
The 480 - Hooke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_480
======
gumby
Burdock was also one of the authors of “The Ugly American”.

Unlike popular usage of that phrase, the “Ugly American” was the _hero_ , out
working with people in the field, not getting dressed up, or showered, and not
hanging out in the diplomatic circuit.

It was a strong condemnation of the kind of out of touch foreign policy and
operations that lead to the viet Nam war and countless foreign policy
disasters that have followed since.

Written in 1958, discussed widely, and yet made zero impact.

~~~
nickbauman
Another critique of the same war from a more famous author, Graham Greene,
with a similar title, published three years earlier than Burdock, _The Quiet
American_ , set the narrative for future generations of political analysts and
pundits for years to come.

Greene, himself a former member of the intel community, penned this to explain
that no matter how "in touch" your politicians are, if your intel services are
secretly sowing discord and playing dirty tricks preying on the politics of a
client nation, they can make war seem inevitable.

In hindsight the Bay of Tonkin Incident seems the flimsiest casus belli there
ever was for Viet Nam. At the time we seemed primed for a fight that never was
what we thought it was. We were manipulated then. We were manipulated on Iraq
under Bush, too.

The only difference this time was the weapon is turned on Americans (and
increasingly many other nations) to serve a _foreign_ power.

------
pavel_lishin
There's a lot of parallels here to Neal Stephenson's _Interface_ , which also
features a computer assigning potential voters a sub-group to which they
belong:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_\(novel\))

~~~
EvanAnderson
Wow! You commented _just_ as I did.

I'd echo what others have said about it-- _Interface_ is an under-appreciated
book. I am going to be really interested read _The 480_ having really enjoyed
_Interface_.

------
jimbob45
Burdick also wrote Fail-Safe, which was essentially the no-nonsense complement
to Strangelove. Decent book if you have nothing else to read and you're
willing to trust a stranger's opinion on the internet.

~~~
dhosek
Dr Strangelove was originally planned as a serious film until Kubrick realized
that there was comedic potential in the subject and he brought in writer Terry
Southern.

Kubrick was concerned that Fail-Safe, in production as a film at the same time
as Dr Strangelove, could hurt ticket sales for his film and encouraged a
lawsuit against Burdick and the producers of the film alleging that Fail-Safe
was plagiarized from Red Alert, the source novel for Dr Strangelove.

~~~
dhosek
Incidentally, in addition to the Sidney Lumet–directed version of Fail-Safe,
there was a live TV version of Fail-Safe directed by Stephen Frears and
starring George Clooney. The two filmed versions of the novel have different
endings.

------
sebastianconcpt
A novel on gamification of politics. Very interesting.

Sidenote: makes me think that the populist game precedes computing by a long
run, but the introduction of computing democratized access to consciousness
manipulation. Peer to peer influence got atomized and scaled.

~~~
nickbauman
For a very literary novel on a dubious populist politician, read _All the King
's Men_ by Robert Penn Warren.

------
IgorPartola
For those who have expertise in this area, how difficult would it be to
actually model different political interests and their interplay? Also, would
this eventually end up being a level 2 chaotic system where calculating the
predictions affects the real world inputs, making the whole thing akin to the
stock market? Or would it be slow moving enough that you could actually
extract something useful out of this?

------
BryantD
Interface, co-authored by Neal Stephenson, is also in this vein.

------
toomuchtodo
[https://smile.amazon.com/480-Eugene-
Burdick/dp/B000OPIUOO/](https://smile.amazon.com/480-Eugene-
Burdick/dp/B000OPIUOO/) (Amazon)

[https://openlibrary.org/works/OL6664375W/The_480](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL6664375W/The_480)
(OpenLibrary)

------
hiccuphippo
So during JFK times the candidates would shape their campaign around the
voter's beliefs. These days they shape the voters beliefs around themselves.
Reality is more dystopian than fiction.

~~~
microcolonel
> _...during JFK times..._

Not "during JFK times", but _in the JFK campaign_. Not so much shaping
campaigns around beliefs, but assessing who matters to your campaign as a pure
technical pursuit.

As for your jab, if you think that the President has somehow foisted his
campaign on the electorate, rather than the other way around, that is the sort
of profound misapprehension that doomed his opponent.

