You have almost no far left in the US. You have extreme ID politics (that are distributed on the far right, the right, the "extreme center" and socdems) and a bastardized radical center[0] that include almost every politicians, even those who appear socdems or far-right. And here i'm using far-right to designate people who want to come back on minority rights, and i separate it from the right.

(Because when supposed "far left" organizations use the word "empowerment", i just facepalm, that's "third way" bullshit imho)

I think Musk doesn't really understand his politics, and that's what hurt him. He should be in the extreme center (with Hillary, or Bush), but he was caught in ID politics for a long time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism

I am not in the US but thanks for the info.

> You have almost no far left in the US.

Overton window.

Obviously "left" vs "right" depends on the geography and time period. Otherwise, it becomes very hard to talk about politics.

Not really, historically far-left is the revolutionary left, the one you see organize global strikes (they don't believe in representation democracy, only in direct democracy, bottom up, so it is _very_ rare to see them participate in elections). Since global strikes are forbidden in the US, you'll have to define it by its negative: anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist always, anti-globalist sometime.

You have some groups who have a far-left affects in the US, but honestly since the BPP and the Rainbow Coalition they are either ideologically weak or ineffective.

So I can understand the distribution of this definition, what % of governments in world history have been far-left?

Practically, no government, at least not long-lasting one. Far leftist see the state (and government) as innately oppressive. So some will say Russia from 1917 to 1921, I kinda disagree. Some communes were far-left though (communes are a better echelon for far-left ideas in general), the oldest were the platformists in Ukraine, they fought against Germany (Lenine sold Ukraine to them, Ukrainian anarchists disagreed), then the Russian white army, then lost to the Russian red army. Way more recently, some far-left adjacent communes debuted in Mexico, because Mexico constitution allows them to exist, but they're still within a state (they mostly self-organized to repel cartels extortion). Think Israeli kibbutz.

Imho this is 'normal'. Far-left ideals do not seem to work at large scale.

> only in direct democracy,

I thought far-left is typically vanguardist and doesn’t believe in any type of [real] democracy? Dictatorship of the proletariat and all that stuff..

Dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be in theory a transition period. In practice, once you get the power, you keep it.

Other on the far left will rather go a more local route, destroying state structure (as state is oppressive by nature) in the beginning to create a collective bottom up.

I'm not saying any of this is a good idea btw, it's just that far-left has fled the US a long time ago. If you aren't revolutionary, you aren't far-left.

Or maybe he just has a balanced centric view on most matters?

Do you really think that being at odds with both extreme ends of the political spectrum is a bad thing?

He isn’t being read as being at odds with the extremes, he is seen as extreme. I personally don’t think he’s extremist, he reminds me of myself when I was an edgy, poorly socialised 12 year old except with billions of dollars. Hence the comment about social skills.

To your second question, I’m not sure where you’re getting that I would think that so I’m unsure how to respond in a helpful way.

It's not a bad thing if someone is at odds with both extremes because they are in the center. It is a bad thing if they are at odds with both extremes because they are one extreme on some issues and the other extreme on the rest of the issues.

It's like how a house that is averages 68℉ (20℃) by being 68℉ (20℃) all day is a lot more pleasant than house that averages 68℉ (20℃) by being 50℉ (10℃) for half the day and 86℉ (30℃) for the other half of the day.

What issues do you find he is extreme on?

1. The result of the 2020 election is a big one

2. Supporting Germany's AfD, which e.g. backs "complete closure" of EU borders

3. Recently started advocating for a far-right loser in the UK (Tommy Robinson) who has multiple convictions including assault, assault, assault, mortgage fraud, contempt of court, and use of a false passport to enter the US

4. Continuing to insist that the Twitter Files showed that Dems stifled the Biden laptop story even after Matt Taibbi (who Musk hired to release the Twitter Files) wrote: "there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story."

1. I don't understand how that's evidence of an extreme view. 2. That does seem extreme, probably a good example. 3. I didn't know anything about this topic, but at a first glance it seems like there is a lot more going on here than the way you are framing it. 4. I didn't know Matt Taibbi said that, interesting...

You are disengaged from consensus reality if you don’t understand why thinking the 2020 election was in any way fraudulent is an extreme view.

I agree but I think s/he showed good faith with the rest of the comment and shouldn't be flagged.

GP's surprise that Taibbi (author of the Twitter Files, hired by Musk) said "there is no evidence of government involvement in the laptop story" is great evidence of the fact that many people just live in informational wormholes.

Thank you. I think someone (or maybe multiple people) just mass flagged all my comments, including ones that I struggle to see as controversial. My curiosity and questioning of the "consensus reality" apparently really upset someone.

Doesn't exactly make me more confident in their opinions, if when I question them or try to understand them by comparing my own views people attempt to silence me unjustly (I didn't break any HN rules as far as I can tell, and I checked).

I spend about an hour a week on HN, and about another hour a week combined mixed between reddit, twitter, NYT, reuters, and probably a couple others I am forgetting. Just trying to get a pulse of what's going on across a wide range of sources.

Most of my time consuming information is reading books and listening to podcasts. I have listened to several Elon musk interviews (Lex Fridman mostly).

Does this explain my "information wormhole"?

> when I question them or try to understand them by comparin

You didn’t do that in good faith, though. Just entirely handwaving his support for far-right parties in Europe can’t really lead to any productive discussion? Can it?

I don't understand. How is it that my comment can't lead to any productive discussion?

I don't know anything about that AfD party, why Elon supports them, or their policies. At a glance it does appear the Elon supports them. I am taking the previous commenter at their word that the party backs "complete closure" of the EU borders, but I can't confirm or deny it yet. I haven't looked into it yet. At a glance it does seem extreme (from an Overton window perspective) for Elon to be backing a political party that wants to break up the EU.

How was my previous comment handwaving? I have to expand into all of the above instead of summarizing my impression in order for me to not be handwaving?

Like... what?

Or maybe I don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying that Elon is claiming that the 2020 election was fraudulent? Because if you are, then its news to me. I didn't know he held that stance.

Regular posting of antisemitic memes on Twitter is pretty extreme

I can't imagine how it's not extreme to retweet any of the white supremacist shit I've seen him retweet

> Do you really think that being at odds with both extreme ends of the political spectrum is a bad thing?

He's also at odds with much of the centre. Musk picks fights, and not particularly strategically. The comment about his lack of social skills is spot on.

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Sure - I'll try harder. But I think the post you're responding to is entirely factual and reasonable under the circumstances.