The Two Kinds of Moderate - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/mod.html <comment><AUTHOR> I like this part: "The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk."

I think another way to slice this is, if you think of the Overton window shifting along the axis of time, the "accidental moderate" does not shift their opinion by the same factor as the ends of the window shift. The "accidental moderate", in fact, shifts their opinion independent of the shifts of the window.

I just don't know 100% if I'd use the term moderate as the it's not necessarily true that all views will equally weight a view left of center with a view right of center (or vice-versa), and moderate could be perceived as synonymous with "average."

Additionally, by even defining two types of moderate, there is a sense that the word "moderate" means something already. I don't know, I feel like there could be a better word, maybe if you think of it as a graph there's a graph- related term, but it's not coming to mind!

<comment><USER3> Perhaps 'accidental moderate'='independent' and 'intentional moderate'='centrist'?

<comment><USER4> "Intentional moderate" = High Broderism, or at least the popular understanding of it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder)

[http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me- joker...](http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me-jokers-to- the-right-on-the-actual-ideology-of-the-american-press/)

The above has this quote, which sums it up nicely:

> Journalists associate the middle with truth, when there may be no reason to… > Writing the news so that it lands somewhere near the "halfway point between > the best and the worst that might be said about someone" is not a > truthtelling impulse at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it's possible > that this ritual will distort a given story.

<comment><USER5> I think this is a good summary of why meeting in the middle is a poor excuse for balance. The average isn't the ideal middle, as almost nothing fits the average.

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on- average/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/)

<comment><USER6> Exactly. This is especially true in the context of contemporary US Politics, where the average between the Democrats and Republicans is way right of the political center.

In any case, I guess it all comes down to this:

 _"A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied"_

-Larry David

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation.

>The effect of a system based on plurality voting is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support are left with a disproportionately small share.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the- post_voting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting)

<comment><USER8> This is not accurate.

Yes, many election systems result in more parties than FPTP. But left and right still have salience within those.

In fact, you can look at how each politician votes (without explicitly coding votes as left or right). This itself forms a space equal to the number of votes taken. But that vote space can be projected into a much lower dimensional space that captures most of the information about the vote space. If you go so far as to collapse it into a one dimensional space, that corresponds to the traditional left/right axis, and this holds through both history and internationally. The second issue is a bit more varied, but most of the time the left/right axis dominates whatever that second dimension is. Look up DW-NOMINATE for more info.

<comment><USER7> DW-NOMINATE was developed by US political scientists to study the US House and Senate. Higher dimensionality is present internationally, and I believe that attempting to reduce those dynamics to a left/right spectrum limits our understanding of politics.

>Poole and Rosenthal note in Chapter 11 of Ideology and Congress that most of these analyses produce the finding that roll call voting is organized by only few dimensions (usually two): "These findings suggest that the need to form parliamentary majorities limits dimensionality."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29)

Static parliamentary majorities are not necessary in a presidential system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Eh this essay is a bit off to me. The issue with modern US politics, or our politics in general I guess, is the tendency for two groups to emerge, one of which everyone generally has to belong to somehow.

Most people are pretty rational about most issues when you discuss them individually, but you end up with a few ''foundational''\-- and unquestionable --ideas that people have to fall exactly on one side or the other. I won't name any specifically but I think everyone knows some of these immediately. So you have individually rational persons who have to congregate on either one side or the other, and these issues end up being the deciding factor of which group you must join, dividing many people who otherwise agree on a lot of stuff, perhaps without even realizing it..

It's pretty similar to religious fracturing to me now that I think about it. Groups who agree on everything except one or two ideas and that makes all the difference.

Very rare are the persons who fall heavily to one side of everything.

</comment><comment><USER10> >the far right and far left are roughly equally wrong.

I don't think you can reduce political arguments to who is "right" and who is "wrong". Politics and moral questions are not mathematical problems. We fundamentally don't all agree on what the final outcome (of a society, of life) should be. Maybe 99% of us can agree with something like "happiness" or "peace", but those are way too vague and the devil's in the details.

<comment><USER11> Eventually this ends up with a million people dead and everyone saying "well that was probably bad, maybe we should have tried to prevent that".

Just because we cannot guarantee certainty or outcomes doesn't absolve us from the moral responsibility to try.

<comment><USER10> Ok, but this is not what I was getting at.

When PG says that the left and right are equally "wrong", he's suggesting that they are both trying to arrive at THE solution, but just taking different paths. I don't think this is fundamentally true and if you view political struggle from this perspective you're going to miss the full picture.

<comment> noir-york It is indeed true - the extreme left and right (along with the religious extremists of any religion) all believe that they have the One True Solution, and have historically been ready to murder millions who they believe stood in the way.

So yes, both the extreme left and the extreme right are not only wrong, but morally repugnant.