The fact that voters can be convinced to agree or disagree with the candidate
is more or less orthogonal. Do you think that JFK never influenced a voter by
speaking?

~~~
seph-reed
I read somewhere that the percentage of conservatives who believe that Covid
is a threat dropped from 70% in Feb to like 30% now. Not sure if that's true,
but if it is, it would indicate their beliefs are vastly more dependent on his
words, than his words on their beliefs.

~~~
moojd
Are you sure those numbers aren't reversed? I'm in a red state and while most
people I know were in denial a month ago most now at least have moderate
concern. It's pretty hard to deny that COVID-19 is a threat when our hospitals
are full and the empty shelves in our grocery stores are a signal that people
are panicking.

~~~
dhosek
There seems to be some whiplash effect. Also the geographic sorting of voters
leads to a not insignificant number of people deciding that it's an urban/blue
state problem.

------
TylerE
Can we please stop it with these mystery meat titles?

~~~
swilliamsio
I prefer it. It encourages reading the article as opposed to just reading the
title and assuming the articles content.

~~~
TylerE
It encourages skipping everything. Life's too short.

------
zwieback
Good tip - added to my Goodreads list.

------
mistermann
> The novel criticizes the socio-political effects on society at large from
> the use of computers to run massive simulations, which predict the public
> reaction to certain (proposed) political moves before implementing them.
> _Such simulations make it easy to manipulate the public consciousness._

This last sentence seems flawed. Is it not describing the ability of a
computer to predict the future with high accuracy, and if so it isn't _the
public consciousness_ that's being manipulated, but rather _the course of
history_? Which is still bad of course, and somewhat similar, but is a
distinctly different situation. Directly acting upon the public consciousness
itself would require different actions different than making predictions about
the future, it would require actions _in the present_ , right?

One such action is propaganda (fake news, etc) - this one has been around
forever, we all know about it.

Another one that's been making the news a lot lately are the infamous
"Russian" (I don't buy the story personally, but that's a different
discussion) trolls.

Let me tell you about something very weird that I've been noticing for quite
some time now. I am a huge political junkie. And for this upcoming election,
here's my current ranking of the candidates: 1. Sanders 2. Trump 3. Biden
(well, more like 999. Biden).

I don't think it's too hard for us here to accept mine as a valid political
stance. Perhaps it seems weird, but it's not _crazy_.

Simultaneously, we have this situation where Bernie supporters have two
battles to win: first they must beat the (corrupt) DNC organization, before
moving on to the big boss, DJT. So, of course, we do indeed see them attacking
both Trump (and his racist/hyper-capitalist/misc-other-stereotype supporters)
and the DNC/Biden. Nothing strange yet.

But here's the weird thing: being a political junkie, I have been interacting
(primarily on Reddit) with Democrats supporters now and then over the last
several weeks/months. In near every single conversation, there is this
unmistakable, uncanny pattern in the discussions, where it _seems_ like these
people are so blinded by rage, that they _literally can 't fathom_ the idea
that a person could hold my stance. Or even that a single Trump supporter
could hold any belief that does not _perfectly_ line up with the stereotypes
of what a Trump supporter "is". Like, it's not like you have a back and forth
with them and then they decide "you know what, I think you're lying", but they
just _cannot_ believe, as if they have lost control of their conscious mind
and free will, like there is some sort of a cognitive malfunction.
