With your comment, you provoked a flamewar that degenerated straight to bon mots like "Government is to govern.", "I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents." and "American Christians say that Jesus Christ is the only true way and that Islam is a false path". It swelled to over a hundred comments, completely dominating the page. Worse, it was sitting at the top when I saw it, crowding out all the discussion that curious readers and commenters are here for. That's not cool; that's the way a community like this destroys itself.

Tire fires like this are why the site guidelines explicitly ask: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

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

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm honestly not sure how much of the article -- or articles in general -- I could bring up without it potentially counting as an 'ideological tangent', as that seems like an awfully broad and ambiguous label. Just about everything is ideological to somebody.

I also don't see what about my comment exactly counts as flamebait. I wasn't overly abrasive, I didn't say anything particularly outrageous or extreme. It was a political sort of point, yes, but "how do we, as a society, help former criminals integrate back into society" is kind of inherently political, I think.

Your comment wasn't first-order flamebait, but it was a classic generic ideological tangent. Those two things are related, since generic ideological tangents mostly lead to flamewars. That's why they're included in that guideline.

In this case you picked a particularly weak point from the article, on a generic ideological issue, that was entirely tangential to the main topic (which is where all the specific information that could support non-generic discussion was), and posted a comment dismissing it, leading with a swipe ("I mean, yeah?"). That pretty much guarantees what we ended up with.

There's another guideline that's relevant here: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." There are two ways in which your comment arguably broke that rule. First, picking a weak and tangential point from the article to criticize is more marginal nitpicking than solid discussion. The "strongest plausible" rule applies at the article level as well.

But also: if I read the entire quote that you were objecting to, it's clear that that person's main point was that the private sector can't solve all the problems that come up for reintegrating former prisoners. In other words, the quote's point is exactly the same as yours. If you had adopted the strongest plausible interpretation, the "blaming Slack and co" provocation would have dropped out and there would have been nothing to complain about.

I hope it doesn't feel like I'm picking on you personally. These issues are common, which is why I post about them at length. The hope is to get the community to understand the patterns, so we can have more curious conversation and less bilious repetition.

Well, maybe it was from your perspective, as someone who obviously reads HN comments all the time. I was expecting maybe a handful of comments at most, and I sure as hell wasn't expecting people to suddenly start arguing about Brexit.

> The issue with your comment wasn't exactly that it was flamebait, but because it was a classic generic ideological tangent.

I take issue with this. It's true that what I was doing was going up a level of abstraction. But, like, that's an extremely common rhetorical thing to do, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it. Often there's a good point to be made there; obviously in this case I thought it was true of what I wrote, maybe you disagree, but I've seen your own comments do the same thing all the time to help explain a point, like about contrarianism.

It sounds like "generic ideological tangent" is just "going up a level of abstraction" in the case where it's more likely to start a flame war. But that's not always easily predictable, and even when it is, it essentially means you're shutting down points, not because the points themselves are bad, but because other commenters can't be trusted to restrain themselves from much more awful replies to that comment.

> you picked a particularly weak point from the article

Oh c'mon. Of course people are going to pick on the weak points, because within our minds the weak points are the bad points that we disagree with and want to say so. That people leap to speak when they think a point is dumb or wrong, more than when they think a point is good or okay, is entirely expected and normal and fine. When people hear something that sounds wrong to them, they feel a compulsion to speak out, to correct it, from their perspective. That's not a bad thing.

> that was entirely tangential to the main topic

Well, it didn't feel tangential to me. To me, the article is about how to help felons re-integrate into society, the quoted person was talking about how we need to support felons in other ways as well (which I agree with), and then, to borrow your language, took a swipe at the private sector for apparently not doing their part in those areas, blaming them essentially, which I felt was unfair and unrealistic. I really don't think "should the private sector do more here in other areas to support felons?" is tangential to the topic. To me it felt like one point among many.

> that person's main point was that the private sector can't solve all the problems

I disagree, I don't think that was her point at all. "the private sector has largely turned away from [these areas]" does not read like she's saying they can't, but that they don't, they won't, they've refused to.

edit: I'll try to be more careful in the future, but honestly, even earnestly trying, I'm not exactly sure what would make sense to change about my posting mindset. Try not to comment on points if they're too minor? Don't go up a level of abstraction to make points about more generic principles? These don't sound like good things to me.

edit2: I kind of see what you mean about the swipe. I can try to avoid that in the future, though I feel like it may be difficult without switching to a very dry/stiff posting style. "I mean, yeah?" is not a very abrasive or aggressive sort of comment. It's the written equivalent of a shrug. I'm aware that HN has high standards for civility, but I honestly did not expect such a sentence to breach that.