The whole point of classical political liberalism is of how to get multiple incompatible ideas of what is the good life (broadly understood) to coexist peacefully. Without it there is only tyranny or chaos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To quote the comedian Chris Rock (from his "Never Scared"):

"Anyone that makes up they mind before they hear the issue is a fucking fool, OK? Everybody… No, everybody's so busy wanting to be down with a gang – "I'm a conservative, I'm a liberal." It's bullshit. Be a fucking person. Listen. Let it swirl around yo head. Then form yo opinion. No normal, decent person is one thing, OK? I got some shit I'm conservative about, I got some shit I'm liberal about. Crime, I'm conservative. Prostitution, I'm liberal. "

<comment><USER13> Yep. Relatedly, reminds me of a quote from Skin in the Game (Nassim Taleb):

 _" I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;

at the state level, Republican;

at the local level, Democrat;

and at the family and friends level, a socialist.

If that saying doesn't convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will."_

<comment><USER14> "If that saying doesn't convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels"

It reminds me of how fatuous Nassim Taleb can be, certainly. That quote basically deletes any historical context and actual belief held by those groups. It reduces the actual differences that they have to a bumper sticker level of depth.

Not trying to be insulting or anything, I just don't find it that helpful, and I'm also not particularly a fan of Taleb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Whereas an accidental moderate's opinions will be scattered over a broad > range, but will, like those of the intentional moderate, average to about > 50.

I think this describes my own political opinion to a tee. I agree with some stuff on the left, some stuff on the right and the moderate/centrist opinion on some others, and it probably equals out as centrist.

Still, I'm not sure I'd say this is a rare thing by any means. Indeed, I suspect a large percentage (maybe even majority) of the population has beliefs from all sides/corners of the political spectrum.

It's just that the current voting system in places like the US and UK encourages everyone to band with 'one side or the other', and groups a bunch of people/groups that likely disagree in many cases together as one party.

Plus given most people's mixtures of said beliefs are different to others, your average politician/party ends up having to appeal to a certain 'tribe' in order to get elected, since the percentage of people who 100% agree with a certain mix of beliefs is too small to get anyone a majority.

<comment><USER16> This describes my own views perfectly as well.

WRT. the perceived amount of "accidental moderates" being small, I don't think it's just because of voting systems. I see two other factors.

1) When you speak up on some issue, people tend to immediately pigeonhole you into a drawer with a political affiliation label on it. I've been called an illuminati NWO supporter by some, a Marxist by others, roughly in the same time, just because I voiced my opinion on two different topics.

2) "Accidental moderates" are not a uniform group. I'll bet that you and I have plenty of differences of opinion - on one issue, I'll be leaning left and you'll be leaning right, on another issue, it'll be the reverse. So once someone wants to leverage group support for one of their positions, they essentially have to sign up with one of the extreme, well-defined groups, that support that particular position. And while internally, they're still an "accidental moderate", to the outside, they just look like another partisan.

<comment><USER17> I agree with your general take, but I want to expand on what I think you were getting at with (1) some. Polarizing issues is a very real phenomenon where by disagreeing on one issue your positions on other, entirely unrelated positions is assumed. I've had people assume I was pro private-prisons because of my view of tax rates, or assume I was against marijuana legalization because of my views on second amendment rights.

The problem with polarizing issues is that it acts to reinforce the tribal mentality. The truth is that most people have relatively complex opinions when they get to genuinely think about them and they almost never fit in clean political tribes. Yet it's to the benefit of a given group to try and lump-sum everyone in or out of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is so peculiar that anyone believes the United States possesses a "far left" as a force in politics. This requires one to ignore political science and ideology, not to mention the practical politics of the rest of the world, and simply place people on a continuum and draw a line near some perceived median.

<comment><USER19> I think drawing a line near the median is really the only thing that makes sense. These concepts are relative by nature. Generally, when speaking of how far to the right or left someone is in the US, I think of it as relative to other americans, not to the rest of the world, and especially not relative to some absolute concept of right and left (which falls apart quickly if you give it some thought, as norms change over time)

<comment><USER18> > These concepts are relative by nature.

Okay, the _concepts_ are relative by nature (arguments about the two- dimensional nature of the left-right axis notwithstanding). In that case, place the _concepts_ (or perhaps the individual ideologies that bundle the concepts) on a distribution and draw a line near the perceived median. That's the sort of thing you see in some poly-sci texts, and it makes sense.

My point was that it is a mistake to place _people_ on a left-right distribution based on their positions and call the people in, for example, the first quartile the "far left."

> I think of it as relative to other americans, not to the rest of the world, > and especially not relative to some absolute concept of right and left

The problem is, applied universally this approach of quantifying things would make it appear as though every place possesses the same diversity of political thought, whether you're talking about Europe, the United States, or North Korea. This is simply not the truth.

edit: another problem is that it can cause people whose views are _much_ closer together than, for example, socialists vs fascists, to view each other as being on opposite ends of an ideological spectrum and combatants in a bitter ideological struggle, even though that's objectively ridiculous. Remind you of anyplace?

