
Ask HN: Homogeneity of HN readers in terms of political views? - arisAlexis
Are most of the hackers leftist&#x2F;anticapitalist&#x2F;cryptoanarchists? Most founders in SV capitalists? Do you need to be like that to get VC funding? Do these groups get along fine together?
======
Ihmahr
I'd say HN is actually very mixed. See this discussion as an example where the
only three comments are downvoted:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7831778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7831778)

There seem to be anarcho-capitalist, social-green-leftist, pro-state
surveillance, anti-state surveillance, pro-(progressive-)tax people,
voluntarists, etc.

I am sometimes offended or even horrified by some of the views expressed (like
the surveillance apologists, or drone-war fascists), but overall I think HN
diversity is a good thing. Only group bias is towards tech.

~~~
PaulHoule
That last bit is the unusual thing. In real life you meet a lot of people who
think Snowden should go to hell, but in Hacker News you are beyond the pale if
you think that NSA surveillance is less important than say, homelessness,
global warming, the drug war, etc.

~~~
DanBC
People seem to get really angry if you suggest that NSA surveillance is less
important than Facebook/Google/etc privacy violation, even though very many
people have experienced negative consequences of Facebook/Google/etc privacy
violations.

~~~
randallsquared
I think that there's a widespread sense (which I intuitively share) that
Facebook/Google/etc only get information about us because we or someone we
know freely give it to them. NSA surveillance is different in at least two
ways: first, we don't voluntarily give them the information, which makes their
use of that information inherently antagonistic towards us (hence the fourth
amendment to the US Constitution); and second (for Americans), there's an
understanding that the NSA was specifically instructed by Congress to _not_
spy domestically (presumably due to that fourth amendment thing, again).

~~~
DanBC
I agree that spying on your citizens should be illegal and any organisations
doing it should stop.

But then GCHQ has a big bunch of data that they rarely access under (we're
told) strict controls. So, I'm less bothered by the gathering of that data
than other people. I would be angry if GCHQ started grepping it for stuff that
isn't nationally important.

------
lhnz
A lot of subcultures have a certain amount of perceived homogeneity but it
doesn't necessarily mean that internally their views are homogenous.

Since there are particular talking points that we are biased to signalling on
in a technology/startup culture, we're more likely to being perceived on
political axises linked to these talking points: surveillance, regulation,
capitalism, freedom, anarchism, etc.

However, this doesn't mean that we don't also belong to our respective local
communities and have views which we do not disclose to each other (for reasons
of lack of interest and not just self-censorship - though yes, some groups
have membership rules which involve affording others the perception of seeing
members hold particular political positions.)

A completely subjective point that I'd like to make is that for various
reasons those of us that identify with hacker culture are prone to disliking
social/organisational structures and norms we perceive to be stupid, and also
many of us enjoy intellectual exercises/displays. This probably gives us some
deconstructive and fringe tendencies with the kinds of politics we associate
ourselves with.

I personally find a few of the views expoused in the neoreactionary movement
insightful/useful/evil/good and I enjoy reading their deconstructions. I think
this is a reaction to my previous leftism. It's not something I necessarily
agree with, it's just my need to deconstruct and elevate myself over
everything I once believed in. I'm not trying to denigrate myself here, I see
something similar in everybody and as I write this don't really feel the need
to seek a holier posture.

Outside of my own signalling subcultures, my politics is actually one of
diplomacy. I have a couple of principles relating to empathy,
sociology/economics, long-term thinking and the acceptance and good treatment
of others positions, emotions, characters, and roles. I will side strongly on
the side of anybody that I believe is towing the line on these principles, but
otherwise prefer to acquiesce to whatever configuration social reality is
enacting.

------
nexus76
I'm an IT pro and avid reader of HN and would consider myself a conservative
libertarian (basically an Orthodox Christian whose views are more dictated by
that than any political party). I'm pro-2nd amendment (actually pro all
amendments), anti-abortion (will qualify here in almost all cases), both of
which are considered right-wing, but I am also anti-capital punishment (again
to qualify in almost all cases), and support the legalization of all drugs
(even though I don't personally believe in inebriation as a moral standpoint),
both of which are considered left-wing. I think we should lesssen the size of
government, the mass of laws we've accumulated, and generally keep the
government out of our daily lives. I think our tax code needs reforming and
may even be in favor of a flat tax (although I'm not sure on this one). I
believe in capitalism over socialism, but still recognize that it's flawed and
am keenly interested in learning/exploring other economic systems, just so
long as their underpinnings are based in freedom. Hope that helps to shed
light of at least one reader's politics!