The US government does not currently have a democratic mandate to operate as the social welfare state. Consequently hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of people are immorally (by my own standards) disadvantaged and with no means or realistic opportunity to better themselves.

So if a private company (or shareholders-forbid: a publicly traded company)’s leadership feels a moral obligation to help those left behind by the state - more power to them.

Until the US truly embraces the “for the people” part of the “by the people, of the people, for the people” part of their unofficial motto it really is up to private entities to make-up the difference.

[1] UPDATE: To clarify - I don't mean that I somehow know what's in someone else's best interests - because I don't - nor their exact reasons for voting for a particular party or candidate - but I mean that it's still possible to _objectively_ say that many people vote for ideological or sentimental reasons that appeal to them (which is part of democracy!) with - or without - having done (for example) a spreadsheet comparisons of how each candidate's manifesto politics would affect their cost of living, quality of living, economic expectations, and so on. I can respect someone voting against their interests for ideological or moral reasons - provided it's done with informed consent. I'm not convinced that most- or even a plurality - of GOP voters in recent US elections sat down and made a spreadsheet and said "yup - I'm okay with rising the cost of my individual health insurance provided it means I have the choice to refuse healthcare coverage" (and that is not a misrepresentation of the ACA and its opponents' stated positions).

So by all means - vote against your own interests - provided you do it with informed consent - otherwise you _really_ are voting against your own interests.

I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents.

You think the reason they won’t vote the way you want is because they don’t know what’s good for themselves. You might want to consider an alternate: they don’t want someone like you deciding what’s good for them and forcing it down their throats.

In my view, evidence that people vote against their own interests is the massive industry that exists for the purpose of making that happen.

The respectful middle ground, if there is one, is that how people vote relative to their own interests is a worthy topic and debate, but that the debate might make a few people uncomfortable.

It's hard to believe that every position of a candidate you vote for is in your interests because that's basically never the case.

Suppose I support the elimination of most federal programs and taxation (let the states do it) but I think that a federal carbon tax which is paid out as a dividend to the citizens is a great idea, because it's a national/global issue and pricing externalities is the legitimate purview of government. Who shall I vote for? I have never seen a single candidate proposing to do both of those things.

In a sense the only way for me not to vote against my interests is to stay home. At the same time, there are two candidates on the ballot that are very much not the same as one another. So it's not so much a matter of "voting against your own interests" as choosing which of your interests outweigh the others.

But assuming that anybody who makes a different choice than you is a fool is very condescending.

It's fucking amazing.

Who two? Every next comment was written by a different person.

Partisan arguments tend to go poorly on nice civil web forums, and I'd expect to attract the attention of the moderators if I were to start one.

Because people love it when their representative brings home the pork but they hate it when the other guy does it.

It's not possible for people in one district to elect a representative who could individually eliminate all wasteful government programs, but it is possible for them to send in somebody who will at least bring them back a proportionate share of the loot from the heist. Is that not rational behavior absent some coordination mechanism to get all the other districts to stop electing kleptocrats at the same time?

Maybe better would be to vote for someone willing to do that while also pushing for structural change to remove those incentives, but that's assuming there is any candidate running with that position.

The founders who wrote the First Amendment clearly disagreed with that.

The “freedom from religion” reading of the first amendment is, besides being atextual, utterly non-sensical. It reads the Framers to have banned, sub silentio, practices with respect to public religion that were utterly routine at the time the amendment was adopted.

As to whose culture and whose religion: it’s not clear to me the specifics matter so much as the existence of strong, broadly-shared social norms. My Bangladeshi immigrant family doesn’t share a culture or religion with Pat Buchanan, but there was frankly not a lot of daylight between their views on how people should live in society.

