Not quite, I still cared and I’ve personally written to congress about it. Surprisingly, I got a response. Unsurprisingly, the response I got was basically a diplomatic “We know better than you do, we don’t care what you think, we’re going to do it anyway”
Many (but not all, it's worth noting) people who work for the government live in an apartheid society inside their own heads, where they and everyone else who works for government is the superior tier of their imaginary hierarchy, and everyone else is thought of as "lesser than", with fewer rights, a different (more strict) set of rules, on the inferior tier of their imaginary hierarchy.
Next time you're observing this, try to imagine the outrage if the government official were a white South African government official talking to a black South African citizen. There's the same level of condescending animosity and supremacist ideology at play, just along a completely different axis - employer rather than skin color.
Yeah I do imagine that on a regular basis yet, something about my comment appears to be unpopular since I’m being downvoted. I usually don’t mind but this one bothers me a little bit since writing to congress is just about the only thing an average American can do to influence the legislation. Actively participating in democracy is not cool these days.
The government colluded with Facebook and Twitter during the Biden administration
There's people that think this only happened during the Biden Administration?
Not Obama? Not Trump? Not Bush? Just Biden?
The gullibility of Americans in aggregate is stunning at times. If you're one of those still out preaching the quasi-religions of "left" or "right", you're honestly a large part of the problem at this point. And you're probably too submerged in the holy waters of your quasi-religion's divine scriptures to even begin to understand why.
While the OP may think that, you are assuming a lot about their thinking from those two sentences. Then somehow manage to generalize it to Americans and include religion.
I'd hazard a guess that the person you're responding to is not so naïve that they believe this was unique to the Biden administration, but rather, is frustrated at what they feel is this kind of government tyranny often only being discussed through a partisan, one-sided lens that they might characterize as emphasizing this kind of stuff when conservative administrations do it but downplaying when progressive administrations do it.
I'm not necessarily supporting or defending that position, but we should at least strive to argue against the steelman version of our opponent's position, rather than the strawman position, no?
> one-sided lens that they might characterize as emphasizing this kind of stuff when conservative administrations do it but downplaying when progressive administrations do it.
Conservative administrations are worst tho. That is the objective reality. And as of now, there is not left wing analogy to what conservatives are doing. Democrats are not perfect, but common, the aggression and fanatization of the actual party is not even close. It is moderate center on the "left side" vs the thing we see on the right.
One sided lens are the ones that achieve "equality" by euphemism away conservative goals and behaviors while trying to paint their opposition in worst possible light. Obama wore tan suit which totally breaks respectability of the presidency and therefore, he is equal to Trump who talks about "grabbing women by the <body part>" kind of false equality.
Scott Pressler, a gay man, was almost single handedly responsible for swinging Pennsylvania, and therefore the 2024 election. He motivated 200,000 Amish to get out and vote after the FDA overeach tried to shut them down. MAGA loves their LGBT.
You are replying to someone who says they are transgender.
MAGA does not love trans people. Anti-trans rhetoric was thick during the campaign. Trans members of the military are being forced out. If you attempt to enter the US with a passport that indicates a different gender than you were assigned at birth, you might be banned from ever entering the US again. Significant effort has been taken to erase the concept of trans people from government websites and media.
A couple tokens does not change this. The actions speak for themselves.
That number can’t be true. His speciality is “legal ballot harvesting” so I suspect this story is parallel construction for where he really got 200,000 ballots.
"Both sides are the same" has no relevance anymore. Every day since Jan 20th 2025 one side has been proving they will do anything and everything they can to destroy democracy and America. The other side doesn't have any power to stop them, mainly because people didn't show up to vote.
Voting within the plurality system gave voters access only to the inputs of the Nash Equilibrium decision matrix, not the outputs. All it took was everyone being focused on winning by making the other side lose, and suddenly "we" all lose.
If instead we voted with permutations of {+1, +0.5, -0.5} assigned to a single combination of up to 3 candidates without duplication of score or candidate, we would be voting for the outcome of the decision matrix and avoiding the tragedy of the commons.
But we didn't, and won't, so we brave the new world of tragically aligned AGI known as government. If the pattern isn't recognized, real AGI (rather than the metaphor of government) would definitely learn from it and wipe out humanity at this rate.
Maybe I am explaining poorly. When I say that they want them to "not exist" I don't necessarily mean that they will literally be killed (although I do worry that it might eventually come to that). I mean that they will be forced out of social visibility and effectively memory holed. To give some examples:
The right is passing laws saying that you can't teach about trans people or gender in schools. Part of the job of schools is to teach kids about the various important social/cultural/ideologies that make up the world; things like history, capitalism, communism, democracy, dictatorships, the various world religions, atheism, etc. Forbidding teaching of a major element of society like transgender people is in effect an attempt to erase them from social consciousness.
