Remix clone Hacker News

I have slipped to the right enough to be almost like a "translator" between leftwing and rightwing viewpoints. Put it this way, I can laugh at parodies of both of them...

I see some error patterns that both sides seem to uniquely make, for example. Just 1 for each side for the sake of brevity here: Rightwingers idolize success without acknowledging the systematic boosts (or pure luck) that have often assisted it, while leftwingers are not only disgusted by success but consider it heretical. Leftwingers constantly compare a situation to some unattainable ideal and are therefore constantly complaining about the current state of affairs without offering a realistic solution; rightwingers fail to acknowledge the very real injustices that a more purely authoritarian approach to things often causes (see: three-strikes laws).

Speaking as one who tests politically center, I believe that the danger is neither nonexistent nor is as high as you may believe. Note that there is some merit to the rightwing claim of "MSM bias"; harping on the same cherry-picked injustice stories for outrage clicks over and over again seems to be the last remaining successful news business model (and this should worry EVERYONE).

▲

ang_cire 5 days ago | parent [-]

> while leftwingers are not only disgusted by success but consider it heretical

The entire left wing rhetoric against billionaires is that they are not in fact successful on the merits of work that everyone else is doing, they are successful in cheating the system and exploiting others. We love success that happens within the same rules that we average people all operate in.

This is like saying that CoD players who are against aimbotters are "disgusted by success" when they point out that no one will legitimately have a 100/4/0 KDA (a more appropriate ratio for billionaire vs average person would be 1000000/4/0, but that would almost be too outlandish, which is why there are so many infographics showing just how conceptually confounding a billion dollars really is).

▲

pmarreck 5 days ago | parent [-]

> The entire left wing rhetoric against billionaires is that they are not in fact successful on the merits of work that everyone else is doing, they are successful in cheating the system and exploiting others

Yes. And that is false. If you don't believe me, bring that to ChatGPT and ask it to argue both sides of this claim, because I do not have time to retread this. For one thing, everyone has to abide by the rules- and if the rules are unfair, then it is the rules that deserve this scorn, not the people who played the game by them.

> We love success that happens within the same rules that we average people all operate in.

This is also false. I have not seen a single successful individual praised on this basis. I'd love to know of one. Musk graduated with college debt- something that I did not- and yet has attained massively more success than I, for example. Luigi, the guy who shot the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was raised in a far wealthier family than that CEO was!

Wait, how am I already getting downvoted? At least counterargue?

	▲	ang_cire 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> For one thing, everyone has to abide by the rules- and if the rules are unfair, then it is the rules that deserve this scorn, not the people who played the game by them. > Rightwingers idolize success without acknowledging the systematic boosts (or pure luck) that have often assisted it Guess what some of those systemic boosts are? Unequal rules. And if a game maker (or a government) made a bunch of special rules or made constant exceptions to the rules, for people of a certain wealth level, no one would direct their scorn only at the unfair rules, they'd also rightly direct it at the people benefiting from them (especially when that group lobbies for the special treatment like the wealthy do). > Musk graduated with college debt So? His family is incredibly rich, and he was given every opportunity on earth to succeed, and any college debt would have been no threat to that. He carries millions in personal debt, and it doesn't disadvantage him now, either. > I'd love to know of one. Bernie Sanders? Hasanbi? The average 60+ retiree whose house is now worth north of a million? If you're asking me to list billionaires, there won't be any, but the vast majority of millionaires out there who aren't trying to use their money unethically, the Left has no issue with. > Wait, how am I already getting downvoted? At least counterargue? Perhaps the people who downvoted you didn't have time to retread all this.