesis - what the are you talking about?
Tech platforms censored a lot of right of center content, thinking it would mean those ideas would disappear.
Instead Musk took over Twitter, right leaning podcasts became far more popular than left leaning podcasts because they were willing to engage in controversial topics, and now Trump and Musk control everything.
But, you know, keep trying the same thing and hoping for different results.
A thought experiment for you: how do you think the audience of Hacker News compares to Joe Rogan? And your focus is seriously on censoring more content on Hacker News to move the needle in national politics?
You blame dang for flagging you, but based on your comments in this thread I'd say you're bringing it on yourself from other users. Liberal, moderate, or conservative, anyone on HN who's interested in having a reasonable conversation will flag your comments if you regularly talk like this.
(And to be clear I'm not talking about the swearing, I'm talking about the totally off base assumptions made about OP's political stance and the level of aggression you're showing. It's time to log off and touch grass, dude.)
No, I know how awful my comments are so I expect them to be flagged and downvoted (not really awful, I just can't help but say fuck you to the other side in the current climate). It's better to look at my submissions.
Here's a simple one that was just flagged recently:
So if it's not Dang that's doing this, then there is a MAGA contingent here as far as I'm concerned. Some of you don't have the appropriate level of vigor quite frankly and might need more of those T boost shots Rogan tells yall to always get.
> not really awful, I just can't help but say fuck you to the other side in the current climate
No, you're saying "fuck you" to anyone and everyone who isn't waving their "I hate Trump" card right out of the gate. Near as I can tell reading through past comments, OP is in the sizable contingent that thinks that recent US politics has resembled nothing so much as an all-out war between toddlers and that left-wing hatred and bile like what you are manifesting bears at least some responsibility for getting us Trump in the first place.
It's possible to hate Trump, hate MAGA, and also think that the actions of liberals through the last decade directly contributed to the environment that led to his rise. Apparently that position counts as "the other side" to you, which is exactly what led us here: if there are only two sides then it's too easy to be a Trump supporter.
if there are only two sides then it's too easy to be a Trump supporter.
I'll concede that, that's a great point. However, the key to maintaining a balanced diet is first you must get to a target weight you would like to balance from. You can't just be 300lbs and begin eating a balanced diet. There is no time to sit here and argue about anything you mentioned. We are simply in crisis and this involves wiping the slate clean of the mindshare that is sitting right before us. We can discuss our old hatreds afterwards, which pale in comparison. Basically, we need to restart the game from the last save point, as much is it sucks. We can't take the balanced diet of all sides bad because we're extremely obese at the moment.
Some disagree, to which I generally just leave a Fuck You.
> We are simply in crisis and this involves wiping the slate clean of the mindshare that is sitting right before us. We can discuss our old hatreds afterwards, which pale in comparison. Basically, we need to restart the game from the last save point, as much is it sucks. We can't take the balanced diet of all sides bad because we're extremely obese at the moment.
The only way that any of this makes any kind of sense is if you're proposing that we lean into the abolition of democracy, and if you were going to propose that then the time to do it was sometime before Jan 20 2025. The far right are the ones with the militias, so an armed revolt isn't going to go our way, and now that Trump is in office abolishing democracy from the top down would obviously not lead to the outcome you want.
Like it or not, we're stuck with white knuckling it and trying to persuade people to vote our way in the midterms, and this style of rhetoric is decidedly counterproductive towards that end.
Yes, we need a blowout midterms. I said this in another comment, and I'll paraphrase again. The Left does not need to win back a single Republican voter. We just need to clearly show their face, and I believe this will be enough to rally them to a blowout in 2025. When you see the rotten greedy values of the Right, it will immediately activate the larger Left demographic (which will dwarf anything you've ever seen). Many closet-maga came out of the woodwork just in this thread alone, with zero shame. So necessary to just see.
We don't need to dismantle democracy. That's their game.
The problem is what can be done? The usual arrangement of letter writing or donating and voting is just more of the same cycle.
I'm not by any means in favor of what's going on, but some steam has to be let out of the system. And the real problem is trust in our institutions. What can be done about that?