<comment><USER20> Having the tyrants fight each other in a battle they cannot win is good everyday politicking. Would you prefer they work together? It's an order of managed conflicts, not a descriptive, scientific system of unified political positions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Whereas an accidental moderate's opinions will be scattered over a broad > range, but will, like those of the intentional moderate, average to about > 50.

This is only the case if left and right are equally right and wrong, which is unlikely to be the case. The average place of an accidental moderate could be anywhere, even to the left of the left or the right of right right.

<comment><USER19> It's not about whether they are equally right and wrong, but if they are equally far from the median or average viewpoint.

And I'd say it is very likely that they are. Almost by definition, in the sense that right and left are relative terms.

That being the case, I think PG is correct that accidental moderates should tend to average in the middle. In general.

<comment><USER21> I don't think it works out that way. Thinking about politics as a single left/right continuum might make it seem like it would, but

* measuring distance to know how "far" they are is hard, so hard to say how far any given position is from the "median or average" viewpoint * hard also to measure not just the distance, but how common such a position is, which you'd need to do as well * harder still to do this over many different positions * harder still when you realise that, of course, the left/right thing is an incredibly simplified (although sometimes useful) way of looking at a complicated set of topics

For any individual "moderate" it seems very unlikely that they will end up "in the middle" even across a range of political topics.

For an aggregate of _all_ "moderates", then it'll end up somewhere, but no reason to assume that it will be in the middle of things (even if you could determine where such a middle even was).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good thing this article has been posted.

We've been short of billionaires willing to share their opinions about why we should consider the incredible increase in concentrated wealth and the resurgence of monopoly business practices as "moderate" while the idea that maybe we should, you know, consider doing something to stop that, as "extreme" and "far left".

There's a couple tells in the article. But here's a pretty clear one:

> Nearly all the most impressive people I know are accidental moderates

You can just map "impressive" to "rich" and "accidental moderate" to "uninterested in increased taxation or regulation in their own life despite their otherwise disparate political views" and the whole thing comes into focus pretty clearly.

<comment><USER23> Curious: why not take the words at face value rather than redefining them in a way that annoys you?

<comment><USER24> Isn't it possible that by posing a question that supposes the post you're questioning redefines something, you've created a case of the negative type of redefinition you're implying is happening?

<comment><USER25> In case you didn't read the top comment, the redefining was in the text and quite literal, not something that had to be supposed or inferred:

> _You can just map "impressive" to "rich" and "accidental moderate" to > "uninterested in increased taxation or regulation in their own life despite > their otherwise disparate political views" and the whole thing comes into > focus pretty clearly._

<comment><USER24> If there's no difference between interpreting or critically analysing what someone says, and redefinition, I can see where you're coming from.

<comment><USER25> I do see a difference, and the piece I quoted seems to me to be the latter: redefinition.

I say that, in part, because substituting those meanings changes the perceived message of the piece. If the rest of the essay reasonably supported that reading, I might well agree that this was interpretation, analysis, or even clarification. However, it seems as though the original comment is working backward from pg's identity to decide what opinions it's possible for him to have, in the commenter's view, and then covering the message of the essay (whatever you think of it) with one of the commenter's pg-possible opinions.

Personally, I'd prefer that commenters of this view argue against the essay directly, since I think there are a lot of things to say in that regard.

<comment><USER24> If you believe reading meaning into a text is redefinition - saying a text is trying to redefine things when the text doesn't use that precise word, is also redefinition.

<comment><USER16> "Reading meaning into a text" is pretty much the definition of redefinition. You don't "read meaning into" anything as a part of a honest analysis.

<comment><USER24> > "Reading meaning into a text" is pretty much the definition of redefinition.

What changes about the definition of "impressive" if I think someone uses that word to refer exclusively to rich people?

<comment><USER16> The definition of "impressive" does not change, it's you who believes the author didn't use the correct word, based on reasons that have nothing to do with the article.

Since neither one of us can read the author's mind, it's not a productive avenue of discussion. A text should always be taken at face value. Otherwise, we'll be no longer discussing the text, but each other's imagination.

<comment><USER22> Yes let's always take texts at face value, regardless of context.

There's no reason to point out that your relative who says everyone in his life is conspiring against him is addicted to meth.

There is no reason to notice when an essay opposing increased mall security was written by someone who's been convicted of shoplifting dozens of times.

And we must never point out that a person advocating for the political status quo, and against shaking up the established order, has accumulated billions of dollars in private wealth.

<comment><USER26> In those situations, it's appropriate to point out potential biases or agenda from the author, but it is not appropriate to reinterpret their words based on a mental model one has of the author.

That model is likely to be flawed and incomplete, but even worse, it makes the text subjective. Two people, reading the same text, won't agree what it said. That prevents honest discussion.

<comment><USER24> There's no such thing as an objective reading of a text. All readings are subjective.