And you’re right in one respect: a society that emphasizes social norms will leave some people out. The social norms can be evolved, of course. Bangladesh, for example, is making progress in evolving the social norms surrounding participation of women in the economy. (In terms of labor force participation rate, Bangladesh today is where the USA was in 1950. On the other hand, we’ve had not one but two women as heads of state.) But a society that emphasizes individual self determination will be more inclusive and more responsive to social change. But these are trade offs in the structure of a society and people can reasonably disagree about what serves the best interests of the vast majority of the people.

It definitely is nice when it is the case, but I don't think it's necessary for America's future to be successful. Certainly, for the first 150 years of its existence, the United States had very widely varying cultures and ways of life throughout. The Puritans in the north lived differently than the Scotch-Irish, who lived differently than Germans in the midwest, who lived differently than the pioneers in the west.

The difference between now and then though was that back then all those people were free to live as they felt like, and if they didn't like it, they could pick up and leave to form new communities, like for example the Mormons did when faced with hostility of people from their origins. Now, however, the mass media and powerful federal government is dictating the one and proper set of moral and social norms, and the correct way to live. People aren't free anymore to do what they want if the feds don't like it, even if their state doesn't have an issue with. Even the states expanded their reach into determining how people should live. This wouldn't have been a problem if, like you suggest, the enforced way of life was broadly shared, but it clearly isn't.

- Persuasion: I think that you are mistaken as to what is in your best interest, here's why my approach would benefit you more.

- Negotiation: Here's how we can work together to find a solution that meets both of our interests.

- Zero Sum: I recognize that this isn't in your best interest but I don't care because its in my interest.

Due to the power of Fox News and the Republican party's current willingness to ignore facts, I don't think persuasion is possible.

Similarly, the strategy that Fox News and the Republican party have taken of promoting polarization, demonizing the other side, using straw-man arguments, etc.[1] Makes it impossible to have the kind of nuanced debate and compromise that would be necessary for a negotiated solution.

Therefore, it seems like all that is left is a zero sum solution. If the other side won't listen or negotiate then the only option remaining is to implement our policies whether they like them or not.

I'm not saying that's an ideal situation, but it seems to me that its the reality that we find ourselves in.

[1] To be fair, I think that progressives do this to a worrying extent as well. However, I single out the Republican party due to the degree to which they have focused on this strategy and because the fact that many Republicans get all of their news from Fox makes the strategy almost unassailable.

Interestingly, right-wing parties understand this quite well. If they loose an election you never hear that they have to convince moderates. Instead they get even more radical.

The other issue is that many of the issues that progressives are concerned about (e.g. climate change, inequality, gun control) require action by society as a whole. Ideally we would negotiate and find policies that address the priorities of both progressives and conservatives. However, that doesn't currently seem to be possible.

Please read the federalist papers.

I do not want the equivalent of a yellow vests movement happening here.

Gerrymandering is a huge issue, and it makes it so that moderates don’t have to exist because of safe districts.

The fundamental disagreement about priorities between the parties somehow turned into disagreement about facts in the past decade.

I believe that something like proportionate representation is a better solution. It would still allow minority populations (e.g. rural areas) to band together and get representatives elected that reflect their priorities. However, since the system is no longer winner takes all it promotes finding solutions via negotiation.

Demonizing the other size is impressively the other way. It's happening whenever you see people flinging words like racist, sexist, fascist, and nazi.

Moreover, there is a difference in calling spade a spade, and hate speech.

In terms of demonization, I think its fair to use words like racist, sexist, and fascist when they are accurate descriptions. Before the Trump administration I was opposed to using those terms because I didn't feel that it was clear that they were accurate. However, I do think they are accurate now.

In my opinion, Nazi is only a reasonable term when the person is actually advocating for Nazism which, other than actual Neo-Nazis, is very rare. The only example I can think of where it might be valid was when Trump said that there were good people on both sides of a Neo-Nazi rally.

Is it condescending if it's true, though?

And the right views poor people who vote for Democrats as lazy grifters just looking for a handout, naive fools in the pocket of globalist elites, or else not "real Americans" like themselves.

It isn't only the left or Democrats which have a problem in this regard. The right/Republican end of the spectrum is fueled by its naked contempt for everyone outside their camp.

It's nice that we have a choice.

Unfortunately, my state went for Kang.

If you ask people if Labour was good for the economy and would be good for the economy, you’ll largely get a negative response.