Essentially, a real world actual manifestation of the NPC meme.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPC_(meme)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPC_\(meme\))

> NPC, derived from Non-Player Character in video games, is an meme to express
> the idea that individuals of the political left do not think for themselves;
> it is also known as NPC Wojak. The NPC meme, which graphically is based on
> the Wojak meme, was created in July 2016 by an anonymous author and first
> published on the image-hosting website 4chan, where also the idea and
> inspiration behind the meme were introduced. The NPC meme has gained
> widespread attention and been featured in numerous news outlets, including
> The New York Times,[4] The Verge,[3] BBC,[7] and Breitbart News Network.
> Media coverage of the NPC meme has been politically biased according to the
> news watchdogs Accuracy In Media[8] and Media Research Center.[9]

Now, the average person is not very good at rational thinking. So, one should
expect a fair amount of this behavior, especially under the stress of modern
day politics. No problemo. But my issue is that firstly, this scenario isn't
really all that complicated (is it?), and more importantly, this behavior
seems to occur _in at least 90% of my interactions_. I can understand _a lot_
of people being dumb, _but almost all of them_? (I should also note: I'm not
taking only my personal conversations into account here, much of my confidence
level derives from observing similar behavior in the conversations of others).

Which leads me to my question: what are the odds that there is some entity out
there that happens to posses "AI chat" technology that is way beyond what is
considered to be the current state of the art (like how the NSA is reputed to
be <x> years ahead), and that this technology is now in the wild? It seems
like an outlandish theory, but on a technical basis, is it really that far out
there?

I suppose I should note two other explanations that come to mind:

\- rather than bots, these entities could just be paid trolls (with the sums
of money thrown around in an election, this could be done at very significant
scale)

\- if a given ~environment can invoke ~insanity in one person, it may also be
able to invoke the same thing in millions of people simultaneously; but the
problem with this is, could it reach 90% levels? Although, Redditors are not a
representative sample, so it would only have to make that subset crazy, which
seems much more plausible.

Anyways, this question has been on my mind for a while so thought I'd just
throw it out there and see what others think.

EDIT: Thinking a bit more about it: "90% of Redditors are literally incapable
of high-skilled rational thought" actually feels about right, so maybe nothing
nefarious is afoot. Although, I'm not sure which of these is the scarier
scenario. And if it's both (which it actually kinda is, with respect to fake
news), God help us all. So perhaps I've answered my own question, but would
really like to hear what others think. The degradation in the quality of
thinking and discourse in the Western world is beyond out of control in my
opinion, and I am legit worried that if some sensible special interest groups
outside the formal political process don't set aside their differences and
unify to set us back on the right path, I actually think tyranny (the serious
kind) may be inevitable. One year ago I would have dismissed such claims as
hyperbolic, but considering planet earth is currently on a near total lockdown
due to a literal global pandemic, that could have _easily_ (at least
relatively speaking) been prevented/managed, I think erring on the side of
extreme caution is warranted. The next event could end industrialized human
civilization, and I almost feel like I am the only person that seems concerned
about the mass psychology aspect of it. Everyone's focusing on "the Russians",
when they should be focusing on the mental health of people who are exposed to
a historically unprecedented stream of incoming information, much of it
sophisticated propaganda.