All models are incomplete - that's why they're models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I understand the concept of intentional moderate as he explains it, but I honestly have never met anyone who formulates their beliefs that way, who deliberately tries to find a middle point on the spectrum regardless of the specific details. Of course that could be my social circle, which is why it would be a lot more constructive if Graham had given a bit of concrete example on this. Especially given that just about everyone on any side of the political landscape will assert that they do in fact think about each issue independently. I doubt many people would say, "I believe this because it's a conservative belief and I am conservative so I must believe it". No, they will say, and believe, that they have formed their own opinions, and they just happen to align pretty much exclusively with conservative (or liberal) ideology.

<comment><USER28> I know a lot of people that proudly says that virtue is in the middle. They think that the middle is a definite entity and extremes are caused by some flaw in character or interests.

I'm usually uncomfortable talking politics because I have "radical" ideas from both sides. I believe in public healthcare and education for good reasons, mostly experience and observation. For most everything else I could be defined as libertarian. I'm also pretty skeptic of decentralized power: municipalities tend to create idiotic regulation and pork barrel politics, I'd rather have laws passed by national parliament.

So I can tell you exactly where a conversation with intentional moderates go astray, wheter they call it that to themselves or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm intrigued by how this analysis fits in with increasingly 'tribal/team politics' \- do intentional moderates try to appease every team?

Thinking out loud, I think this piece misses that aspect of team-seeking behavior. I know people who will recognise a good point against their side but will strive to ignore it because it works against their sense of loyalty to the team. I increasingly believe there are relatively few people who don't want/need that sense of identity.

[edit: the article doesn't really talk about sense of belonging, which I think is inherent in a lot of this discussion]

<comment><USER29> Indeed. I think a more useful definition is someone who does not exclude either side, from the set of people whose needs politics should address. Let's call that an 'ethical moderate'.

Left and right could be thought of as differing in whose behavior they think needs to change, to improve the world: the wealthy and connected, or the poor and disconnected. The more hardline you are, the more you think that that behavior doesn't just need to change, but is reprehensible and deserving of exclusion from consideration.

So you can be an 'ethical moderate' without necessarily holding centrist opinions. It may be that this means it should be named something else, but I think it's a useful way of thinking.

<comment><USER30> Well, not holding position X _merely_ because X is the [conservative | liberal | Democratic | Republican | left | right] position might be considered "moderate", in one sense of the word. Holding position X purely because tribe Y holds it makes you a committed (ie, not moderate) member of tribe Y.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> He's conflating "think for yourself" with "averages to 50". Sure, it's silly to think one side is absolutely right, but it's also silly to think that the "average" rightness is right in the middle between the two sides (even if you grant the use of a linear model).

<comment><USER32> > but it's also silly to think that the "average" rightness is right in the > middle between the two sides (even if you grant the use of a linear model).

Thank you for this. He has that post where he talks about "What you can't say" [1]. His basic premise is that it's naive to think that you'd believe the same things you do now by default if you lived in a different time period.

The posted article above seems pretty contradictory to me. Its notion of what is "moderate" is essentially anchored to the environment where a person lives. Would moderation be a virtue in an authoritarian country?

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It never occurred to me that people would tailor their political views to try and be "moderate". The whole idea feels kind of dirty to me, your political views should be your honest opinion.

<comment><USER34> I don't know that I'd call myself a moderate, but my honest opinion is that many strongly held views disturb me precisely because they tend to be so strongly held by those who seem to hold them, rather than being wrong in themselves, or because they require their adherents to brook no opposition. I don't pretend to have all the answers, and I believe that people who say they have all the answers can safely be assumed to be wrong about a great many things, and strong political ideologies are, in essence, claims to have all the answers.

I'm open to a lot of ideas, and I'd be perfectly happy to experiment with policies that are way outside the Overton window, but I think what feels dirty to me is holding political opinions so strongly that it makes our fellow humans the bad guys.

<comment><USER35> > I'd be perfectly happy to experiment with policies that are way outside the > Overton window

I am curious, what are some examples?

<comment><USER36> A party of the right nationalising a business, considering it, talking openly about it. It was the UK Conservative party who nationalised Rolls Royce, almost immediately sold off cars, and kept Aero Engines a while. Otherwise they'd no longer exist as the RB211 engine had broken them.

Larger government. State ownership does not guarantee incompetent or inefficient. The right used to believe in many of the things that have become unthinkable. The Tories _also_ wanted to improve services, built social housing, added libraries and social care. Pre war UK used to permit the various cities around the UK to form municipal corporations. They were used for power generation, water, rail and tramways among other things, and mostly worked very well indeed -- with the city getting service and income, but being quite hands off from the modern perception of centralised control. See also the various towns and cities that have put in their own broadband, far better than the private sector offer, in more recent years...

Clean Air Act UK was brought in by the Conservatives in 1956. The right used to be much more amenable to environmental and health regulation. Well regulation in general. Now they avoid, neuter and talk down regulation, and slim down the bodies who once oversaw said regulation.

Specific, I think, to the UK, the astonishing degree of centralisation brought in since 1974. Nearly all of it under the Tories. Yet Labour is perceived as the party of state control. Neither party talks of giving real power back to the regions and cities, they both mostly talk against it.