Unfortunately it’s easy for people’s opinions to be shaped with zero basis in fact and when this happens it’s easy for them to vote against their own interest.

This has little to do with a condescending left and much more to do with how well the Conservstives play and are supported by the media.

The bits about nationalising everything were certainly very different so I don’t think this claim holds up to scrutiny.

I also find it interesting that you stop at 2007. What happened in 2008 that might call into doubt Labour’s management of the economy?

The blowup of Lehman Brothers (US investment bank), ABN Ambro (Dutch bank recently acquired by RBS), Northern Rock (overextended British building society), Kaupthing (Iceland), and Anglo-Irish (despite the name, entirely Irish)? Yes, I'm sure that's all the fault of the Labour government.

Labour would like their voters to forget it was them who bailed out the banks too.

Because they want change.

Condescension has nothing to do with it. It's empirically observable that a proportion of the electorate doesn't vote in its own best interests.

It's also empirically observable there's an entire industry of media outlets, think-tanks, journalists, bloggers, TV presenters, radio commenters, online commenters, and other influencers which is paid huge sums every year to make sure this doesn't change.

I'm not sure that's true (that it's empirically observable without bias). The trouble comes from an assumption that by giving up X (that you value only a little) to achieve Y (that you value a lot), that those other people would be better off, when they simply value X a lot more than you do (or Y a lot less). When they consistently vote to prioritize X over Y, you empirically observe some outcomes, apply your own weights to each factor, and conclude they're acting against their own best interests and cite your evidence as empirical proof, ignoring the judgment you applied when determining the weights.

I don't think people exhibiting this bias (unconscious or conscious) are intending to be condescending, but it comes across that way quite often.

Some people prefer to live in a society where the government has minimal power/influence over citizens' daily life (X) while other people prefer to live in a society where government power and influence is strong and consistently exercised to protect the most vulnerable (Y). They're different choices.

And unfortunately a major problem with proportional representation is there's no one single best way to achieve PR - any campaign to achieve PR would be stymied by splitting the pro-PR faction between STV and IRV, for example.

Labour's official position is to negotiate a deal and then hold a final referendum. [1]

So there were three positions in the election (leave, remain, vote again) and leave won the largest share of the popular vote.

1:https://labour.org.uk/page/labour-brexit-plan/

The majority of the country doesn’t want the Tories to negotiate the withdrawal. But that’s what is going to happen.

PR would probably lead to even more parties with each having fewer votes and none ever having a majority.

My observation of the BBC's coverage was that while they at least didn't put a positive spin on the Tories, it felt like they were doubling-down on anti-Labour and anti-LibDem negativity. I still don't believe the BBC is in any way biased towards any particular political party, but I feel there's a feedback-loop somewhere in the media system. Once the meme "Corbyn is unelectable" becomes a meme and people don't stop to question it - or it becomes self-referential ("Corbyn is unelectable because the people believe he's unelectable") then we have a problem.

(Disclaimer: I would not actually vote for Corbyn myself - just saying).

How do you explain away people who didn't vote for Corbyn because... they would prefer a non-anti-semitic leader? I have a hunch. You might say, "Well these people were duped. He isn't IN FACT an anti-semite." But, now the goal posts have changed and the discussion moves to whether certain claims are true, not whatever is in someone's best interest.

The thought that people you disagree with are simply fools because they don't know what is in their best self-interest, is not only arrogant, it's patently just not how the world works. Like always, it all comes down to whether your position or their position actually maps to reality. And if you think that you can't be wrong, or that it isn't likely that you get at least some things wrong, then your position is already hosed (not to mention lacks epistemological humility).

That motivation can be especially strong when the party that you thought represented your economic interests turned out not to do that as much as you'd have liked.

What I mean is that any attempt to change policy/society/laws/government innately involves deciding that something would be good for society as a whole and then attempting to get laws put in place that force it to happen.

Therefore, your post doesn't seem to be actionable since it basically boils down to "don't do anything".

Also I think maybe I didn't explain what I was trying to say clearly. My point is that all political positions, not just socialism, amount to trying to force the laws to reflect how you feel society should operate.

There's a reason our highest form of punishment is to isolate. It's not our functional unit of existing. To truly isolate us from others is to punish us perhaps worse than death. So what makes people think the individual should be our highest functional unit of decision-making after millions of years evolving otherwise?