The right is passing laws anti-drag laws that define obscenity so broadly that it can be used as a threat to suppress drag performance. Attacking a culture's artistic movements is a classic way to attempt to suppress it from the public sphere.
The hypocrisy in the comment lies in the author’s claim that others are acting in “bad faith,” while simultaneously misrepresenting the opposing argument. Specifically, the commenter criticizes the original poster for allegedly exaggerating (“malicious lie,” “breathless idiot”) when interpreting certain conservative actions as denying the existence of trans people. Yet, in doing so, the commenter engages in their own distortion—downplaying the genuine impact of policies that functionally erase or severely limit the recognition and legitimacy of transgender identities.
Moreover, the commenter clearly distinguishes between literal existence and societal allowance for billionaires, yet refuses to apply the same nuance to the original comment regarding transgender identities. This selective application of interpretative generosity constitutes the core hypocrisy.
We have to agree that Elon Musk is the ideological leader of the party now. He has arranged explanations for his own extreme and unambiguous statements. It’s noble to hold strangers on the Internet to a higher bar. But no idea in the party isn’t touched by Elon Musk.
So when he says “dead — killed by the woke mind virus” he might be trying to garner figurative sympathy as if he lost a child. It certainly coincides with a call to criminalize any facet of trans health care for trans youth.
And when he says “America will go bankrupt” without him, he might be issuing a threat or maybe just a warning. Donald Trump is no stranger to bankruptcy and certainly must see that politicians only mention debt rhetorically. His administration added more than $8T, or $5900 per capita per year.
So if we must accept only extreme solutions to things that were never problems, maybe their intention really was those urges?
Not quite, I still cared and I’ve personally written to congress about it. Surprisingly, I got a response. Unsurprisingly, the response I got was basically a diplomatic “We know better than you do, we don’t care what you think, we’re going to do it anyway”
Many (but not all, it's worth noting) people who work for the government live in an apartheid society inside their own heads, where they and everyone else who works for government is the superior tier of their imaginary hierarchy, and everyone else is thought of as "lesser than", with fewer rights, a different (more strict) set of rules, on the inferior tier of their imaginary hierarchy.
Next time you're observing this, try to imagine the outrage if the government official were a white South African government official talking to a black South African citizen. There's the same level of condescending animosity and supremacist ideology at play, just along a completely different axis - employer rather than skin color.
I'm pretty sure this is just inside YOUR own head.
Yeah I do imagine that on a regular basis yet, something about my comment appears to be unpopular since I’m being downvoted. I usually don’t mind but this one bothers me a little bit since writing to congress is just about the only thing an average American can do to influence the legislation. Actively participating in democracy is not cool these days.
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I didn’t want to believe that at first but that became crystal clear after the responses I got.
The government colluded with Facebook and Twitter during the Biden administration
There's people that think this only happened during the Biden Administration?
Not Obama? Not Trump? Not Bush? Just Biden?
The gullibility of Americans in aggregate is stunning at times. If you're one of those still out preaching the quasi-religions of "left" or "right", you're honestly a large part of the problem at this point. And you're probably too submerged in the holy waters of your quasi-religion's divine scriptures to even begin to understand why.
While the OP may think that, you are assuming a lot about their thinking from those two sentences. Then somehow manage to generalize it to Americans and include religion.
Maybe go outside and take a breath of fresh air?
I'd hazard a guess that the person you're responding to is not so naïve that they believe this was unique to the Biden administration, but rather, is frustrated at what they feel is this kind of government tyranny often only being discussed through a partisan, one-sided lens that they might characterize as emphasizing this kind of stuff when conservative administrations do it but downplaying when progressive administrations do it.
I'm not necessarily supporting or defending that position, but we should at least strive to argue against the steelman version of our opponent's position, rather than the strawman position, no?
Steelman is "they meant what they said."
ie - no reinterpretation at all.
But even taking your reinterpretation at face value, it still couches the issue in terms of the "left" and "right" quasi-religions, no?
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> one-sided lens that they might characterize as emphasizing this kind of stuff when conservative administrations do it but downplaying when progressive administrations do it.
Conservative administrations are worst tho. That is the objective reality. And as of now, there is not left wing analogy to what conservatives are doing. Democrats are not perfect, but common, the aggression and fanatization of the actual party is not even close. It is moderate center on the "left side" vs the thing we see on the right.
One sided lens are the ones that achieve "equality" by euphemism away conservative goals and behaviors while trying to paint their opposition in worst possible light. Obama wore tan suit which totally breaks respectability of the presidency and therefore, he is equal to Trump who talks about "grabbing women by the <body part>" kind of false equality.