There's other examples on the left, and probably similar examples the other side of the Atlantic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > _For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise > them as backsliders. I 'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right > is less ideological than the far left. Or perhaps that they are more > confident, or more resigned, or simply more disorganized. I just don't > know._

This is a typical complaint by the so called moderates who feel unappreciated by the left (whatever that is). But I yet to see an example of the far left who has any meaningful policy impact. All I see is a lot of whining about college campuses. Perhaps the far left in the US political landscape is Bernie who by most measures would be a moderate in other industrial nations. I don't know, but I have a hard time following what PG is trying to say here.

<comment><USER38> The far left in the United States mostly doesn't exist.

The corporatist center-left has given up on meaningful economic policy change and mostly just panders on abortion, gay marriage, and gender identity.

<comment><USER39> Yeah, what left in the US? They have no idea what "left" is...

<comment><USER40> The "extreme" left in the US system maps (policy-wise) almost exactly to center-right in most other western democracies. Talking about viable politicians not twitter creatures by the way.

<comment><USER41> Er, how's that? To name some examples, many other western democracies compared to the US have the following set of policies, which would make for a far-right policy platform in the US:

* More restrictions on abortion

* Lower corporate taxes

* No birthright citizenship for children of foreigners

* School vouchers

* Mandatory military service

* Laws outlawing face coverings

* Less business regulation than the US

The American conservative think tank Heritage Foundation publishes an Index of Economic Freedom, which compares economic policies by country. The United States is ranked 12th, and is thus considered less economically conservative by economic conservatives than New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada, and Iceland. Within one point of the United States there are also the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, and Luxembourg. ([https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking/](https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking/))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > Accidental moderates end up in the middle, on average, because they make up > their own minds about each question, and the far right and far left are > roughly equally wrong.

I don't think I can take seriously an essay that so flatly and flippantly claims this as fact.

</comment><comment><USER43> It seems kind of a reductionist view of political association.

A multi-dimensional (at least 2 axis) model [1] would probably be more enlightening in terms of why high profile personalities view things that seem "accidentally moderate".

Example: Sanders disagreed with Beto's gun buyback citing both the constitutionality and the fact that the only way to round up the guns would be invasive police searches which could lead to a despotic act, despite the potential for reduced gun violence. This viewpoint is both shared by hard left and hard right.

[1] [https://www.politicalcompass.org](https://www.politicalcompass.org)

</comment><comment><USER44> I know that the dictum to keep politics off of HN has been a dead letter for some time- especially since tech has become overtly non-apolitical in the last few years- but it's still funny to see pg himself breaking that rule.

<comment><USER45> How is he breaking it?

<comment><USER44> This is an essay on politics.

It goes to show that people in tech are acknowledging more that the industry is not apolitical and has a very real social and political effect on the world at large, and are so dropping the pretense of lacking political interest. That and like the rest of the world, the tech industry has become increasingly politically polarized over the last half decade.

<comment><USER37> To be fair to PG, perhaps, someone else shared his post on HN so he didn't break any rules. On a different note, I guess in the age of Facebook, it's not possible for tech to remain silent on politics whether we like it or not.

<comment><USER45> This is exactly the reason I asked the question. PG didn't post this on HN.

<comment><USER37> Agreed! But I believe the admins are ignoring their own rules by allowing the link to remain on the front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > the far right and far left are roughly equally wrong

Graham's sleights of hand used to be better hidden.

The "far left" and "far right" are not fixed points in ideological space (even within a single country).

<comment><USER47> I agree and I would go even further.

Ideas don't exist in continuous space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> What annoys me most about this kind of position that I haven't seen addressed enough is the assumption that politics is some kind of grocery basket of personal taste where positions on issues are all independent opinions.

Anyone who thinks about politics seriously and argues politics with people needs to base their opinions on something besides personal preference. This means trying to develop moral and logical principles and goals on which to base positions. When people do this, opinions on many topics will be highly correlated.

</comment><comment><USER14> PG mentions in footnote 2 that " the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise them as backsliders. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological than the far left. Or perhaps that they are more confident, or more resigned, or simply more disorganized"

This is not the case. The far-right police doctrinal purity very well, actually. They have built multiple pipelines for taking ideas that were once extreme and moving them to the moderates, who they then push to adopt these ideas lest the be called out as "Republican in name only (RINO)" or whatever the du jour insults are.

I don't know about the current state of things, but the far right used bank robberies to finance operations across multiple fronts back in the 90's. They used the proceeds to fund groups in different regions.

The far right is dangerous in a way that "the left" hasn't been since the 1960's.

I think its telling that PG's really concerned with ideologies that are a threat to his financial/class interests, thereby validating a point maid be leftist critiques of wealthy people like PG. So, way to prove their point, PG- man.

The history of the far right is really interesting and I would recommend it as a field of reading for anyone interested in American history.