This is something I wonder if western thought deserves to lose its crown over, if it can't course correct.

Disclosure: civic technologist, community organizer, biochemist

And if some people want to split off and do something different, diversity is a good thing too.

I've studied in democratic reform, and work in civic tech space. There's a book called _Democracy for Realists_ which I highly recommend. It's a wonderful book, but it eviscerates most of what we understand colloquially about democracy. (Or at least did for me)

You are walking around a piece of democracy that is entrenched in "folk democratic theory" -- things people talk about as being the basis of effective democracy. But in democratic theory, folk democracy appears to have much evidence against it, and very few serious academics advocate for it as an explanatory theory. It's telling is part of the glue perhaps, because systems must appear simple and understandable to its participants, or else it can be destabilized too easily :) the works for electoral systems too -- people need to feel like they understand it in order to trust it's outcomes, nevermind if first-past-the-post is truly best.

The individual is very flawed, and democracy might work despite it's individual nature, not because of it. Political parties and identity groups outside the original structure of democracy perhaps stabilize a system that puts decision-making power into a very ineffective unit. (The individual)

Anyhow, it's been awhile since I worked deeply on this stuff (and not as an academic myself), and I might be misspeaking some parts that an academic could correct me on, but I'm sure the general thrust of the above is true :)

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

If I say, "I support" and you say, "I support not X, and if you weren't so blind you'd think that too," that's being condescending because you are assuming that someone (a) has fundamentally the same values than you but is (b) too stupid to see it.

The reality is that people can value something different than you (less government intervention, less restrictions on speech, lower taxes) for fundamental reasons different than yours, not because they basically agree with you and are too stupid to understand. This is different than merely arguing truth claims, because fundamentally political choice is a choice. There is no One True Way(TM) to govern and people prefer different things.

You're right, but in the election run-up people living on minimum wage, who complained we needed a change because of the rich getting too rich, also were convinced that Labour's tax increases were a devastating blow to them personally; tax increases that a family of two well-paid professionals would be unlikely to even be affected by.

The reason they hate those taxes is not because they're bad for them, they would undoubtedly be benefited. Nor is it because they actually have a financial basis for a belief in lower taxes for the extraordinarily well off. It's a matter of advertising -- the private press splash an advert "Marxist Money Madness" or whatever and tell the people they're going to be hit by massive tax increases costing taxpayers 1000s.

Of course it's a carefully tailored half-truth. It does cost taxpayers _who_are_affected_ thousands but people on gross wages below £80k aren't. The message the minimum wage, or benefits only, households get is "if Labour get in we will have to pay thousands more tax" (which to them is a lot, despite the tax rises not actually applying to them). They also don't appear to realise taxes pay for running the country; things they benefit from (health, education, roads, trade relations, ...) or if they do that reducing taxes won't just make these things cheaper but mean they have to pay individually (and pay a profit to capitalists as part of that deal). If they do realise these things there's no rational reason for then to support them; really there isn't, not for the vast majority of the populous.

Many people can't do basic percentages, they genuinely just trust the headlines.

The BBC have failed in refusing to call out lies because that would be "targeted" at one particular party (apparently 80% of their Facebook posts were factually flawed) because they are the ones telling the lies.

And why? Well look at the headlines post-election many Tories made many hundreds of £millions. Everyone else is working on inputs to value creation and they're playing the system and walking away with all the value.

In short, yes, there are genuine differences in political opinion. But there is also a massive deficit of understanding too.

Specifically, if you promised that every year you'd take 5% of the money of everyone richer than me, that I'd get a healthy slice of it, the rest would be spent on programs I approve of, and that there is no possible future in which that new tax would apply to me, I'd still vote against it. I don't think it's because I'm too stupid or ill-informed to understand that it would be "good for me".

Rather than starting from "we should exercise our power to tax the rich as a reaction to their success and to promote fairness", I start from "What services must the government provide the people?" then "How much will it cost to provide those services?" then once that is determined, figure out how to raise the needed revenue.

Tax revenue should not be raised to punish or correct for market distortions, but rather because it's needed to pay for an essential government service.

I believe, with very few exceptions, that the creation of wealth, even the concentration of great wealth in a few hands, represents evidence of a market success not a market failure. Those wealth creators mostly got there by providing something that many other people wanted and wanted so much that they parted with their own hard-earned money in exchange for the goods and services the wealth creators had on offer.

