Maybe Bluesky has "won"

I don't doubt that you find HN to be left of your political position.

A lot of folks I know find all kinds of things "left wing". A lot of my liberal friends think they are leftists, though most of my leftist friends would disagree. My conservative friends don't really draw that distinction between liberals and leftists, and at the same time my liberal friends often think my anarchist friends to be about on par with literal Nazis, horeshoe-theory wise.

I suspect a lot of the Dem establishment neo-liberals (who are rapidly becoming neocons ala Rumsfield/Cheney) who make up a lot of this site see themselves as slightly left. Rationally left, but not part of the "revolutionary" left.

Which, from my position, puts them fairly close to the Reagan conservatives, if you overlook some issues about gay folks and are took the 80s conservatives at their word rather than their deeds when it comes to race issues. However, I don't find this place to be a meeting of the minds.

I find that HN is a place where I can observe what the sociopaths who have real capital and thus material political power think about the world, or at least what the their sycophantic mandarins work for those folks might think.

I listen to what folks say here because I am genuinely curious about what their alien-to-me understandings of technology and political ethics will do in the larger world.

I listen to folks here for the same reason I listen to left-wing folks digest nazi propaganda, read a lot of history, and try to hear what conversations are happening at the red neck bars and at gun shops I hang around.

Cause that's who has no problem fucking with my world, and fuck with my world they have indeed.

HN is not a place where I think any of my actual politics will find an audience.

Though I am (likely unwisely) communicating now, I mostly just shut up when I am here, unless someone has something worthwhile to say about music.

Thanks for being open - I've learned a lot in this thread.

I honestly had no idea that anyone "left of center" felt they couldn't openly share here, as I have always mentally categorized HN as a leftist echo chamber (hopefully that's not too blunt - it's just my honest perception).

I naively assumed that it was only those more right-of-center that felt their worldviews and opinions were unwelcome here, judging from the instantly dead posts I see of anything remotely right-aligned.

From your short share, I see that the echo-chamber is unwelcoming to a much broader sphere of humans than I realized. I find that super helpful to understand - so thank you for sharing.

Remember, the Gentleman's agreement of "no politics" was left unsaid until one party broke it, which divided america.

HN is largely US centric and largely suffers the blinkered bimodal view that the US itself mostly suffers from.

It's a problem amplified by Murdoch type media outlets who have weaponised the us-vs-them worldview for clickbait outrage and spread that dumbing down as far across the world as they are able.

For those of us not within that mindset such views seem very childlike and unsophisticated, there's a slew of nuance to the world that doesn't easily reduce to L v. R, "woke agenda" and all that et. al. jazz.

FWiW IMNotACommunist .. but I have an endearing love of this short interaction twixt Piers Morgan ( UK outrage talking head ) and Ash Sarkar for higlighting the pitfalls of not paying attention to what people actually think and believe in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD7Ol0gz11k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Sarkar

I'm not politically informed, and I don't watch traditional media, so I had to Google "Murdoch".

If I understand you correctly, you feel it's the right-leaning outlets like Fox News that have weaponized us-vs-them mindset?

The origin feels flipped to me, but regardless who started it, I see little to no actual respectful and thoughtful discourse these days - mature discourse where each side is willing to listen and acknowledge the elements of truth and assume positive intent in the other side's positions.

As you say, the media on both sides, including social media, feels extremely childlike and unsophisticated.

"Murdoch type media" outlets are those with a greater interest in pure profit, exercising influence, and serving owner interests that extend outside of media alone. The balanced presentation of news is of minor interest and a means to an end rather than a primary goal.

This, with Murdoch, harks back in a lesser way to his father, then to his expansion into the UK Fleet Street and eventual transition in US media, in Canada with Conrad Black, in the US pre Murdoch with Hearst, Pulitzer, Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick, in the UK pre Murdoch with Alfred Harmsworth and the like.

These are people who have all had large significant media outlets that have engaged in extremely partisan positions with respect to wars, the economy, favoured political candidates and dumbing down discourse.

> I see little to no actual respectful and thoughtful discourse these days

    In the 1890s the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal caused both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime and graphic horrors. 

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer

You're being downvoted but as a lefty European tech worker this rings true. I come to HN for interesting technical content (obviously) but I find the politics of the site by turns confusing and hard to stomach.

It is certainly the case that many well-meaning, Dem-voting Americans don't seem to know what leftist politics is (having never been exposed to it), and don't seem to realize that they are right-wing. It's an interesting phenomenon, but quite alarming when the consequences for the rest of the world are Not Good.

As an Australian here, I just had my mind blown that someone in the anglosphere didn't know "Murdoch".

Murdoch is more than Fox News. Just ask any Australian or Brit .

I guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000! https://m.xkcd.com/1053/

Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is great place for anyone wanting to learn more about the various biases that influence what gets covered in the media, and how it is discussed. It's a book, but there's also a great documentary of the same name that's half about Noam Chomsky's life, and half the ideas discussed in the book.

It's from the late 80s, but it is still relevant (and it also helps it feel a little above the current political hot-topics of today.