</comment><comment><USER49> Group thinking should of course always be questioned, but I do not believe it is useful to equate any form of moderation with cowardice. Especially in the modern political climate.

[http://www.thirteenvirtues.com/](http://www.thirteenvirtues.com/) [https://www.quotes.net/mquote/770097](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/770097)

<comment><USER16> Cunning is more like it. Playing both sides against the middle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> There is some great theory around moderation which goes far beyond this piece. David Lakoff's book "Don't Think of an Elephant" is a classic.

Moderation is rarely a choice. There's an old expression, "The only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill." It's not saying that moderates are extinct or undesirable. Rather, left and right political views mostly come from a history of life experiences that drives people either towards empathy for strangers or towards fear of strangers. The combination of these worldviews and the human desire for having a community or clan drives people into parties in opposition to each other.

For most moderates, their experiences instead drive them to prefer either worldview depending upon which issue is being considered. Their experiences are not totally based on seeking safety or showing empathy. They are not middle of the road on most issues, but have a diverse set of opinions. Their opinions are diverse enough to not feel fully accepted into either party and to adjust their own views into alignment, unless their country has a middle party. This seems to be what Graham calls deliberate moderates.

There are also moderates who become moderate because nuance is important to smart policy. Fully left or right ideas both tend to overshoot evidence-based decision-making. I believe this is what Graham refers to as accidental moderates. However, the roadkill metaphor still applies because even accidental moderates still have life experiences that lead them to a worldview as well as the human desire to belong to a group. Even those who apply past policy-based evidence to develop a nuanced view will have a human desire to try to fit themselves somewhere into the partisan political landscape of their environment. It's not easy being the odd one who doesn't fit.

</comment><comment><USER51> Consider [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate- anythin...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything- except-the-outgroup/) for another take on political centrism/general tribalism. A bit (err, quite a lot) lengthier but it gets to some interesting ideas about the inevitability of tribes. Stephenson's Seveneves also comes to mind as a book-long meditation on the same topic.

</comment><comment> noir-york There is a significant qualitative difference between ideologues (left or right) and, to use Graham's terminology, 'accidental moderates' or the 'intentional' ones.

Ideologues assume that there is a single version / source of the truth whether it is a religious text, or a secular one (Marx, Hayek, etc). 'Intentional moderates' are not monist (as are idealogues), but to the contrary triangulate. If anything, intentional moderates reject the notion that there is an objective position.

Accidental moderates - idealised - are actually just being reasonable and weighing different considerations, thus arriving at a considered position.

Intentional moderates may not necessarily be cowards. To take an exampe: most people are ignorant of economics and so their position on, say, the interest rate is not an informed one.

Intentional moderates use a centrist heuristic in the belief that the reasonable answer is somewhere between the two extremes. There is nothing wrong with this; one cannot expect voters to be experts or even well informed on all the posible issues of government.

</comment><comment><USER52> It just can't be the case that this kind of content, which would never ordinarily survive on the front page if written by someone else, has a place here simply because Paul Graham wrote it. I say this as a moderate, of the accidental variety, myself! But if this would get shot down if it appeared in The Atlantic or The New Republic --- and it would, and should --- it shouldn't get a pass just because Harj Taggar and Patrick Collison reviewed it.

<comment><USER53> The PG quote that leads the essay on the topic of PG's extra-curricular rangings ("Dabblers and Blowhards") seems apposite:

'I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. This sort of thing happens to a lot of people, and I would _really_ like to avoid it'

[https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm](https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm)

Edit: the essay itself seems... not very perceptive. Notably, putting things on a continuum between far left and far right and imagining that everything is somehow a process of picking out options on this continuum seems amazingly reductive.

Further, the dig on "intentional moderates" also seems to miss the point that many intentional moderates might well be seeking to _function politically_ \- so picking out moderate positions in the range of public opinion might be a case of keeping your powder dry and being effective, not compulsively trying to be a moderate because it's nifty. This was very much the case with the way Obama analyzed his own politics (turning the huge ship, very slowly). Not saying I agree with that but the assessment of "intentional moderates" really feels like a cartoon.

<comment><USER52> I want to be careful not to criticize the post on its own terms. Paul Graham should totally write things like this on his own site! It sucks having to be careful about what you because of what other people will do with it, and the weird debates you'll be forced into as a result.

I'm just saying, to the extent this post is political, it's political in a totally routine way that doesn't clear the "interestingness" bar for this site, other than that Paul Graham wrote it. It doesn't belong on the HN front page.

<comment><USER54> > Paul Graham should totally write things like this on his own site!

He sure can, but having a platform and competence in one area doesn't mean your skill applies to another. This whole article is a fascinating example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

The idea, of two kinds of moderates is interesting. The framing is, at best weak and at worst very flawed, shallow and a gross oversimplification.

The shots at the left, at marxists, are palatable. At no point does this article take a genuinely "moderate" stance on the current political climate. Rather it takes an insidious right leaning view.