Similarly, when considering the role of government (such as when weighing a new program), I think it's better for society overall if the decision is made on a basis of "this newly proposed program is so beneficial/essential that everyone would be willing to pay some part of the cost of it" rather than "I'm willing to support this program that benefits me because I know that only other people are going to be paying for it."

So, yes, I'd be opposed to a tax presented with strong supporting evidence that that tax was motivated by raising incremental revenue under the justification/cover of "improving fairness".

(As an aside, it is entirely fair to question your future tax rates under a politician promising to deliver massive social programs, even if they don't claim they'll raise taxes for the non-rich. Money has to come from somewhere and there's no guarantee that taxing "the rich" is going to be enough.

Also, saying "They also don't appear to realise taxes pay for running the country" is a strikingly dim-view to have of people.)

As another person said, the real interests are not always monetary. Someone may be willing to pay more in healthcare if the government is less involved in their life, even if they are poorer than most people. This is just one example.

Why do you assume we don't value those things? Isn't that _you_ being condescending now?

An assumption isn't necessarily condescending. I assumed I was talking to someone on the left side of politics and was giving examples for the sake of an argument. If those examples do not in fact work then I can just as well pick other ones.

> Why do you use the word "we"? I wasn't directing my comment to you.

Indeed this is a communication mystery.

> Why do you assume we don't value those things? Isn't that _you_ being condescending now?

If you assume people do share the values, or if you assume they do not, you are still assuming to know their values. Better to just ask the person and start the conversation from there rather than shut down debate with something along the lines of "You'd agree with me if you weren't misled by X".

While I cannot, at all, claim to know what's in someone's interests, let alone their best interests - it is possible to reasonably determine when someone is voting _against_ their interests - especially when there is evidence of emotional manipulation or misrepresentation of the facts. (Though I assume we won't enter into a "debate" over specific facts here on HN).

The best example are the rural, conservative, voters in states that didn't expand Medicaid, who voted for representatives who campaigned against the ACA - and who who various reasons (unemployment, hard luck, etc) are now left without any feasible options for healthcare coverage: it's demonstrable that they did not vote in their rational best interests, even the most staunch Libertarian can agree with that statement (though the Libertarian might argue it was still their free choice to make and that should be respected - which I can agree with because at least they're being honest about it).

Actually, it's not. You're reducing the whole spectrum of things that they may care about to the single axis of healthcare costs, and not performing any analysis of the opposition position.

It may be that the representative these people voted for aligns significantly better to their values than any other choice that was available.

I do NOT think people understand what their parties are telling them because both sides lie dramatically.

Democrats do not present realistic plans with costs on their social programs, and Republican media and politicians typically say the exact opposite of what the real plan is. I used to love their smaller government push until they touted cutting public services to save 40 million as a huge victory for the budget while giving Lockheed et. al. A billion dollar contracts... So smaller government, sure, but NOT balancing a budget as it was claiming to try for.

So if you subscribe to partizan political sources, both parties only feed you information that support their party line, and the facts are elsewhere, if they are even available. Presidents keep breaking all promises they make on the trail.

But they're happy with other people deciding what's good for them; people who've decided that what's good for them is to be poorer and sicker?

If they could be tricked into becoming richer and healthier, without realising they're doing it by voting for commie socialism or whatever scare label is in vogue, is that wrong? Is there some morality there, like life is an art project.

Seriously; is that wrong? Is it more wrong to tell people what will make them richer and healthier, or to let them be poorer and sicker?

Most voters are uninformed about most issues. It's effectively impossible to be informed about every issue. There are simply too many issues. Calling out GOP voters on ACA specifically just shows your partisanship.

> and that is not a misrepresentation of the ACA and its opponents' stated positions

If I was feeling generous, which I am not, I would say this is accurate but incredibly imprecise. In the context of this thread, it's simply flame bait.

> Democratic mandates are set by influencers.

This is a cop out: the electorate is still responsible for the politicians it puts in power. Don't let people off the hook for supporting terrible policies.

I disagree. After reading about famous propagandists from the past century I'm just depressed that it's so easy to manipulate enough of the public to vote a particular way.