1 reply →
HN has been full of privacy and critical-of-government-surveillance articles regardless of the presidency for over a decade.
Most obviously, who was President when Snowden leaked things?
Methinks you are overly sensitive on behalf of your chosen boss.
OR you are trying to deflect from the surveillance by making it a partisan thing.
Twitter published a big of gov interference. I distinctly remember most reactions were just nothing-burger. Just partisan politics.
I do care about privacy but only one party wants me dead for being transgender
Scott Pressler, a gay man, was almost single handedly responsible for swinging Pennsylvania, and therefore the 2024 election. He motivated 200,000 Amish to get out and vote after the FDA overeach tried to shut them down. MAGA loves their LGBT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Presler
They may be OK the first three initials, but they treat the fourth as a kind of insanity.
You are replying to someone who says they are transgender.
MAGA does not love trans people. Anti-trans rhetoric was thick during the campaign. Trans members of the military are being forced out. If you attempt to enter the US with a passport that indicates a different gender than you were assigned at birth, you might be banned from ever entering the US again. Significant effort has been taken to erase the concept of trans people from government websites and media.
A couple tokens does not change this. The actions speak for themselves.
That number can’t be true. His speciality is “legal ballot harvesting” so I suspect this story is parallel construction for where he really got 200,000 ballots.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/oct/29/tweets/cla...
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Nah, I'm pretty sure that Musk in particular genuinely hates trans folk at this point, and he's certainly a major part of "THEY" with actual power.
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"Both sides are the same" has no relevance anymore. Every day since Jan 20th 2025 one side has been proving they will do anything and everything they can to destroy democracy and America. The other side doesn't have any power to stop them, mainly because people didn't show up to vote.
Voting within the plurality system gave voters access only to the inputs of the Nash Equilibrium decision matrix, not the outputs. All it took was everyone being focused on winning by making the other side lose, and suddenly "we" all lose.
If instead we voted with permutations of {+1, +0.5, -0.5} assigned to a single combination of up to 3 candidates without duplication of score or candidate, we would be voting for the outcome of the decision matrix and avoiding the tragedy of the commons.
But we didn't, and won't, so we brave the new world of tragically aligned AGI known as government. If the pattern isn't recognized, real AGI (rather than the metaphor of government) would definitely learn from it and wipe out humanity at this rate.
1 reply →
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Maybe I am explaining poorly. When I say that they want them to "not exist" I don't necessarily mean that they will literally be killed (although I do worry that it might eventually come to that). I mean that they will be forced out of social visibility and effectively memory holed. To give some examples:
The right is passing laws saying that you can't teach about trans people or gender in schools. Part of the job of schools is to teach kids about the various important social/cultural/ideologies that make up the world; things like history, capitalism, communism, democracy, dictatorships, the various world religions, atheism, etc. Forbidding teaching of a major element of society like transgender people is in effect an attempt to erase them from social consciousness.
The right is passing laws anti-drag laws that define obscenity so broadly that it can be used as a threat to suppress drag performance. Attacking a culture's artistic movements is a classic way to attempt to suppress it from the public sphere.
6 replies →
4.5 has our back:
The hypocrisy in the comment lies in the author’s claim that others are acting in “bad faith,” while simultaneously misrepresenting the opposing argument. Specifically, the commenter criticizes the original poster for allegedly exaggerating (“malicious lie,” “breathless idiot”) when interpreting certain conservative actions as denying the existence of trans people. Yet, in doing so, the commenter engages in their own distortion—downplaying the genuine impact of policies that functionally erase or severely limit the recognition and legitimacy of transgender identities.
Moreover, the commenter clearly distinguishes between literal existence and societal allowance for billionaires, yet refuses to apply the same nuance to the original comment regarding transgender identities. This selective application of interpretative generosity constitutes the core hypocrisy.
1 reply →
We have to agree that Elon Musk is the ideological leader of the party now. He has arranged explanations for his own extreme and unambiguous statements. It’s noble to hold strangers on the Internet to a higher bar. But no idea in the party isn’t touched by Elon Musk.
So when he says “dead — killed by the woke mind virus” he might be trying to garner figurative sympathy as if he lost a child. It certainly coincides with a call to criminalize any facet of trans health care for trans youth.
And when he says “America will go bankrupt” without him, he might be issuing a threat or maybe just a warning. Donald Trump is no stranger to bankruptcy and certainly must see that politicians only mention debt rhetorically. His administration added more than $8T, or $5900 per capita per year.
So if we must accept only extreme solutions to things that were never problems, maybe their intention really was those urges?