<comment><USER52> This comment is exactly what I mean about the post being off-topic for the site.

<comment><USER54> To quote the article:

> and the far right and far left are roughly equally wrong.

So everyone is right some of the time?

> Moderates are sometimes derided as cowards, particularly by the extreme > left.

I can name half a dozen right leaning issues that would get me thrown out of a gathering if I expressed my views, maybe even threatened with physical harm.

> If I knew a ... people in the entertainment business, ... Being on the far > left or far right doesn't affect how ... how well you sing.

Is followed up with...

> You could be mindlessly doctrinaire in your politics and still be a good > mathematician. In the 20th century, a lot of very smart people were Marxists > — just no one who was smart about the subjects Marxism involves.

Holly crap this is the most ignorant thing I have read in a long time. There was large attraction to Marxism after the Great Depression. Not only did smart people take it up but droves of them in the "entertainment" industry. Is he completely unaware of the House Unamerican Activities Committee and the blacklisting?

> It's possible in theory for one side to be entirely right and the other to > be entirely wrong. Indeed, ideologues must always believe this is the case. > But historically it rarely has been.

Both extremes have been bad "historically" but it ignores the common theme of totalitarianism as an overriding ideology.

> For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise > them as backsliders. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right > is less ideological than the far left.

Again, House Un-American Activities Committee ... And just about every issue the US far right champions today. In fact the far right base could be grouped into a few "single issue items" (guns, taxes, abortion)

> But if the ideas you use in your work intersect with the politics of your > time, you have two choices: be an accidental moderate, or be mediocre.

This whole article is mediocre, it is a right leaning assessment and bent on politics. Shades of Ben Carson, pyramids as grain storage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I can hardly call myself left or right or moderate or up or down or whatever, because my ideas are difference from other people's ideas (although some are same, they aren't what can be simply called as left/right and so on). Left/right is not describing all of the issues anyways, I think, and many things are just not as simple as one way or other, anyways. Even then, some people whose ideas may be generally called left/right may not agree with everything anyways.

But I suppose they may be correct that such independent ideas may be considered as moderates by these measurements, and may also be correct that a lot of people hate them for it.

They say that on a scale from 0 to 100 your opinion might be any number, on average 50 but may be anything. I think that is not good enough because your ideas might not match the range like that so well, I think.

</comment><comment><USER56> > and the far right and far left are roughly equally wrong.

This is a flat assertion with no evidential backing whatsoever solely meant to make the sayer feel better about not challenging incorrect beliefs.

If history is a guide, the _middle_ are very rarely on the correct side of a divisive issue when all the dust settles.

</comment><comment><USER57> > Intentional moderates are similar to those on the far left and the far right > in that their opinions are, in a sense, not their own. The defining quality > of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's > opinions in bulk.

Well, no, not at all. People on the left and on the right tend to have a worldview and attitude that is the foundation of their stances on issues. It is not a coincidence that support for welfare spending, tolerance of theft, illegal immigration, fat acceptance, and decrying of objective standards in education all come from the same side.

<comment><USER58> It'd be a stretch to say political opinions are for the most part a result of internal reasoning and self-formed world view, rather than indoctrination by a social group that suffers hard from confirmation bias. People are, overall, NOT good at thinking critically, and tend to accept the paradigm to which they have to most exposure. They tend not to reach outside of their bubble for clues about what could be wrong with their paradigm. It's more work.

<comment><USER57> It's not reasoning, it's basic values. People are made differently. That's why there are political differences between men and women, weightlifters and runners, straight men and gays, and dynamic typing and static typing fans. And you can trace the common reasoning in the baskets of political views. This isn't like some difference between communists and people who would be communists if it weren't for Econ 101. It's differences in regard to questions like whether you're willing to accept that some people will have a worse lot in life. And is moderation in the pursuit of justice a virtue or not?

The moderates are the people whose opinions are most formed from indoctrination.

<comment><USER58> Basic values come from the world around you, from your parents, from everyone around you that you interact with as you grow up. You aren't born a runner. Kids are formed into people. Most often they turn into people with similar basic values and in turn, political opinions. There are a lot of ways values can be applied. It's only for for the most part that people don't deviate in their application because they aren't thinking that hard, just imitating others and being a conduit for preformed ideas.

<comment><USER57> Basic values are also heritable and founded in biology, as shown in twin studies and observations that other species have a sense of fairness.

<comment><USER58> I'd say we're both right to the extent that nature and nurture both play a role.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I got a bit confused by the terms, but it just landed. The intentional moderate has the intention to be moderate on all issues whereas the accidental ends up in a the center when you consider the whole range of issues.

Somewhere in there maybe is a different idea about 'tolerance'. The first might have a 'Live and let live'-position. The other actually believes plurality of lifestyles is a good thing. Somewhere along those lines ;)

</comment><comment><USER60> Ah yes, the old "No one thinks for themselves except people like me" argument.

