> Not sure if that article is really about shifting risks from corporates to workers and weakening their protections.
Jacobin articles are rarely 'about' anything. Their primary mode of reasoning is like folk etymology on a discourse level. There's usually a fair amount of factual evidence included, but it's forced through a narrative -- that's there for the sake of appearing novel -- into a conclusion that doesn't logically follow from anything presented.
(I haven't read this one yet, but if it's anything like Against Chairs[1], my criticism should apply. Admittedly I'm doing the same thing in this comment that I'm criticizing Jacobin for doing.)
Nearly every time the Tyranny of Structurelessness is posted to some activist's facebook wall these days, a link to the Tyranny of Tyranny is in the first few comments. Then the discussion devolves into rehashed bickering, though never about the actual content of the pieces.
This (Tyranny of Structurelessness) pamphlet was one of many diverse pamphlets on a board in an anarcho-communist activist/literature space where I used to volunteer. I'm more than surprised to see it posted here and it pleases me to see that there is a critique (Tyranny of tyranny).
Has there ever been a pole about the political leanings of HN or would it be impossible to enumerate the categories?
[] anarchist
[] socialist
[] republican
[] monarchist
[] libertarian
[] free market capitalist taxes are theft ayn rand is my god
[] conservative
[] democrat
[] i really couldn't tell you old boy
Such a poll would go against the site rules, and for good reason, but I sometimes conduct hidden polls by posting "libertarian" and "socialist" (I'm putting those in quotes because these terms have different meanings in the US than elsewhere) comments (using different accounts) on political threads and counting the upvotes. It might be surprising (but only for a split second) that the vast majority of HN users are progressive (in America: socialist/democrat), while free market believers/libertarians are a minority. It is by no means scientific, and possibly quite anecdotal, but also not surprising, that the free-market libertarians are among the younger members of this site (usually early twenties, judging by the information posted on user pages of "libertarian posters").
This is not surprising because HN is a community of mostly well educated people, which here, like elsewhere, is composed of left-leaning individuals. However, it is also true that the number of libertarians here, while still a relatively small minority, is larger than found in other communities of well educated people.
Have you also taken into account that most Americans that consider themselves democrat/liberal/progressive would be considered well to the right in most other countries represented on HN?
The American contingent really skews the numbers if you let people identify themselves.
You get a much clearer picture if you look at discussions around concrete issues, like government and regulation.
I'm not sure about that, I'm from the UK and most of my exposure to US culture comes from the internet or the media but I get the impression that there are simply more extremes of opinion in the US than there are here.
Your liberals are more progressive and your conservatives are more conservative, at least towards the fringes.
I think it would be much easier to find a consensus of opinion in the UK on most topics than it would be in the US.
It might be true that the political status quo (on many issues) in the US is further to the right than it is here, but that might be because progressives feel that they have to vote for the party that most closely represents their views and has a chance of being elected (presumably democrat) rather than a party that they necessarily agree with.
I think the UK is somewhat a special case among the Western European nations in this context as well. From a Finnish/Nordic perspective it seems that the US Democrats, on average, seem only a bit to the left of what would here be regarded as "center"; in some cases even to the right.
Bit of a me too comment, as in, that is what I was thinking as well - I have come to the judgment that the number of libertarians in HN is small though larger than other such communities. It makes you wonder.
I'd be more interested in a heat map of Political Compass[1] results or something similar. It's not a great model, but it's slightly less terrible than a bunch of pre-globalization labels.
And ultimately, I've stopped caring about how people define themselves politically. No matter how deep into activist milieus I got[2], my politics were always consequentialist. And to actually be a consequentialist you have to shut the hell up, strategize, build and iterate. Introspective and social identities are no exception to that.
I've got a few rules like, "personal autonomy trumps most bullshit", "strict separation of church and state (means .gov and .mil and .edu)" "lots of checks and balances (judicial, legislative, executive, media, direct democracy)", um, and so on
I do not believe in innate human rights, I only believe in asserting ideals but I am completely aware that your ideals and my ideals may differ.
Most days I sympathize with the anarchist ethos, I align myself with organisations like the FSF and EFF and ACLU (and the global and European equivalents: FSFe and so forth)
What does that make me I wonder? Do you mean consequentialism in the philosophical sense - as in, to be contrasted with deontology?
It only matters if you're still asking that rabbit hole of a question.