------
hitchhiker999
Well, don't know about homogeneity - as we're not 'mass market', and it's a
semi-specialised field, people on HN seem to be above the average 'smart' (not
going to say IQ)

1 - Smart people tend to have differing views, and be capable of expressing
them.

2 - Really smart people tend to continually learn, so expect those views to
change.

3 - Smart types generally counter an argument without too many obvious logical
fallacies, so more gets said here than elsewhere (generally)

I doubt there'll ever be a mass consensus here, and that suits me fine. I've
learnt a LOT from you guys!

I will say that I'm more comfortable expressing my true opinions here, than on
a site like 'Reddit'.

Emotionally: Reddit feels mass market now, HN feels more genuine and soulful
in a sense.

EDIT: I really hang out here for the community, not interested in VC related
stuff - perhaps quite a few of us are here for that.

~~~
stcredzero
_Well, don 't know about homogeneity - as we're not 'mass market'_

HN seems to be the thick root of the long tail. Over time, it's less about
intellectualism and more about group conformity. People just take comfort in
belonging to an ostensibly intellectually elite group and use that as a proxy
for real intellectualism. This is why there's a new norm of down voting to
disagree. Now there's flagging to disagree. Also, there's now so much posting,
new headlines that lack an up voting cabal have to be hand-promoted by mods to
have a hope of being seen.

HN has been overrun by many who don't understand intellectual integrity and
operate on the premise that it's allowed if the mechanisms allow it. Pretty
much, it's now reddit as of a few years ago.

~~~
hitchhiker999
I hope you're wrong. But the 'rot' you describe does eventually overwhelm most
of these communities.

------
DanielBMarkham
Meta: Hmmm. Wonder how this discussion will go?

HN readers skew young, so a fair guess would be that HN mostly has the
politics of the young demographic. I know a lot of the SV-types are of the
same U.S. political party. Whether or not that skews their decision-making is
beyond me. Since funding in general is just herd activity, I'd bet it did.

Having said that, I've always heard that there was a strong strain of
libertarianism in the hacker community. The Thiel fellowship comes to mind. As
a libertarian myself, I'm too close to the subject to judge. I suspect,
however, there are a lot of Ayn Rand fans who are either out in the open or
too clever to make their opinions known. Just a guess, though. (And I count
those guys as separate from just the libertarian folks)

As for myself, out of the statist/capitalist debate, I like both sharing and
trading, and I don't see why we can't have both. I think the sharing folks
tend to be mushy-headed at times, and I think the trading folks tend to be
hard-asses. In my mind, most of the huge improvements in our species,
including language, society, government, and the rest, are based on freely
trading things. Having said that, most of the things I hold dear -- family,
friends, goodwill, living a decent life -- are based on sharing. I don't see a
conflict here. Many do. [insert long discussion about how MSM and the net
makes money by splitting us up into little groups and having us fight each
other]

------
visakanv
I've concluded that life is an absurd circus; we're all clowns trying to amuse
ourselves in the face of inevitable death and meaninglessness. So politics
strikes me as just another sideshow in the larger circus.

So I have no political affiliations. We're all clowns, regardless of the
colours we wear. I have views and opinions and biases on certain issues, but I
don't really care to choose a team.

The circus is absurd as it is without me choosing to wear a funny hat.

~~~
sphildreth
"life is an absurd circus; we're all clowns trying to amuse ourselves in the
face of inevitable death and meaninglessness"

This is full of win. I will soon annoy everyone I know with this new mantra.
Thanks!

~~~
visakanv
It works remarkably well in almost all conditions except in cases of human
tragedy. Then it's usually more tasteful/appropriate to be sensitive. (But if
you're willing to go there, you could say that seeking pleasure, seeking love,
seeking glory, etc are all variations of self-amusement/utility-seeking.)

(Of course, anything that explains everything explains nothing, but
fundamentally the point is that life is absurd, and we'll have to acknowledge
that- I think it was Albert Camus who wrote extensively about it in The Myth
Of Sisyphus.)

------
higherpurpose
I think HN is a little homogeneous in terms of political views, but not
completely so, so there will always be dissenting opinions on any issue. But
it also doesn't mean most are "libertarian" or "liberal". I think most of the
HN community thinks beyond those labels, and instead support policies that
"just make sense", regardless of where they are on the political spectrum.

So that means generally anti-surveillance (right-wing libertarian? progressive
liberal?), pro-green energy (I guess that's left-wing?), pro-some social
programs, but also against other wasteful ones.

The HN community is generally pretty smart, and thinks in terms that aren't as
black and white like "right-wing" or "left-wing". And since it's a heavily
Internet-involved community, it does tend to be a little more pro-freedom than
pro-regulations (which is how the Internet has worked for the most part).