Yes, it's the people's fault - but the people are fallable and _predictable_ enough to be played like a puppet.

If someone is an idiot and is convinced into doing something criminal even when they know it's wrong, that still doesn't get the person who tricked them into doing it off-the-hook - in serious crimes that's called aiding-and-abetting.

I'm curious about the list of countries that are democratic in name only (and also wondering about the time frames involved), would you elaborate?

Direct democracy populism where people are maximizing personal return should not be considered the standard that we aspire to. I'm not making a case for right or left wing politics, I'm just making a case against the idea that if people vote in such a manner that they will not personally benefit, particularly in the short run, that they are necessarily idiots that have been tricked into voting against their best interests.

I disagree. I'd wager most voters do perform such an analysis, albeit in their heads.

People generally vote for Republicans because they want lower taxes. People generally vote for Democrats because they want better-funded government services. Most voting is really that simple -- people want their lives to cost less, and they vote for the party they think is more likely to deliver that. The ideological trappings are largely post-hoc justifications for why this self-interest is virtuous.

I’d agree with what you said because the reason you gave seems strong & compelling to me; the idea that profit motive might corrupt charity if in charge.

On the other hand, I dislike the idea that only government should “handle” social responsibility. (I think what we’re talking about is responsibility, not charity.) And in fact, today there are laws requiring social responsibility of the private sector, so in a very real sense it actually is their job.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibil...

The kind of thinking that separates the people & companies making money from helping our social outcasts, or just giving back to society in general, is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to having more social outcasts and growing income inequality. When rich people argue they should have no responsibility to pay taxes into social programs, what we end up with is more people who need social programs. Why shouldn’t it be everyone’s job to handle social improvement, including all the companies profiting from the environment that makes their profits possible?

> it’s the government that sets the tax rate and decides where revenue goes, not the private sector.

While that might be technically accurate, it seems misleading to frame it this way. The private sector has such massive influence on tax policy, it doesn’t even make sense to suggest the government does it and the private sector doesn’t. Lots of laws are effectively written by and for private companies, enough so that we have a serious problem with it and a name for it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Like, what even would Slack be expected to do here for housing or health care? Slack can't change zoning regulations. They can't force hospitals to provide price transparency. Why expect them to do something, rather than just take their money and have the government do something with it, when the government has vastly more authority to act?

Is this really a black and white issue, do or don’t? I don’t feel that way at all.

Do you think private companies can “contribute” to the solutions alongside the government and the public, by being open to hiring non traditional workers, by having support programs that help people keep their jobs? Can companies encourage and support the government’s support programs, by enrolling the government’s help and joining together to pay for them, by writing corporate policy to foster non-traditional workers, by making work allowances for people who need more help?

> when the government has vastly more authority to act

I don’t agree with this framing. Large and small companies get local zoning laws changed all the time. If Slack was lobbying for zoning regulations near it’s business, it’s entirely likely they can, in fact, get them changed. Companies can, and do routinely, suggest regulation changes, participate in policy making, and the government listens and routinely acts on those requests, and involves private companies in the legislation process. When companies band together to get zoning changed, it happens even faster.

The government does not really have that much more “authority” than the rest of us when it comes to the basics of taking care of each other. This isn’t really an authority issue, it’s an issue of whether we care and take action, it’s an issue of what our goals are as a society, it’s an issue of whether we view it as our collective responsibility, or someone else’s responsibility. If we all think it’s someone else’s responsibility, and we do nothing and think of the government as the only solution, then we not only end up with a crappy solution, we are ceding our own authority as well.

If you look at this in a vacuum, I can see how that'd be attractive. But consider that this will obviously cost them -- and whatever other companies do the same -- money. Now, would you rather all those companies independently pursuing different ways of helping on a particular issue piecemeal, or that the government extract the money that would've been spent pursuing a more cohesive and coherent effort?

> Do you think private companies can “contribute” to the solutions alongside the government and the public, by being open to hiring non traditional workers, by having support programs that help people keep their jobs?

That's not the part I was responding to. When Slack accepts felons or Google uses renewable energy for data centers, that's being a good corporate citizen in the act of conducting their regular business. I think that's fine and good.

