That's a bit of ideology all by itself. The idea that there are only two sides is faulty.

I just left that detail out for the time being.

What both sides? (Two? most compasses, that are already reductionist, have many more quadrants)

As long as the United States continues to use first-past-the-post voting schemes to determine the winners in electoral contests, we will continue to have a two party system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law)

Hence "both sides."

I'm a left-leaning centrist whose attention has shifted more towards a 2nd political axis of Anti-Authoritarianism.

A professor of evolutionary biology.

I wonder what ideologies he thinks are ignoring science?

The left likes to deny social science, biology, and psychology which contradicts its narrative. The right denies climate science, mostly by misstating science and for tribal reasons.

Maybe an interesting perspective on differences in town-planning outcomes, or a critique of economic schools compared to real world measurements...nope!

Your assertion that this proves something is quite vacuous, as his commentary is mostly aimed at evolutionary biology, which is denied by the left for political reasons, and climate science, which is denied by the right for political reasons.

Of course he has a lot of opinions on feminism, homosexuality and for some reason seems to have a lot of trouble imagining himself discussing these topics without offending people.

Because he faces lots of underhanded authoritarian tactics for merely talking about scientific truth. He's a Lebanese Jew whose family had to flee deadly religious persecution, who is regularly called a "white supremacist" or Nazi by dishonest people who just want to push a political agenda by sneering and name-calling.

It's high time people started calling out such dishonest smearing tactics and such authoritarian mindsets. What we need in 2019 is discourse and facts, not coercion and smearing.

Democracy is ideology and nazism is ideology and communism is ideology and all three are subject to biases. They are not the same nor equal in their consequences.

No one is promulgating that. Very specifically, the idea forwarded is that both sides are human and therefore subject to human biases and groupthink.

That's not ideology. That's just well established fact. Also, don't conflate that with my description of the current political climate in the western world, which is largely one of polarization and tribal entrenchment.

The differences in degree matter a lot.

I'm glad you say that. You should go and look into the frequency of political violence, with an eye to finding things which are not reported by the media. A preponderance of incidents are committed by the extremist far left (Antifa &c) in 2018 and 2019. Then go and look into the frequency of people advocating for and tacitly approving of political violence. A preponderance of incidents are committed by the extremist far left and far right. Really, I'm tired of yahoos who basically say they can do anything, so long as it's no worse than the other side.

In terms of differences of degree, the extremes on both ends of the left/right spectrum seem to be trying for escape velocity from reason and sense.

Lately I've tried to avoid talking about -isms. Doesn't always work, because everybody talks about them, and I'm certainly deeply committed to a couple of -isms. But they tend to become both hollow labels and collections of dogma. "Socialism" is an obvious one that I often see abused. People oppose for example universal health care because they consider it socialist, and because socialist Russia/Venezuela was/is bad, universal health care must be bad. It's a stupid way to argue, but surprisingly common. The same is also true of "capitalism" of course. It can mean either the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite, or the free market. And even "free market" means different things to different people.

Better to let go of the dogmas and labels and talk about the results we want, while looking critically at what actually works and what doesn't.

Refusing to use names in this situation wont eliminate peoples fear, it will merely make it impossible to talk about what they are afraid of. Good sounding ideas can go real bad and it is good to learn from history. And I think that one of lessons of Russia history is that if people who are violent before gaining power or openly celebrate violence, they will be violent after.

Maybe it would be worth to talk also about Russia history and ideologies that affected it as they were.

Too much of the current left in the US celebrates harassment and violence. There's the bike lock bashing professor. There's the various hippies and other Berkeley residents interviewed by Tim Pool who give tacit support to Antifa violence. There's the simply-conservative father and son who were chased down by Antifa goons shouting epithets and given a beat down. There's the local news reporter who was bashed, his smartphone damaged for simply filming Antifa. There's Tim Pool himself, who is a Korean-American and center-left politically, being called "Alt-Right" so a mob of goons would come and beat him up. (And that's just off the top of my head. There's so much of this, and it's simply not covered by the mainstream media.)