------
arisAlexis
As a side note I didn't put a poll cause it only serves to divide. I hope we
can have an interesting conversation here.

~~~
pavement
Many "hackers" fall on the conservative right-wing side of the political
spectrum, but this sort of personality doesn't tend to self-identify one's
self as a "hacker" even if they share similar technical interests.

For years, Slashdot has tended to attract the more straight-laced conformist
breed of hacker, and (at the risk of stereotyping) they tend to have steady,
reliable engineering jobs at large established companies that do a steady
business. This is not to say that Slashdot doesn't attract a broad readership,
just that, in particular, that subset of hacker does seem to be present there
and missing here. Mostly, because you'll find stories there, that they can
comment on, with first-hand experience, which, for whatever reason, don't seem
to catch on here on HN.

A good example might be a story about nuclear engineering, and you'll see
comments from experienced nuclear engineers with military backgrounds and
security clearances comment on nuclear engineering articles on Slashdot, that
you wouldn't see here on HN, because in many ways that field has absolutely
nothing to do with the startup scene. I'd still regard those people as
"hackers" though.

------
normloman
If there's a common political strain here, it's a misplaced faith in
technology and data analysis to solve the worlds problems. I often read
comments like "we could solve education if we only tracked teacher performance
better," or "we could fix the labor market by giving kids computers and
teaching them to code." HN people have watched one to many TED talks.

The other strain I see: A belief that "disruption" is always good, and every
industry is in need of it. Dangerous if you ask me.

~~~
ZenPro
Startup Effectiveness Arrogance.

SEA is a niche condition which health professionals believe originated in the
second and third generation of SoCal entrepreneurs.

No problem in the world exists which a STEM graduate in possession of seed
funding and a desire to change the world cannot solve.

Hell, it is his or her destiny no less.

------
tokenadult
Some of the most experienced members of Hacker News are very homogeneous in
discouraging political discussions here. Many political discussions here are
decried by many of the highest-karma users not because they are uninterested
in politics (a lot of people here are passionately interested in politics) but
because they think Hacker News isn't the place for political discussion. Those
users have won me over to their way of thinking. They think, with warrant,
that Hacker News has never developed a culture of careful fact-checking and
truth-seeking in political discussion as it (partially) has in discussion of
other issues. I fully agree that one of the main systemic biases here is a
pro-computer-technology bias, and I will add that most thoughtful young people
who have gone into programming and related careers have missed out on
educational experiences that would prepare them for a deep understanding of
politics, so it is not surprising that the political discussions here, when
they occur, are often very shallow. That's why I'd rather discuss politics
elsewhere than here.

~~~
arisAlexis
I agree that this is a subject that is difficult to handle properly, but I
also think that having a sense of what the rest of the community is about is
important in communities that self-define. Note that my intention was to get a
general feeling of the waters I am swimming in and what fellow fish look like,
rather than discussing if a specific policy or view is superior.

------
fleitz
Lets deconstruct this...

The leftist/anticapitalist/crypto thing sound like an amalgamation of HN
rather than spotting the diversity of opinion that tends to mash together to
form a 'superorganism'. HN by user is probably left/crypto via comments,
however, it would be a good idea to look at the highly upvoted posts from the
leaderboard to find the 'silent majority' who support the top ranked posters
via votes rather than comments.

(I may be misreading your question as it was not worded clearly, what does
'like that' mean, I assume )

Being a founder virtually requires one to be a capitalist... Yes, you need to
be a 'capitalist' to receive Venture 'Capital', if you weren't a capitalist
then you wouldn't own the venture, and would hence not be in a position to be
funded.

The use of money to fund non-private / profit ventures is generally known as
charity. Yes, many VCs fund charities... however it would be inappropriate to
call a charitable donation venture capital.

Most economies are mixed economies and not purely capitalist or socialist. A
great example is Tesla/SpaceX which would both be dead with out government
funding AND venture capital.

It's also important to note the narratives in the culture, which fall far more
along party lines rather than a left/right or capitalist/socialist analysis,
and obviously try to paint things in a light that will be receptive to the
audience.

(eg. GM can't survive with out government 'bailouts', but Tesla is an
innovative private company receiving government 'loans' for it's work.)

Fundamentally people like the things they like and then come up with reasons
to justify it.

~~~
arisAlexis
Sorry, "like that" referred to a leftist getting VC funding from huge
corporations/funds, there should be some problems there for both sides I
guess.