But what I quoted, was someone suggesting that Slack assist with things completely outside the scope of their business, like housing. Slack has nothing to do with housing, so the principle underlying that comment must be, "Slack should help these people (and maybe the community at large) in general, even in ways that have nothing to do with their business".

> Large and small companies get local zoning laws changed all the time.

Just look at the bay area as an example. Basically every company would LOVE to massively upzone everywhere for both office space and housing (because this benefits them), these companies are rich as hell, and yet they're woefully impotent at getting these things changed. The broader culture, especially for the politically connected, is against them, and they can do very little about that. Trying to swing their weight around would just result in a huge backlash, as many are already skeptical of how powerful they are.

> If Slack was lobbying for zoning regulations near it’s business, it’s entirely likely they can, in fact, get them changed.

I'm sorry, but this betrays ignorance of bay area politics. Even Google struggles to get changes, and they're ridiculously massive. Slack might be able to get changes if they were moving to a less popular city for tech that's more desperate for jobs, but if they stay in SF, they have very little influence. SF is lousy with high paying tech jobs, most people there don't really fear any particular company moving away, and thus the companies have little leverage relative to how rich they are.

The economy is becoming more competitive in the upper 20%. This translates into heightened signaling around social issues for those in that bracket [1]. It's not a bad thing, and people do have their hearts in the right place, but the underlying status anxiety is real and it is an economic effect.

[1] https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-wa...

It's in companies' interests to have a healthy economy with employed workers, with families bringing up the next generation, etc. But that's a very long term perspective relative to the stock market, which would much rather see lower taxes and higher work force participation for the next few quarters.

People voting for public policies are only a little bit better; old people vote for their benefits, middle age people vote against taxes, and young people vote for redistribution when they're aware enough to turn up.

Hah. That would be the idea yes, but we all know how much corporations like paying their tax.

Yet they expect congratulations. Slack's selfish commercial interest is entirely aligned with hiring cheap developers, but, they put out a press release and the atlantic magazine took it up.

I worked with a another charity that did a similar thing (not prisoners, but the underprivileged) and one of the companies we got some of them jobs at did the same thing.

The company got some cheap developers, avoided commission on a recruitment agency and then proceeded to issue a press release patting themselves on the back.

I dont blame government, as it is not and should not be the governments role to do this.

>Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government.

Non-Profits yes, government no

Government sole and only job should be to preserve and protect the rights of citizens. Expanding government beyond this role has always lead to disaster and human suffering

> you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works

While true in some sense, HN's continual hostility to profit is absurd. Profit motive is what leads innovation, what makes things cheaper, and what allows charity to feed 100 people with a $100-200 donation...

Profit Motive is what has brought the massive reduction in poverty world wide...

It was not government, it was Free markets that did this

I agree with you that completely abandoning profit motive would be a very bad idea. However, any process can become harmful if it is allowed to run without limits or safeguards. During the time that poverty has been reduced worldwide we have had both profit motive and the government operating; therefore, I don't think it is reasonable to conclude that profit motive would bring prosperity without also having government to constrain it.

Churches and Clubs are generally voluntary organizations on chooses to join, and can leave. Thus can not be classified as a government

I have no choice but to interact with the government and should I choose not to said government will put me in a cage and/or use violence against me to compel my activity,

I am sure you next comment will be "well you vote so you consented..." which is equally absurd of a notion for voluntary interactivity

>>>Throughout the vast majority of human history the role of government has not been just to preserve and protect rights

I am aware of this history, and almost universally it has lead to suffering, tyranny, and oppression

>>>However, any process can become harmful if it is allowed to run without limits or safeguards.

It is often governments and the legal system to provide the avenue of these abuses. Limiting liability, and shielding corporations via layers of liability shields, caps and other regulations

>>> During the time that poverty has been reduced worldwide we have had both profit motive and the government operating;

yes, and poverty would be ALOT lower if government was not "helping"

However, for those who are part of society, I feel that the purpose of society is to provide for the needs of its members.

I think that your analysis of history may be too simplistic. Certainly governments have caused suffering, tyranny, and oppression, but so has profit motive. By the same token, both profit motive and government has done a lot of good for people.

My overall objection is that you seem to be taking a very black and white approach. I agree that we shouldn't adopt a communist approach that rejects profit motive or an extreme collectivist approach that rejects individual rights. However, that doesn't mean that there is no role for society to provide for people's needs.