I'm seeing an influx of those social justice posts, and even straight-up American politics. Apart from the whole off topic issue, they're not very good.
For example this post. Your vote doesn't matter because of maths, not some evil Republican plot. There's too many of you for any single vote to have much sway. Same with those impediments to voting, in pretty every civilised country you have to show an ID to vote. I personally don't like the whole "here's your number, here's your ID, without it you may as well not exist" and certainly you won't be using any modern amenities but this is the reality of mass society.
It seems that way because you only skimmed the titles. For example, the one on Swedish Billionaires is a factual correction of an article that was popular on HN earlier but wrong.
The War of Rape is neither about war, rape nor politics. Funnily, it's about false stories never being corrected later.
Wha? The war of rape is about Jamie Leigh Jones, specifically about rape, and contains gems like "The best official estimates suggest that between 8 percent and 10 percent of all rape claims are false"
Your vote will never be even close to a swing vote, and most of the time the options you get to vote for are bad. The former holds in other societies, the latter, less so.
As such, voting is probably the least efficient way of enacting change, second only to not voting.
Convincing other people to vote (Or to vote the way you want,) on the other hand, is far more effective. Alas, this is most accessible to people with a surplus of time, money, or, far preferably, both. As such, the wealth gap contributes to America's political apathy.
For me, what I dislike about Chomsky's analysis is that he conflates things that might reasonably be called class war (like campaigning for lower taxes for the very rich and for lower welfare, or various kinds of rent seeking by big businesses) with things that are just the free market, like outsourcing jobs, and paying market wages.
IIRC Puritanism connected being "unlucky" with being a sinner/touched by the devil so everybody tried to work as hard as possible and consequently those who didn't were seen as infectious. Couldn't this still play a role in modern every-day life in USA?
11 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 28.1 ms ] threadFor example this post. Your vote doesn't matter because of maths, not some evil Republican plot. There's too many of you for any single vote to have much sway. Same with those impediments to voting, in pretty every civilised country you have to show an ID to vote. I personally don't like the whole "here's your number, here's your ID, without it you may as well not exist" and certainly you won't be using any modern amenities but this is the reality of mass society.
- On Swedish Billionaires (National Review)
- Why Not Protect Workers from Customers? (Library of Economics and Liberty)
- The War of Rape (Washington Monthly)
- Why climate change is good for the world (Spectator)
- US laissez-faire serves a greater global good (Overcoming Bias)
The War of Rape is neither about war, rape nor politics. Funnily, it's about false stories never being corrected later.
As such, voting is probably the least efficient way of enacting change, second only to not voting.
Convincing other people to vote (Or to vote the way you want,) on the other hand, is far more effective. Alas, this is most accessible to people with a surplus of time, money, or, far preferably, both. As such, the wealth gap contributes to America's political apathy.