~~~
mturmon
> ...here's my current ranking of the candidates: 1. Sanders 2. Trump 3. Biden
> (well, more like 999. Biden)...

> ...literally can't fathom the idea that a person could hold my stance...

I'm not blinded by rage, but these two top choices really do seem
incompatible. Is your political goal mostly to shake up the status quo?

~~~
mistermann
Ok, excellent, I believe we may have accidentally invoked an instance of the
very problem I am talking about. Well, a milder version of it anyways,
assuming you are willing to actually participate in a conversation. That is
where things usually (I see I've managed to get a downvote already, an example
of another fundamental problem imho) go off the rails, in that in my
experience it _seems_ , based on the literal words that people write, that
they truly believe they are objectively _and confidently_ correct, and I am
objectively incorrect. But if so, why am I unable to ever meet someone who is
willing to explain to me _why_ they are correct, and how they _know with
certainty_ that they are correct.

If I observe two people in a disagreement, both of whom believe they are
correct, and one of the people _will not defend their position_ , but rather
simply _refuses_ to discuss the matter, then my intuition would suggest that
person is the incorrect one (and there's a good chance that they know/feel
it).

So, we shall see what happens this time...

> I'm not blinded by rage, but these two top choices really do seem
> incompatible.

This _seems_ reasonable, but what does "seems" mean, in my sentence, and in
yours?

 _seem: "give the impression or sensation of being something or having a
particular quality."_

To me, it seems completely logical on its face that my (type of) stance will
_always_ "seem" _unusual_ , because it _is_ unusual.

But _unusual_ isn't the word you used. You used "incompatible".

 _incompatible: (of two things) so opposed in character as to be incapable of
existing together._

Excellent, here we have a _non-ambiguous_ word to work with: _incapable_

 _incapable: "unable to do or achieve (something)."_

Or in other words: ~"literally not possible"

Ok, I think that should suffice for defining our terms and removing ambiguity.
I hope I have set the stage successfully (and in a manner acceptable to you -
if not, let me know) for a _clear_ discussion.

(META: Look how much work I _had to_ put in here to _~ensure_ a high quality
conversation. I believe this is _absolutely_ necessary, and some day very soon
I would love to have a HUGE discussion, with anyone who is interested, on
whether this is necessary, and why, and if I made any mistakes, and if there
are further improvements or techniques I could use, and if I'm the only one
that believes that human communication in all its forms is sub-optimal (cuz it
sure seems like I am, based on voting), and so forth and so on.)

\--------------------------------

So my question to you is: Why do you ~believe it is "literally not possible"
for a person to hold my political stance (in a logically coherent manner)?

Note: that sentence sounds like I am putting words in your mouth, doesn't it?
But how do we propose to have high quality, productive conversations,
particularly when stuck in an impasse (seems like a fair description of modern
day America to me), if we do not _explicitly_ define what the _precise_ point
of contention is?

If you'd like to restate what you _actually_ believe, feel free, but then are
we not kind of right back to where we started?

If you would like to make any modifications to the staged context I've set, or
whatever, I'm in. I am willing to participate. I want to figure out what in
the fuck is going on with respect to human communication? Why in God's name
are what seem like such trivial things, _to me_ , seemingly _utterly
incomprehensible_ to other people, even in high intelligence forums like HN? I
am obsessed with this question, and I can't find anyone who seems to even find
it interesting, let alone be willing to discuss it.

And in the background the whole time during this conversation, there is
literally a global pandemic underway, largely exacerbated by the fact that
numerous highly industrialized first world countries, one of which landed a
man on the friggin moon 51 years ago, now seem to struggle with a task as
simple as stockpiling boxes of cheap paper masks in medical facilities. But I
digress.

So, if you're cool with the setup and can answer the question, excellent. If
you'd like to tune it up a bit before answering, ok by me (providing the
amended result continues to facilitate a high quality conversation).

> Is your political goal mostly to shake up the status quo?

Not quite. I would describe it more as: _I would like to maximize happiness
for all humans beings on earth._

Furthermore, I would like to see that the system we find that can make that
actually happen, is somehow made "sticky", so rogue politicians in the future
are not able to dismantle it, even if they try. I also happen to personally
believe that to _finally_ start moving towards such a goal, the pre-requisite
first step is for everyone to calm down and stop yelling at imaginary strawman
avatars (transparently created by our subconscious mind) that they have
mistaken for an actual real person. And once we've achieved a calm state of
mind, finally start working _together_ , to _discover and enumerate_ that
which we all agree upon, and that which we do not. And then, what we agree on:
do it. And simultaneously, start working on figuring out _precisely(!) why_ we
disagree. And I mean, the _true_ nature of the disagreements, _not_ our
_assumptions_ of what they are (this is what we do now).

To me, this seems like an obvious improvement over our current approach. And
yet, my impression is that people who read this will believe I am mentally
ill. Based on the nature of my interactions on HN, I literally believe that.
It is not hyperbole. I look at the world, and I simply cannot believe my eyes.
It is so far beyond absurd, it's hard to even wrap one's head around it. And
yet beyond pointing fingers at their political opponents, it seems to that
most people kind of think the situation sucks, but isn't terribly
unreasonable. "It's just the way it is, don't dwell on it!"

"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage
to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

\- Ancient proverb

"Fuck that. That mindset is dumb. Full stop. Is that what got humanity to
where we are today? Is that how our ancestors behaved? Is that how our parents
raised us to be? Is that how you're raising your children? What in the hell
has gone wrong with people? What is going on? Jesus H Christ. Someone has to
do something, and the time to start was 30 years ago. We are behind schedule,
so quit fucking whining like a bunch of babies and fighting among yourselves
about trivialities, and get your ass in gear cleaning up this fucking disaster
we have turned this planet into. Everyone, including me, should be fucking
ashamed of themselves."

\- Me

Do you see my conundrum? Should I just get it over with and check into a
mental hospital? I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that my mental state is
is in fact....highly abnormal. But then, in a world gone mad (have you watched
TV today?), should abnormal not be a goal worth pursuing? Yes, many instances
of abnormal could be even worse, but when "normal" is what I see on TV, I am
legitimately willing to (and am) risk my mental health to at least try and do
something about it, to hell with all the defeatist status-quo defenders (who
know not what they do).

~~~
Veserv
I am not who you replied to, but since you seem to sincerely want an answer,
let me help you out by adding the missing words I see when I read the original
poster statement:

> ... but these two top choices really do seem incompatible. Is your political
> goal mostly to shake up the status quo?