> Do you mean consequentialism in the philosophical sense - as in, to be contrasted with deontology?
I suppose that's accurate enough for this context. The LW threads where consequentialism has been discussed[1] are probably the only way to get a good idea of what I mean by it.
I'd probably be better served by using the word less in favor of a phrase like "longterm rationality".
There is no good, simple to understand word or phrase that gets across the idea of "ethical strategy is more important than anything, and that doesn't mean what you think it means, because my strategy involves willfully, permanently altering my identity whenever necessary (and practical)". The common language of ethics is stuck in the early 20th century (at best) and its pre-computational aspirations.
I see the main barrier to developing a "platform for meaningful, balanced debates" as one of semantic clarity, not discourse-level organization.
I cannot truthfully answer most of the questions I see on the site, because they have variable answers depending on what amount of game theory I apply to my thought processes:
* 1-step strategy: I answer by interpreting the words and phrases in the question exactly how I, personally, define them, with no regard to how widespread an interpretation like mine is.
* 2-step strategy: I attempt to discern the majoritarian interpretation of the question and answer accordingly.
* 3-or-more-step strategy: I attempt to mix my own interpretations with majoritarian ones to answer in a way that will maximize the propagation of my actual view and all its nuances.
The third option, in this case, is leading me to eschew voting and commenting on the platform altogether.[1] Though I am glad that it's led me to organize my thoughts on this matter.
What I'd really like to see in a discussion platform is more tightly networked semantics. Something more powerful than straight hyperlinking. Something that automates the conversion of broadcast and multicast text blocks (like forum posts) into tailored unicast ones (like private messages). Something that gives each user the background and definition set they need to interpret the content accurately. An API for people -- a PPI?
I really don't know how to make this happen. Arguably it's the sociological question of the century, the P vs. NP of human interaction. Maybe even the best first step is a platform like Saysaw. It's hard to say. But right now, I feel like there hasn't been any real progress since email or phpBB.
[1] This is also what made me stop using OkCupid. If anyone wants to take these thoughts on discussion platforms and apply them to a new dating platform, that'd be fantastic.
It's a good point, that different interpretations of the same sentence can lead to pointless debate. Unfortunately, I guess the main way to improve semantic clarity around an argument would be with more information up front, which would simultaneously raise the barrier to entry. Right now Saysaw aims to boil complex issues down into something which can quickly and easily provide a general overview of public opinion.
Perhaps the answer is to allow 'splitting' an debate when it becomes clear that more than one issue is really being discussed. That would mean you could retain the simplicity and low barrier to entry, while avoiding situations where discussions get off topic.
> It's a good point, that different interpretations of the same sentence can lead to pointless debate.
I'd take it even further -- different interpretations of the same sentence always lead to pointless debate except to the extent that such debate is expressly aimed at maximizing mutual understanding of the semantic interpretations (rather than the derivative views) of all parties involved. The focus should be on dissolving the question[1], then opinion comes into the picture whenever dissolution fails.
> Unfortunately, I guess the main way to improve semantic clarity around an argument would be with more information up front, which would simultaneously raise the barrier to entry.
True. Right now the size of the discussion is inversely proportional to its complexity. I think we all overestimated how much that would change due to the architecture of the internet.
> Perhaps the answer is to allow 'splitting' an debate when it becomes clear that more than one issue is really being discussed. That would mean you could retain the simplicity and low barrier to entry, while avoiding situations where discussions get off topic.
It makes me really optimistic that your mind went directly to that. "Semantic threading" as a replacement to "people threading" is the core of what I'd like see in a discussion platform that actually hopes to achieve the goal of "meaningful, balanced debates".
Taking that to the extreme, I've long wanted a platform that takes the form of a single discussion, where structured branching and merging from various parts in the discussion makes a lot of the actual writing redundant. Though I'm not sure what sort of effects on motivation that would have -- people like to feel like they're contributing in a more substantive manner than "me too", and there's often an unwillingness to quote oneself which could dramatically slow down conversation when the community is still small. If I ever get around to specifying a protocol or building a service like that myself, I suspect that it would make the most sense to specify the protocol as an extension of git or build the service on top of github.
> Bitcoin would help because it is a fixed-supply currency. If the world switches to it, no government anywhere will be able to practise inflation anymore.
Correct, no government could, but inflation is innate to the cryptocurrency environment as a whole, even if the current popular coins have capped supplies (dogecoin being a notable exception [1]).