How is it the left can object to violence done on its behalf overseas, but either tacitly support it or even perpetrate and celebrate it as a means of political intimidation? Something has gone corrupt.

Most importantly, USA is not 19 century Russia in pretty much any way. You went completely offtopic and also conflated antifa with social programs - in discussion about tribalism and biases. Achievement.

Part of that, particularly from Trump and his supporters, and probably from Antifa and similar groups, is excessive tribalism. They hate the other side and are eager to hurt them. Trump supporters are certainly quite open about that. Antifa might actually be different. It's also possible they actually believe that violence is necessary in order to stop fascism. But any support they may get from the left is probably pure tribalism again.

Of course there's also another aspect to violence from the right: things like lynchings in the 1950s, harassment of women, violence against Muslims and other minorities. Those stem from pure bigotry and a belief in (usually) white male superiority and a right to punish others if they seem too uppity or seem like a threat. I assume most people on the right abhor this, and yet some of these still happen.

This "right to punish others" should be a big red flag, be it from extremists on the right or the left. Both extremes have poor records, historically speaking.

EDIT: Wow, someone downvoted me literally ~2 seconds after I posted. Good work, Quickdraw!

The downvotes on your own comment may be because one of the HN guidelines discourages commenting about voting patterns.

And I thought the fact that the downvote was there as soon as I posted was the remarkable bit, not that I was downvoted at all.

Saying this during an era that looks like it will be partly remembered as when the american binary political divide ended seems very odd to me. American society is largely and increasingly not well modeled by 2 clusters of opinion.

American society is largely and increasingly not well modeled by 2 clusters of opinion.

I've seen studies and polls indicating that there are two diverging clusters of opinions and positions, with the left part moving further left, and the right clump moving more slowly right.

There is a big part of online society for whom such jingoistic tribalism is thought of as some sort of virtuous, intellectually worthy exercise. I find this highly disturbing. If one is interested in finding the truth, then self doubt and the willingness to ask questions is paramount! It's precisely that "you're either with us, or against us" mentality which is a hallmark of the tyrants and the enemies of reason. It's precisely that mindset that burned witches and imprisoned Galileo.

It's precisely that mindset that gives rise to ideological reasoning.

EDIT: Wow, someone downvoted me literally ~2 seconds after I posted. Good work, Quickdraw!

It seems like some group of activists has tried to come in to Hacker News and use it to push their agenda. I, for one, do not appreciate their attempts to push their agenda by creating fear of being labeled an "-ist."

   >>> It seems like some group of activists has tried to come in to Hacker News and use it to push their agenda. I, for one, do not appreciate their attempts to push their agenda by creating fear of being labeled an "-ist." 

I've been around here since 2007, and I'm even on the leaderboard. There has indeed been a sharp change around here, starting slowly in 2014 and more quickly starting in 2016. This sort of outrage-mongering and "you're with us or you're against us, or we'll smear you" anti-intellectual mentality on HN is something new that's come in from outside.

It is correct in this case, but in other contexts, it is also a common bit of fallacious reasoning, used to draw false equivalences.

Edit: not to say that pointing out that "both sides" have some sort of mistake is never valid, it's just that almost every time I see the argument it's from someone akin to a flat earther, or climate change denier, or an anti-evolutionist, who really doesn't have the facts on their side. And it's incredibly frustrating that they just expect me to respect their opinions just as much as I would respect someone who's talking points hadn't been debunked over and over already.

So it isn't true for anyone (in this universe, anyway).

Even the idea that politics involves "2 sides" or that this is a useful way to model things is an obvious ideological statement.

Pointing this out gets old, at this point jokes about how someone always says this and betrays their complete misunderstanding of the entire concept is old. And since you know this ideology and you know what works and what doesn't when trying to get someone to confront un-examined ideological commitments ... you just downvote and move on.