Is being a founder of a startup make you automatically a capitalist?

~~~
maxerickson
I think you can be just a pragmatic capitalist, without embracing it as an
ideology. I guess you're still "being a capitalist".

Similarly, I'm pretty sure that there were plenty of powerful members of the
communist party in the Soviet Union that simply saw it as the best opportunity
they had.

------
RollAHardSix
I can only speak for myself in that I don't care. I don't vote, don't watch
the news, don't keep up with issues, don't care what laws get passed (I
respect and observe the laws unless I was able to do something such as save a
life by breaking the law than I'd break some, ie something very important
morally), I don't discuss politics, don't get riled up over certain issues,
don't care about gay's or abortion or oil or any of that.

I just...don't care. I have my own day to day life to live. What do I call
myself? I don't know. I'm more curious how many young people feel the way I
do, and what evolution it will have on politics as we age. (For reference, I
personally am only 24).

------
brudgers
The set of shared interests of HN members is largely orthogonal to political
orientation or affiliation. Discussions organized around those interests tend
to produce insights from experience and productive discussion including
productive disagreement.

On the other hand, threads about politics tend to produce shit discussions by
inviting trolling and encouraging the 'I am this kind of snowflake' which
facilitate it at one end of the spectrum and constitute it at the 'I don't
give a fuck what you think' end.

This thread is no exception to the political threads produce low quality
heuristic.

------
Thiz
My view?

Voluntaryist, Libertarian, Panarchist, Polycrat, Anarcho-capitalist and Liber-
agorist.

In that order.

Everything should be voluntary even taxes, liberty is the highest political
end, all kinds of voluntary government are allowed, and as many rulers as
people so voluntarily choose.

I personally prefer no rulers and private means of production in free markets,
but that's my very own personal opinion. I respect everybody's opinion on the
subject as long as they don't try to impose it on me.

------
decasteve
I am wary of anyone who describes themselves primarily by words that end in
-ist or -ism. Often those who do find themselves in a "finger pointing to the
moon" scenario:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH1GFaw09hk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH1GFaw09hk)

------
Kiro
On HN we definitely have a large crowd of leftists/anticapitalists which I
find surprising since most hackers I know are libertarians.

~~~
marcosdumay
What's a set of completely worthless generalized labels.

Should the government intervene in a market? Any market? What about security?
That's a market too.

Should it intervene in natural monopolies and monopolist behavior?

Should it make commerce easier? That requires intervening on banks.

Should it act against information asymmetry? That's intervention too, and
required for capitalism to work.

Should it provide social nets so people can take risks? Without those power
slowly consolidates, and capitalism slowly goes away.

~~~
icebraining
_Should it act against information asymmetry? That 's intervention too, and
required for capitalism to work._

Is it required? Why?

~~~
marcosdumay
Information asymmetry creates the market for lemons[1] problem, and can at the
extremes literally kill the entire market.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons)

~~~
icebraining
Yes, but why is State intervention required? There are market mechanisms to
correct that; in the fifth criteria itself mentions some (reputation and
warranties), for example.

I don't see how that papers shows that State intervention is "required for
capitalism to work".

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, warranties are enforced by the State.

I don't think company reputation works very well, but your experience may
vary.

------
madaxe_again
No. Classic Hayekian liberal here. Used to wear a little l libertarian hat,
until I realised that Abilene and Kafka rule the planet.

~~~
olalonde
What distinction do you make between "classic Hayekian liberal" and
"libertarian"?

~~~
coolsunglasses
Libertarians can fall on a left-right spectrum the same as anybody. Hayekian
liberals are generally monetarists (Austrian) that fall on the "right
libertarian" spectrum. They tend to favor a state of a similar size and
purpose as many Objectivists. Enforce rule of law, property rights, national
defense - little else.

Some fans of Austrian economics will go further, sometimes all the way into
anarcho-capitalism.

Other sorts of libertarians might be left-libertarian, anarchists, marxists,
distributist, geo-libertarian, all sorts.

------
arisAlexis
just being a bit more controversial, is open source software a bit socialist
in nature?

~~~
tom_scrace
Not at all, because there is no coercion.

~~~
mcv
So libertarian socialist, then. GPL in particular has strong socialist
tendencies: you can build on it, but you've got to share your changes too.

