We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13554835 and marked it off-topic.

The left are politically resisting the right. This surprises you... why?

Boycotting companies and pressuring businesses to not work with organisations politically incompatible to your own views is not exactly a new concept. For example, there are currently calls from the right to boycott Starbucks because they intend to hire refugees. Not long ago there was a campaign to boycott Star Wars: Rogue One. Suggesting that the left shouldn't be doing this because they are "tolerant" doesn't really make sense.

Because the word "tolerant" means something, and that something includes tolerating opinions you disagree with, otherwise the term is empty of meaning. The people who call for a boycott of Starbucks aren't tolerant, and people demanding Thiel be ostracised aren't either.

If you want to wear the label "tolerant" you have to tolerate. If you don't want to wear it, well, you still have to tolerate, because that's what civilised people do, but if you don't, at least you're not a hypocrite.

But no-one on the left claims to be tolerant of everything, that's just a straw man applied to them by the right. No-one can be. How can you be tolerant of gay marriage and also be tolerant of homophobia? How can you be tolerant of racial diversity and also tolerant of racism?

They're in direct competition with each other. It shouldn't surprise anyone when people take a side. When people on the left describe themselves as "tolerant" it's because they are typically tolerant of more individual things, not because their tolerance is equally spread among all things.

Again, not what "tolerant" means.

showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behaviour that one does not necessarily agree with.

You don't get to pick and choose individual things to be tolerant of, you don't get to pick a side and then not be tolerant of the other side, that's just not tolerance.

(What you can to, is to pick one side and then be tolerant, to show willingness to accept the existence of the other side, while seeking to change minds on the other side)

When did anyone say they wanted to wear the label "tolerant"?

As far as I can tell, it's a label applied by the right to the left to make the left feel guilty. (And that tactic works, is the sad thing.)

If you Google 'tolerant left', you'll find only right-wing folks upset at the left's intolerance. But did the left ever say they wanted to be tolerant?

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it's a straw man that the left considers itself tolerant. I'm not convinced that a poll asking people to self-label would return that result, but I have no data, so I'm not going to try to defend that beyond stating a gut-feeling.

But for the purposes of this particular thread, the GGP said the left are tolerant, and the GP accepted that premise.

I assumed the OP was saying that since Thiel is uninvolved and currently busy working with the Trump administration they should cut ties. I can see how you can draw your conclusion as well, but it seems a little unforgiving. Hanlon's razor might apply here.

name-calling really isn't helping this discussion at all

I'm tired of this. I'm intolerant. I'm intolerant towards certain political views that are bad ideas for our country and our society and our world. Just because someone else called my views "left," do I stop being able to be intolerant of these other views?

I'll gladly join the right, then. I want common-sense economic policies that inspire growth, not identity politics that keeps people out of my country depending on where they were born. I want limited government that doesn't regulate which bathroom you're in or what medical advice your doctor can give you. I want laissez-faire capitalism, not artificial tariffs on guacamole because big government wants money for a public works project that no business would find profitable to build. I want my city's mayor to be able to say that policing is better when we apply local policy to handling undocumented immigrants, without the federal government overruling us. I go to a church every Sunday where my male pastor is married to another male pastor of another congregation, and I want the state not to tell them that their marriage is invalid. I want a country with law and order, where police officers listen to the courts, not to the president. I want Russia to stop occupying Crimea and invading other former USSR land, because I want America to have won the cold war. And yes, I want the surveillance state that Obama set up to be shut down.

Now can I be intolerant of the destruction of our country at the hands of social justice warrior Steve Bannon and identity politician Peter Thiel?

"I want a country with law and order, where police officers listen to the courts, not to the president."

You should learn a bit more about how our legal system works. Separation of powers means the Judicial branch can't have control over an executive power like policing.

Control, no, respect, yes. Law enforcement has to listen to the courts, even though they are directed by their superiors. When the president makes an executive order, a court places a stay on it, and law enforcement officers respond, "I don't care, I'm carrying out the order because I answer to the president," then the executive branch has taken on the roles of both the legislative and judicial as well.

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize everything not agreeing with your opinion was alt right

I am trying suuuuuuper hard to give The Donald a chance as a far left progressive, but when you fill the swamp instead of draining it (appointments), lie directly to your country (Alternate Facts), and institute executive orders that violate the spirit of your country's foundation while being illegal (restricting the return of legal residents to US soil), you have quickly burned up whatever legitimacy folks were willing to extend you.

Facts are not negotiable, any more than gravity is. At least try to govern like world leader.

Once again, "alternate facts" wasn't meant as the boogeyman you were told it was. They were alternate (as in, the other side of the story) that the MSM wasn't telling you. I know this has been detonated in the comedysphere but they only mocked their own ignorance.

> They were alternate (as in, the other side of the story) that the MSM wasn't telling you.

This is called an opinion. Supply photo 1. Supply photo 2. Compare. Result = fact.

You also didn't address the issues that are far worse: prohibiting legal residents from returning to US soil, and filling cabinet appointments with people who want to dismantle the very institutions they are charged with leading.

I really, really want to meet in the middle with the right. Otherwise, we're going to just have to have a concerted effort to drive them into the ocean.

"which has resulted in at least 1 death" this is not true.

You're correct. I was wrong, and I have retracted that part of my comment.

http://time.com/4656182/trump-muslim-ban-woman-died-green-ca...

What other side exactly?

This started because the Sean Spicer claimed the president had the largest inauguration attendance ever. This was proven false by multiple sources. There is no such thing as an alternate fact. It's either an exaggeration or a lie.

None of us have very good insight into the administration's actions. We do know that the most provocative thing it has done so far was also called for by Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama. If you suddenly feel it's a huge deal now but you didn't then, it's probably because effective persuasion techniques have altered your world-view.

Personally I hate having my reality manipulated like that and I go full contrarian, but everyone has to make their own decision about the reality tunnel they want to inhabit. PG's essay http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html is a good eye opener. From there, read Robert Cialdini's books. While persuasion works on everyone, even if they know the techniques and even if they know they are being applied, being aware that it's being done is still better than not.

The most effective (while assuredly strictly incorrect) approach I know of is to assume that everything you hear is true. All of it, good, bad, indifferent, from all sides. And then weight all of that in the context of your own values and make the decision you think is right. While this requires holding contradictory beliefs, that's clearly something we as humans are more than capable of so why not use it?

> We do know that the most provocative thing it has done so far was also called for by Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama.

No, it wasn't. And I'm not even sure which of the many provocative things he's done you think is the most provocative, but it's not true of any of them, so...

This kind of cognitive dissonance is a reliable indicator that persuasion techniques have been applied. Interestingly, presenting contrary facts is well-established to have virtually no persuasive power.

If you really want to expand your mind try the technique in the post you're replying to. If you're comfortable inhabiting a reality where a crazy oompa loompa is going to drop nukes any day now, carry on then.

Please don't post uncivilly like this, and keep in mind that Hacker News is not for political warfare and we ban accounts that abuse it like that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

At this point in time, you'll do well to justify the statement of difference, insofar as comment threads for President Trump related submissions.

Hysterical and partisan comments are as present here as they are anywhere else. Let's not slander other communities when our own has shown itself to be perfectly capable of descending to sub-reason heights of discourse.