Yes, I'm well aware that some coins have baked-in inflation. However, that's an architectural decision made in the design of any given coin, not "innate to the cryptocurrency environment" per se.
Anyway, if coins are in competition to attract the most users (which they are) we should see people's natural preference emerge: trade in a fixed-supply curency or in a constant inflation currency. I certainly know which I would prefer, but let me ask you, if you had the choice between two coins identical in every aspect except coin A will never be debased (so the coin you buy today is worth as much or more tomorrow) and coin B will be perpetually debased (so the coin you buy today is worth less every following day) which would you rather buy into?
You see there's nothing natural or good about inflation, we've just grown inured to it thanks to the prevailing lies and obfuscation around its use by contemporary governments.
I think there's two things wrong with this comment exchange:
* you're not interpreting the quoted phrase literally enough;
* I'm being way too generous with the definition of 'inflation' to expect myself to be understood.
I say "inflation" is innate to the cryptocurrency environment, because the environment's very existence encourages the perpetual creation of new coins with new features.
This should be distinguished from traditional inflation — perhaps "meta-inflation" is a better term — to represent the fact that existing currencies lose value when mining power is redirected towards new ones.
As more currencies are created, each one becomes less able to reach its mining cap. (This ignores the extremely significant social ramifications of cryptocurrencies becoming more popular every day as a result of this, but those network effects are a fairly predictable S-curve.)
You're absolutely right that we've yet to see a preference emerge, but you're also modelling it as a choice between two options. In an environment where new currencies are being created daily, I doubt that the existence or lack of a mining cap will be of much relevance. I suspect that new generations of currencies will repeatedly overtake older ones (either as general-use currencies like BTC or specific-value ones like NMC) long before mining of the older currencies is cut off.
I don't think we'll ever settle into a one-coin environment, and I don't think that would be healthy. In fact I would hope that the opposite situation occurs — a world where currencies take on semantic value due to the way their particular featuresets interact with human nature. Value and wealth should maintain some amount of non-universality. That effectively dissolves the question of capped vs. uncapped mining as ideals.
I guess my counter-argument would be that network effects will be powerful for cryptocurrencies - so as for example Bitcoin grows more popular, the incentives for using it grow, the disincentives for using anything else grow smaller.
I'll admit that that's a fairly unimaginative hypothesis (Bitcoin > everything else)...
Honestly cryptocoins make my head hurt. I think it's very hard trying to imagine how things will unfold. I don't know how to think about them yet.
It's not just about words. Written media is no longer limited to a few basic structures and voices. Grammar needs to be able to shift away from English in-line while maintaining semantic clarity, and sometimes that means the reader needs to distinguish between graphemes without any of the typical contextual cues that classic written languages provide.
The most common issue is hand-copying a piece of text between devices, such as a cryptocurrency address or a URL. Sure, it would be great if those sorts of non-linguistic bits of information were always tagged appropriately such that they show up in a different font, but that rarely happens in reality. Even here, on Hacker News, we can only talk in plaintext with a few minor markup features.
A general-purpose web font should be able to handle a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic strings and not choke up on edge cases. In that respect, I really like the differentiation between a capital I and a lowercase L in Clear Sans, no matter the inclusion of 'Sans' in its name.
Because setting up a shortcut once for many hundreds[1] of sites is more demanding work than typing ! each time.
There's a bang for almost every site I frequent, and when a site changes its domain or search URI the bang is updated to reflect it almost immediately with no work on my end.
After a few weeks of acquainting myself with the bang system, I started to see web search from a completely different perspective. I think of a search engine now as less of an "everything index" and more of an "index of contextual searches". My mind, instead of just thinking "I'll google it", thinks "I'll choose a context for it".
Google is like a system-wide grep whose output is altered by advertising, and DDG w/ bangs is like a vast collection of commands piped into a grep.
A response to Jamil Elie Bou Kheir's comment on Facebook (presumably jamilbk on HN), because I do not have Facebook:
> hello from hacker news. thoughtful article! i think it's not the mere intelligence, beauty, or wealth that defines someone. perhaps it's the reasons and difficulty through which they are achieved. suppose i endure years of hardship and suddenly, in a flash of creativity, uncover a specific life path which i choose to follow. if the journey down that path necessitates an increase in intelligence, then wouldn't that conscious pursuit of intelligence qualify as a viable aspect of my identity? similar points can be raised about beauty and wealth.
