> If the politicians of a particular era were elected their policies must have been within the window of that era.
Sure, they're probably somewhere _within_ that window, but that tells us nothing about the boundaries of the window. Which politician gets elected depends on factors like funding, news coverage, campaign strategy, how districts are divided and how votes are weighted. Especially at the national level. Which policies an elected official implements is dependant upon lobbying, cooperation with other politicians, and legislative work that's going on at a particular time.
> If all the politicians, of all parties, in an earlier era were to the left of today it stands to reason that the range of policies acceptable to the public, ie the window, has moved to the right since then.
All politicians? That's a lot of people to consider, but I suppose that we don't have anyone in the west running on a fascist platform, even though that was popular in the early 20th century. I haven't seen any absolute monarchists, plutocrats, theocrats, or ethno-nationalists either. Nowadays monarchs are symbolic rulers and "plutocrat" is just an insult.
Those positions are all to the right of where we are today, and they're now well outside of public discourse. So, politicians of the past weren't all more left-leaning.
> Young people of the right agree just about as much as those of the left. Older generations of right and left are those holding the previous anachronistic views.
Exactly! Whether you're looking at Labor voters, Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, they've all shifted their views to the left, compared to where we were a few decades ago.
I'm not saying that individual people have changed their minds on social issues. We should expect to see old people that still have the same beliefs that were common during their formative years. Society as a whole has shifted as younger people grow up with a different value system and old people die off.
The Overton window is the range of acceptable public opinions. It's what you're allowed to talk about in polite company and what kinds of policies people will seriously consider. It's not a measurement of where popular elected officials of a given era lie on the political spectrum.
Nowadays, I think that people can talk about whatever economic policy they want and they won't be ousted from society. For example, in the US, Bernie Sanders ran a campaign supporting UBI and he got a significant chunk of the vote, so that idea clearly is within the range of acceptable discourse.
As for LGBT rights and most social issues, I think it's pretty clear that views which were acceptable a few decades ago are unthinkable today.
> The tide turned on Friday, June 8. Out of the blue, an email popped onto the forensics community mailing list. It contained a single link, to an Anonymous video.
All that video said was "the API you seek is called Activities". Am I missing the joke, or is the name of the API literally the only thing that they needed to get this working?
That depends on whether the Overton window continues to shift leftward, or if it is pushed in another direction. There were LGBT rights movements as early as the 1890's, but those didn't last.
I'm actually in the exact same position - not super interested in getting a job, very interested in researching and learning, and I've got enough money to be fine for a few years if I really needed to. Obviously I _should_ put forth the effort to build out my resume, apply to some companies that I actually like, and go through the interview process, but I haven't yet. I find it interesting that I'm not the only person in that boat.
As for efficiently certifying UI benefits: I would love to. Here in NY, the labor.gov website is awful and even goes down for hours at a time. If it was any less money I'd be tempted to just ignore unemployment insurance entirely and consider it a trade-off for less time wasted dealing with bureaucracy.
However, according to our claimant handbook[0] we're not able to have someone else fill out the weekly form for us, use an anonymizing internet service, or certify benefits while traveling. In fact, giving someone else your PIN can get you jailed for fraud, so I'm kinda afraid to try automating their system... Given their strictness, I doubt that they would look kindly upon that.
Sure, they're probably somewhere _within_ that window, but that tells us nothing about the boundaries of the window. Which politician gets elected depends on factors like funding, news coverage, campaign strategy, how districts are divided and how votes are weighted. Especially at the national level. Which policies an elected official implements is dependant upon lobbying, cooperation with other politicians, and legislative work that's going on at a particular time.
> If all the politicians, of all parties, in an earlier era were to the left of today it stands to reason that the range of policies acceptable to the public, ie the window, has moved to the right since then.
All politicians? That's a lot of people to consider, but I suppose that we don't have anyone in the west running on a fascist platform, even though that was popular in the early 20th century. I haven't seen any absolute monarchists, plutocrats, theocrats, or ethno-nationalists either. Nowadays monarchs are symbolic rulers and "plutocrat" is just an insult.
Those positions are all to the right of where we are today, and they're now well outside of public discourse. So, politicians of the past weren't all more left-leaning.
> Young people of the right agree just about as much as those of the left. Older generations of right and left are those holding the previous anachronistic views.
Exactly! Whether you're looking at Labor voters, Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, they've all shifted their views to the left, compared to where we were a few decades ago.
I'm not saying that individual people have changed their minds on social issues. We should expect to see old people that still have the same beliefs that were common during their formative years. Society as a whole has shifted as younger people grow up with a different value system and old people die off.