I read as:

> ... these two top choices really do seem incompatible (in standard political
> frameworks since in standard political frameworks individuals are ranked
> based on their proposed actions and they frequently propose actions that are
> fundamental opposites in certain dimensions (e.g. raise vs lower taxes on
> rich are clearly opposites in at least one important sense)). (Given that
> you propose that ordering, you must be using a non-standard framework. I can
> think of one framework off the top of my head which may result in that
> ordering, so let me ask you if that is the case.) Is your political goal
> mostly to shake up the status quo? (If that is not the case, can you explain
> what you are optimizing for and the step-by-step reason for why their stated
> goals/actions will help in achieving that even though the proposed actions
> are opposites in the normally considered dimensions. You will probably need
> to make an argument for why that dimension is irrelevant, less important
> than a different dimension where they are the same, or that the dimension
> has the same properties at both extremes.)

~~~
mistermann
(Please pardon tyos and bad grammar, I ran out of time)

Thank you, I sincerely appreciate your reply.

Yours seems like a very reasonable interpretation.

> ...let me help you out by adding the [missing words] [I see] when I read the
> original poster statement

An issue I see, at least the way I view the world, is this: we have gone from
26 words to up to 186. Now, let's not obsess _too much_ over these specific
values, and their relative size to each other, particularly in this extremely
simple (but not entirely risk free) example.

You have _personally interpreted_ what was meant by another person. Now, your
interpretation is _probably_ correct (especially in this simple case), but are
we sure?

Just a few ideas that come to mind of how communication can go wrong:

\- what if the scenario one is dealing with is more complex &/or nuanced than
the example

\- what if neither of the two participants happen to have particularly strong
skills in logic or communication (say, if the conversation is happening in a
less technical forum)?

\- maybe one or both of the participants have seriously flawed ideas within
their personal axioms (at this point, I'd say this can almost be assumed to be
universal in most cases, due to people living in information bubbles as well
as interpreting information in a biased manner)

\- what if the person doing the interpreting is not acting in a good faith
matter to the same high degree you are (due to a lack of intent (up to and
including outright lying), or a lack of ability)?

\- maybe they do have all the necessary skills, and the proper intent, but
they accidentally misread or misinterpret the writers words, and they arrive
at an interpretation that is significantly different than than the one
intended, and then perhaps the conversation continues with neither party
realizing that the model (of a person) they are arguing with is fundamentally
flawed to the degree that it is not even remotely representative of the
meatspace version of the person.

\- what if the conversation "doesn't go so well" (tempers flare, etc.), and
maybe even gets into a downward spiral of sorts, such that the already sub-
optimal communication skills are degraded even further (spite, revenge, etc)

\- I could go on and on

I could also go on and write write an even longer list of all the different
consequences that might result from an interaction, particularly when the
pitfalls above are blended into various unique combinations.

And then when the interaction is done, each party leaves with a slightly
modified internal model of what members of <Tribe X> "are", or "believe", or
what the "facts" are about a particular topic. And finally, these two people
eventually wrap it up and go out into the world, carrying in their mind even
more flawed models of reality than they started with, and repeat the process
over and over.

Meanwhile, there are often spectators involved in these conversations, who are
in turn having _their_ internal models of the participant's respective
"tribes" modified by the events of the conversation. Let's take a scenario:
say a Conservative and a Liberal are arguing, and let's say one of the
participants is a bit of an asshole (take me for example) - now, in addition
to the above pitfalls, all observers _minds_ have been "infected" by the
events they witness in this conversation, in particular in this case that the
Conservative fellow was "a bit of a jerk". Can you then blame them for letting
the idea form in their mind that Conservatives are jerks? After all, they just
finished watching one in action! And it's likely not the first time time
they've seen that sort of thing.

I could easily fill several pages with enumerations of all the different other
dimensions of reality (some of which are at least as important as what I've
written here) that get layered on top to eventually construct this complex,
multi-dimensional "thing" that we refer to as "reality" / "the world", "life"
\- but I imagine you et the gist of what I'm saying.

So, that's a short summary of my take on that.

One last minor complaint before I wrap up. I seem to notice a pattern of lots
of people behaving as if they are extremely unhappy about the general state of
affairs, but when it comes around to discussing ideas about how this situation
can be improved, the general consensus recommendation that is shared almost
universally across all tribes, is that _the_ underlying problem is: _the other
tribe_. If "they" would "just" do <x>, or stop doing <y>, we'd have this whole