> accordingly, i think no real identity is assumed when an individual gets these things "for free". enthusiastically expressing one's beauty, intelligence, or wealth that have existed since birth (or a lucky event) is actually rather distasteful... so yeah delete those qualities kthx.
You've made negation your identity the same way that others define themselves through beauty, intelligence and wealth. This is neither unique nor particularly useful, and I've found it to be generally unhealthy.
Entrench yourself in any region's activist scene and you will be surrounded by this mentality. Despite being a higher level abstraction than beauty, intelligence and wealth, it is equally commoditizable given enough time and positive feedback. For instance, consider the phrase "social capital".
The original post does not strike me as a rejection of one end of an axis in favor of its converse. Rather it is a dismissal of the axis itself, of an entire model of thinking, its conclusion resting in rational, subjective passivity. To ascribe any particular aesthetic about how things "should be" or how people "should act" is to miss the point.
I would summarize the original post's conclusion thus: stop projecting; question abstractions; remove inconsistencies from the bottom, up.
That conclusion invites a plea. We all have a utility function, and it will eventually fail; how do we best extend its (and our) relevance, and do we even want to?
No, but that doesn't imply that it shouldn't hold true for the entirety of the child's legal childhood.
There's always been a feature of childhood that I feel is paramount: the freedom to alter one's identity. The child is still in beta; they're a person that's not officially released to the public.
Forcing them, from the start, to stick a single identity can be problematic psychologically and socially.
Encouraging situational pseudonymity is not equal to the revocation of one's legal identity, from now until death.
I can say with certainty that, had I not had the benefits of pseudonymity offered by the internet of the 90s and 00s, I would be a fundamentally broken person.
The assumption that this "freedom" remain available in the future is what I challenged, not a social obligation not to avail yourself of it. It may become technically or legally impossible to operate under a pseudonym or to change your legal name in the future. If you give your child a unique name, and the ability to operate under a different name is not available, then you've guaranteed their activity (childhood or otherwise) is easily cataloged and searchable.
> And if it becomes technically or illegally impossible to operate under a pseudonym or to change your legal name in 10 years? That this won't happen is the assumption I challenged, not some social obligation not to choose to use a pseudonym.
Then we should work to make that future unlikely. Even if things come to be as you describe, we should build in strict social/technical safeguards of (at the very least) pseudonymity until we much better understand the development the human mind.
[edit in response to your edited post] It seems we're pretty much in agreement, just coming at the issue from different points of devil's advocacy.
One of the social safeguards for preserving pseudonymity (your advice) in the face of a future you cannot control is giving your child a common name, so that their activity cannot easily be discerned from that of many others. As hard as you work, you may not be able to prevent future technical and legal changes from occurring.
> One of the social safeguards for preserving pseudonymity (your advice) in the face of a future you cannot control is giving your child a common name, so that their activity cannot easily be discerned from that of many others.
I agree. I'm very grateful to have a common name. Nate Perkins is about as generic as it gets. Global searches for my name come up with a variety of people completely unrelated to me.
Still, there are potential downsides. For instance, searching for "[my name] [my city]" brings up a mugshot of someone who isn't me. And of course, Stephen Law of the original post has a much more frustrating issue.
None of us are really in a position to say with certainty "it's better to have a common name than an uncommon one" or vice versa.
I would argue that pseudonymity is necessary to overcome negative situations arising from having a common name or having an uncommon name. But this argument is strictly from my own experience and should be taken as such.
Like most things, it comes down to the importance of teaching kids to think critically about how their choices will affect themselves and their environment rather than accepting truisms not backed by relevant statistics.
I think your sentiments and insights here are echoed in a longstanding practice in American law where minors are referred to by their initials only in case names and opinions (for example, New Jersey v. T.L.O.).
Jacobin articles are rarely 'about' anything. Their primary mode of reasoning is like folk etymology on a discourse level. There's usually a fair amount of factual evidence included, but it's forced through a narrative -- that's there for the sake of appearing novel -- into a conclusion that doesn't logically follow from anything presented.
(I haven't read this one yet, but if it's anything like Against Chairs[1], my criticism should apply. Admittedly I'm doing the same thing in this comment that I'm criticizing Jacobin for doing.)
[1] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/04/against-chairs/