Just a few snippets that use language typically used by those on the further left with a bit of an agenda. I am kind of center-left myself, so I agree with some of the sentiment, but I tend to think that a lot of the issues they ascribe to purposeful, scheming evil actors are often just defects in how our society works on a macro scale.

- "AI is used to disproportionately benefit the privileged while worsening inequality"

- "the goal is to increase corporate and government revenues by denying poor people resources"

- “It is a pattern throughout history that surveillance is used against those considered ‘less than’, against the poor man, the person of color, the immigrant, the heretic. It is used to try to stop marginalized people from achieving power.”

- The same pattern is found in the role of technology in decision systems.

- "The goal of many automated decision systems is to increase revenues for governments and private companies"

- "here is already a clear pattern in which AI is used to centralize power and harm the marginalized."

I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing these issues out, even if you think AI is merely an accelerant of existing social issues. And it's not necessarily a question of how left you are to believe so. Ultimately what's important is the outcome, and if the outcome is an increase in marginalization, then I think something should be done. Stopping AI is probably suboptimal but the alternative that preserves the rights of the marginalized is getting everyone to agree that society should be more fair, and in that context can you really blame people for espousing a belief they find more actionable or practical?

You’re just not clued into the lingo. This person is an ideologue and is trying to hide it somewhat but is failing to completely omit the use of language that reveals the leftist ideology they have been swimming in.

Few people on HN can read this kind of critique without short circuiting but it’s a valid critique and I would bet a good sum that if you looked into this author you’d find lots more direct evidence of promulgation of leftist ideology (critical theory)

I skimmed through this and it was obviously laden with leftist memes. It’s important to become literate in these, which aren’t simply about what they are saying at face value but an ideological network of ideas.

What you're saying is vague to the point of being malicious. You're poisoning discourse by labeling ideas as undesirable, but so broadly that you end up trying to smear the author instead.

I don’t know what you could be saying other than that caring about poor people or welfare recipients is a leftist meme. That was pretty much all of the “leftism” in this article.

The fact that the poster focuses on the term ("leftism") rather than on the substance is itself a red flag imo. It puts the discussion on a weird tripolar spectrum: you're either leftist, centrist, or rightwing (of which the poster is likely to posit themselves as a center, to avoid being called biased). I don't think it's terribly productive, and unless the article was calling for Bolshevik Revolution, I don't mind a certain bias. The fallacy here is that it's possible to come in with objective lens--it isn't.

No, there is no fallacy here. You’re just ignorant. There are several signifying phrases and terms used here that are commonly used by people who have absorbed critical theory ideology.

sure man, woke mind virus has ravaged my brain lol.

Nothing wrong with being ignorant. Unless you’re claiming you’re not ignorant and just accept the memes as non-biased. In which yeah your brain would be pretty ravaged if that were the case (tho I’ve never liked Musk’s characterization personally)

So by memes you’re referring to words and grammatical constructions less than ideas? My comment, which I don’t think you ever responded to (nothing wrong with that just saying), was calling out the fact that you didn’t directly refute the ideas present in the article and are instead fixated on their presentation. If you attacked the ideas directly, I feel you’d only find a few ways to attack them, and that the primary idea you’d be attacking would be sympathy for the poor and such. I think it’s a cop out to avoid directly criticizing popular (on this site) ideas by attacking their presentation.

You can start by noticing the explicit capitalization of the adjective “Black”

There are others but that is enough to bucket it in as someone who is dabbling in leftist memetics at a minimum

Truly my only response to your comments here is: wow.

Yes, you probably also have been led to think that these memes are just "being normal" but these are deliberate changes to the language which originated in academic programs of critical theory. See for example: https://cssp.org/2020/03/recognizing-race-in-language-why-we...

Tell me more, please

Could you please provide some examples?

Capitalizing Black, and using the word “privileged” to describe individuals without specifying what kind of privilege