thing strightened out by late next week.

I lied - one more complaint. HN is full of very smart people, who are
generally very logical, right minded, and fair. I am not the cream of the crop
around these parts, of that I have no doubt. And yet, what I am _endeavoring_
to do, is to try to find a way to stop so many people from fighting, put down
their weapons, and come together around the table with the sincere intent to
start having some _serious, productive_ discussions about where we go from
here, and whether we can find a way to achieve the vision of the world that we
_all_ (!) share in our hearts.

All people are good. This is not to say that all people are _equally_ good,
and sometimes that goodness is buried under so much emotional scar tissue and
anger that it seems impossible to believe that anything of worth lies inside.
But it is there, and it can be found if you look hard enough. But first, you
have to be _willing_ to look. How many people are willing to look I wonder. Oh
sure, everyone sincerely _believes_ they are willing, but I think we both know
how rare it is to find a person whose theoretical morals perfectly align with
their behavior.

I know what I believe, and I believe it is good. I do my best to put these
ideas on paper, in hope that I might one day find even one person who believes
the same things I do, and then perhaps instead of one person trying to make
the world a better place, then we have two. A team, of sorts. Maybe there are
others out there who think like this, doing the same thing I am, but in their
own unique way. But sometimes a battle is too big for one person, or even ten.
Maybe the problem is so large that it needs _lots_ of people. And then maybe
sometimes you have special problem, one that is so big that even _lots_ of
people isn't enough. No, for those problems, the only solution is _everyone_.
Everyone, all on the same team (more or less), all pushing the ball in the
same direction. Instead of tearing each other down, build each other up. I'm
not a student of history, but as far as I know I don't think this approach has
ever been tried before. In fact, one might argue that what we've tried so far
largely consists of _the polar opposite_ of that. So if we all agree that
things are less than perfect, and nothing we've tried so far seems to work
terribly well, what's the harm in trying something new? _Or at least even try
discussing the idea_?

Oh right, my complaint. I am trying my hardest to do what seems (after several
years of pondering the situation we find ourselves in) right. I am trying to
suggest some new-ish ideas that might have some utility. But then when I come
back to the page, hoping to finally find someone who may see the world through
a similar lens to mine, it is not uncommon to find several downvotes instead,
and it kind of hurts a bit to be honest. Not all that long ago, my reaction
would be anger, and thoughts of "revenge". But that was then, and this is now.
I still have a long ways to go, but that's fine. "All things come to those who
wait" as they say. But in the meantime, it would be real nice if some day I
could get even a small sign from one person, that the path I'm on is not
wrong. But if not, so be it, I will contiinue down this path until I come up
with a better idea on my own.

Sorry for talking your ear off, it is one of my many bad character traits.
Consider yourself lucky that you only had to sit through the Coles Notes
version.

Before I sign sign off, I would like to leave links to two articles that I
found influential. The first I suspect you will have seen before, and then
second is a one hour lecture by Ram Dass, one of the greatest men to ever walk
among us, imho.

I CAN TOLERATE ANYTHING EXCEPT THE OUTGROUP

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-
anythin...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-
except-the-outgroup/)

In the Face of Chaos - Ram Dass Full Lecture 1994

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NR6AM5oKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NR6AM5oKk)

(2020 - 1994 = 26 years ago - how time flies. I wonder if things would look
different around here if more people aspired to be like him, rather than our
current popular role models. It might be a lot of fun to find out for
ourselves, if we'd be willing to try.)

~~~
DonHopkins
>and it kind of hurts a bit to be honest

Does it kind of hurt to be honest and answer my simple questions, please?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22699868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22699868)

Because to be honest, it kind of hurts to be on the receiving end of all his
abuse that you inexplicably tolerate, that Trump constantly dishes out against
women, minorities, foreigners, immigrants, gay and lesbian people, trans
people, Democrats, scientists, doctors, public health officials, the press,
athletes, Gold Star families, poor people, elderly people, overweight people,
people who need health care, people with pre-existing conditions, and all the
innocent vulnerable people that his election-driven Easter timetable and lies
and denials about Coronavirus are killing.

To be honest, it's pretty difficult to feel sorry for you that your feelings
are hurt if you support him, unless you're in one or more of those groups on
the receiving end of all of his abuse and bigotry. Is pity what you really
want? Then why do you tolerate his abuse of so many other people, and have no
sympathy for anyone but yourself?

Please explain why you give him a pass on all those things, and what exactly
Biden did that is worse than all of that?

