There is an implicit assumption that the status-quo in the US can't possibly be bad, because people wouldn't stand for it. Of course, when people do choose to stand against it, it's branded as uncivil.
Anything to manufacture consent for the economic degeneracy of the bourgeois, even if it means covering for the fascists.
If I'm allowed to ask "What should we do about the Jewish Question" in a manner that appears civil, it's still not a civil discussion, regardless of the tone. If someone responds "don't you dare ask the Jewish Question," they aren't at fault for the lack of civility; the premise of the question was deeply uncivil.
Contextually, if someone on HN is asking "what should we do about the prisoners?" about people detained by ICE, the premise of the comment is uncivil. They are not prisoners, they have committed no crime (even by the standards of US law), and they are being held in deeply inhumane conditions. By any reasonable moral standard, the question is not "what should we do about the prisoners", but "how should we free people who are inhumanely detained." Allowing such an uncivil premise while banning emotional responses only reinforces the view that these people have committed some crime, and that they somehow 'deserve' the abhorrent treatment.
Furthermore, "concentration camp" has never meant "death camp", as many people seem to assume. I don't understand how it is incendiary to state they are concentration camps, when they largely meet the standards of a concentration camp.
I don't expect my posts to help these people, but I also refuse to remain silent about their inhumane treatment. If you still think this is inappropriate, I accept my ban, but I ask that you consider banning posts with such uncivil premises as well, even if they are written in an inoffensive tone.
Sure, but if that is your position you should go out and advocate for this better thing instead of bemoaning the efforts other people are making as misplaced.
This shows up anytime people try to make some sort of progressive improvement to society, people come out of the woodwork to complain that it's not the right solution, without doing anything (other than complaining I guess) to motivate a better solution.
Right, but you're questioning a position that doesn't really exist. Pretty much everyone that is a strong advocate for labour protections would also like universal healthcare, it's just much more likely we can achieve labour protection in the short term than universal healthcare.
The other side doesn't need convincing. Their class interests are directly opposed to those who most need universal healthcare.
Poor people die all the time in america because healthcare is unaffordable. Quit with your civility politics and help fix the problem or sit down and admit you want them to die because you don't want your taxes to go up.
> I'm an anarchist. The license plate on my Jeep is literally "ANARCHY." I'm actually not sure I could name a political position that's more strongly opposed by more people.
You're not an anarchist and you should stop try to adopt an identity with a vivid anti-capitalist history to represent your desire for corporate feudalism with guns. Anarchists are socialists and anything otherwise is misusing the word.
You aren't harassed for your beliefs because people with your economic beliefs literally hold every branch of government.
I'm sure you'll come back with something about republicans wanting big government to police morality, but those differences mean almost nothing when your economic incentives are aligned.
> Sure, they might have ill-gotten capital in the form of a deed (ignoring the likelihood that there's a lien on that deed) on a tiny parcel of stolen/colonized land or vested stock in the monopolist they work for, but that's a pittance in the scheme of things. They still need to sell their labor in order to meet their needs for food, shelter, community participation, etc.
I agree with you in spirit, that most people in SV and the tech industry in general are truly workers. However, I think the monopolists have been quite clever in offering just enough capital to those workers that they feel like an integral part of the system. Especially as they gain additional seniority, or work long enough to pay off their house, that mindset engrains itself. Add to this the democrats willingness to go after the middle/upper-middle class rather than the true elites to fund social programs, and you end up with an individualistic and anti-democratic mindset.
In a way, 'startup culture' and YC contribute to that perception, giving the workers the idea they can make it big as an entrepreneur, no matter how unlikely that really is. It's manufacturing the consent of the average wage-worker in SV for a system only truly benefits elite VC firms and a very very small number of very very lucky or very very well connected entrepreneurs.
> We need to find a way to reach these folks. Because this thread is evidence that they think they're significantly different from the people without housing they see on the street here every day.
There are a ton of tech workers ripe for class consciousness in the gaming industry, so I think that's a good place to start. I've also had a lot of luck encouraging collective action on individual teams that suffer under incompetent management. Combining a discussion of bad management with the trap of mortgage payments and immigration law has netted me a lot of progress with encouraging a more leftist worldview.
> I don’t like taxes being used to take away property from people just because you want what they have.
This is just a variant of "the left is just jealous of rich people" argument. That's not an argument and I'm not jealous, I'm actually quite rich by most standards, I just don't think it's earned or justified, especially in a country with a vivid history of genocide.
It's not so much that HN isn't 'open', but there is a wide double-standard in the evidence required for libertarian-right arguments vs leftist arguments.
Lots of right-wing arguments upvoted with almost no evidence:
> [The city] grant[s] de facto immunity to homeless people committing petty crime, stop all police enforcement of drug laws, and shame everyone who dares to complain.
This isn't an argument, and has no sources other than a vague 'feeling' by the poster. It even includes a bit of a cut at the left ("shame anyone who dares to complain").
I'm not really complaining about that individual comment, but it's also upvoted and contains no argument or substantive discussion. Similar comments I've made are always deeply downvoted.
This has a chilling effect on discourse from leftists, where it feels like it's not worthwhile to write a substantive comment only to have it downvoted with nothing other than pithy right-libertarian ideological comments in return.
So I haven't really bothered with this account, hence spewing ideology.
Because there are a thousand other practical solutions people have presented that you're ignoring in deference to your ideological motive that you don't like taxes.
> When you put it that way, the solution is obvious
When it's put in an ideologically biased way that ignores practical solutions to paying taxes on an increasing property value, it implies another ideologically biased solution that favours the material interests of the rich...
>The contract breech: Property taxes going up so fast that the only possible solution was to sell your home. Now, of course the value of the home was going up, which was what was driving the taxes. But forcing pensioners to sell their homes, disrupting/destroying a life-time of plans and work was never going to be a smooth ride -- who could have thought that it would be?
Financial instruments that prevent that already exist. If your home is worth millions of dollars it's not that hard to find a way to pay the property tax. "Having more money" is rarely a real problem.
> a sufficient number of desperate people saw it as a solution to get it enacted.
No, people who's material interests are in direct conflict with a functional society pushed for it. It passed through a combination of "think of the elders" concern-trolling and libertarian dark money.
Based on a lot of the comments here that _do_ pass moderation because they aren't "denunciatory" while still being awful, I think it will do good.
> we know as much about it as the people doing the lecturing, couldn't care less about that word, and aren't motivated by the concept.
Pompous ass. You care too much about keeping your prissy little internet forum tidy to use any sense of morality and judgement in moderation.
> If you're bringing up "the Jewish Question" as a way of insinuating something about HN moderation, that's pretty offensive.
Hah, I wasn't, but nice own. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Can't wait until you start going on about "good moderation is making both sides angry" as if my moral position is equivocal with a far-right one.