~~~
tom_scrace
It's not socialist at all unless people are being forced against their will
(or perhaps 'regardless of their will' would be more accurate) to contribute
to some common project. Nobody in the open source world is being forced to do
anything.

~~~
mcv
That is not really what socialism is about. It's about equality, not about
forcing people. The big question is how to get that equality, and _state
socialism_ says some degree of forcing will be necessary. _Libertarian
socialism_ (also known as social anarchism or left-libertarianism) says you
need freedom just as much as you need equality, or you end up with oppression.
Open Source strikes that balance in a very natural way.

------
frozenport
Also some people don't vote

~~~
k-mcgrady
That doesn't mean you don't have political opinions.

~~~
VLM
It might help to provide links of explanation.

Rozeff has my favorite overall explanation

[http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff224.html](http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff224.html)

The next is typical zerohedge, ZH is more or less the 4chan of finance and
politics so you get 10 kilolines of idiocy mixed with a couple excellent lines
that make it all worth it, like "Your role, by voting, is to legitimise this
corruption." (and edited to add "Democracy has become a religion and anyone
who criticises it is labelled a heretic.")

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-02/guest-post-why-i-
do...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-02/guest-post-why-i-dont-vote)

A minority opinion by a self described "educated, politically conscious Black
woman" (edited to quote "My ancestors who died attempting to register to vote,
didn't die because they wanted to vote, they died because they wanted our
community to have the power and self-determination to live a quality life."
and my commentary is if the latter has been intentionally systemically removed
as a national policy for members of my community, then the former is obviously
meaningless)

[http://www.stanford.edu/~arnetha/expowrite/activities/voteno...](http://www.stanford.edu/~arnetha/expowrite/activities/voteno.html)

Democracy is an effective PR campaign for an oligarchy to control the
citizenry. A non-religious opiate of the masses. It makes money for the right
people, and fools the fools into thinking their opinion matters or will even
be considered.

------
noir_lord
I'm fully pro-abortion, pro regulated market capitalism, pro welfare and state
healthcare (I'm English and I think the NHS is the greatest thing the UK ever
did).

I have a complex stance on government/capitalism, I think certain industries
(particularly natural monopolies like utilities, transport (trains) etc)
should be state owned/run or possibly state owned/privately run (with
sufficient safe guards) as those industries enrich the whole of society and
shouldn't necessarily need to make a profit (shortfall covered from taxation).

I'm not American but if I where I'd be anti-second amendment (it's largely a
settled issue in the UK, privately held guns are rare).

I'm against an interventionist unilateral/bilateral (usually us and the US)
foreign policy, while it's nice to think we can help play world police when
you actually look at it we only intervene where we have a vested interest
(even if tangentially through the US) and quite frankly spending that kind of
money when we have major problems at home is idiotic.

I'm in favour of much stricter regulation of personal data (quite frankly the
law simply has not kept up with the progress of technology) including
government use.

I'm in favour of prison reform towards a more Scandinavian model, whatever
your views on punishment vs rehabilitation the re offence rate here is so high
punishment is clearly not working.

I support the reform of our political system including the introduction of
proportional voting, reforming the house of lords (it should be elected).

I'm undecided on the monarchy, one side of me leads towards been a republic,
the other half values the history plus there are advantages to your head of
state not been the head of government.

I'm undecided on immigration, I lean towards a point style system similar to
what the US and New Zealand use.

I'm undecided on the EU, it's been very difficult to find clear evidence on
way or the other for whether it's a benefit for us as a country.

I'm undecided on Scottish independence (and quite frankly it's the job of the
Scots to choose anyway) however I do think if they vote for independence it
should _full_ independence and they should be unable to rejoin the Union
without a full referendum (including Wales, England and Northern Ireland).

I'm pro-nuclear and pro-renewable's (Nuclear is the only realistic technology
we have for massive baseload generation at present that doesn't produce huge
amounts of CO2, it's the least worst option) with renewable's on housing stock
providing a useful input.

I'm anti-Trident (it will never get used) and think we should reduce military
spending hugely (We are currently spending far too much on defence), reducing
the defence budget by 20 billion (about 40% reduction) a year and putting that
into upgrading the civil infrastructure makes more sense.

Essentially I believe in things that each of the major parties in the UK both
love and hate (which is one reason why I like proportional representation, I
can express complex political beliefs in a more reflective way).

~~~
NAFV_P
I'm a limey myself, I was just thinking...

If you really want to find differences in political opinion, bring up a really
volatile subject. I would be interested to hear the views of HN readers on the
Falkland Islands.

~~~
ZenPro
What other _views_ are there?

The Falkland Islands existed before the state of Argentina. The islanders
voted for self-determination and wished to remain as part of the United
Kingdom for defence matters.

There is no other view that is compatible with logic.

~~~
NAFV_P
> _There is no other view that is compatible with logic._

Exactly, the Obama Administration took the bait (then let go). Occasionally
you have to remind other people and yourself that sometimes your opinion is
not your opinion, but someone else's. Forget this important fact, and you risk
forgetting how to think independently.

Did anyone remind Argentina about all the mines the Junta buried on the
beaches 32 years ago?