> openly being an accidental moderate requires the most courage of all

If he thinks that having middle-of-the-road opinions requires the most courage of them all, he has had an extraordinarily easily life in which he is used to be hailed as brilliant. It seems as though due to his comfortable position in life he has never faced any significant opposition to anything he's said, anything he's done, or anything he is.

I might be wrong, and I respect the opinions of "accidental moderates" who are acting in good faith, but I cannot imagine how you'd come to the conclusion that holding moderate viewpoints requires any real courage at all.

> Nearly all the most impressive people I know are accidental moderates

"I am only impressed with people exactly like me."

Someone needs to write a similar pithy thinkpiece about how people who experience a lot of success should stick to what they know and not assume it gives them valid insight into other parts of life.

<comment><USER61> I always assume most people hold moderate viewpoints and the people with extreme viewpoints just tend to be the loudest. At least that seems to be the case with most people I meet anyway.

<comment><USER62> I've generally found most people don't generally care at all until they or someone they care about is impacted, then their care is largely dictated by the nature of the impact with existing political views only being partially factored in. One reason why getting to know members of a minority group can stop a person from being inherently biased against that group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> pg has written some good essays. Unfortunately this isn't one of them.

As is increasingly the case, the core of pg's argument is a variant of the Appeal to Authority: the "impressive people" that pg personally knows. And there is also an Ad Hominem; one doesn't want to be anything like the nasty people who are continually mean to him online.

It is certain that pg does know some very impressive people, and that he attracts a lot of attention from Twitter leftists looking to score cheap points.

However, this argument is vague and dependent on faulty assumptions. Not only can it be easily dismissed, it probably proves the opposite of what he intends.

I think we can assume those impressive people are likely all drawn from the small coterie of technology startup founders and investors. From this and other essays, it's become clear that pg believes that success at becoming a startup founder (just like pg) is almost identical with being an impressive person.

But it's well-known that this group already comes from a relatively narrow slice of humanity. Upper-middle-class or upper-class, likely white, likely gone to a university in America. It would not be surprising if their opinions were roughly in alignment.

Even so, the "impressive people" have not taken public stands that we can verify. We only have pg's assessment of their stances as being roughly centered around a mean, and we only have pg's assessment of where the mean is. (It's rare indeed for someone to self-identify as an extremist!)

This is an informal essay, so perhaps asking for even _one_ example is too much rigor. And, as pg often reminds us, his friends have all kinds of interesting opinions they can't reveal in public any more, due to political correctness. Luckily we have pg who valiantly is willing to stand up in public and allude to a large number of people who agree with him, but are just off- camera.

Anyway, since we are left to merely imagine, let's also imagine that we asked pg's interlocutors about other topics. What would their opinions be on, say, technology startups and business? They'd probably say they were good for the world, and good as a career path. There might be a relatively univocal assessment of taxes as being too high, the barriers to founding businesses as too onerous, and that some ideas popular outside the tech industry (like mandated key escrow, or fact-checking social media posts) are all ludicrous and counterproductive. All defensible opinions, but my point is, we can imagine them all being in close agreement on issues relating to their industry.

So let's take pg at his word that if we have a cohort of people who have self- selected an industry and risen to success, their opinions about that industry are both informed and in close agreement, and their _other_ opinions might be defensible, but randomly scattered around a mean. Is this _really_ that surprising?

pg wants us to believe that the relative moderation of his impressive friends proves something. That not only is moderation a virtue, but the virtuous are moderate.

But accidentally, he may be revealing that technology startup success is more random than he thinks. That it selects for people with some narrow range of skills, but success is awarded with a high degree of randomness.

And since there is no reason for this cohort to be in alignment on any other matter, they are more or less randomly scattered around the median opinion of an upper-class American university technology student.

...

PS: pg started his career as an essayist with "Beating the Averages", and now he asserts that being average is actually good!?

Okay, maybe that's a cheap shot, but we're all looking to justify ourselves and be loved, I guess, and as we pass through different stages of life that doesn't change. pg used to write about the hidden virtues of high school nerds, minority programming languages, and young founders who weren't from California. I found it easier to be a fan. Today he mostly writes about the hidden virtues of the Silicon Valley elite. While that might actually have some merit, it's a bit of a harder sell.

</comment><comment><USER64> > For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise > them as backsliders.

IME the far right despises them as dupes of their favoured conspiracy theory.

</comment><comment><USER58> It occured to me that two people moderate on average could have polar opposite views, and I wonder how my views might line up, as well as how homogenous Paul Graham's network of accidental moderates are.

Having polar opposites that are both "in the middle" seems to be a clear illustration of why the left vs right analogy is lacking.

</comment><comment><USER65> I don't think this work is particularly insightful.

I think most people in America aren't accidental moderates or "intentional moderates" or hardcore liberals/conservatives. I think most of them have limited opinions or investment in politics. Their experience is more akin to their patronage for a sports team than a system. They repeat things important figures for their side say and some of them can be bothered to vote depending on how much their side has stirred them up recently but they don't actually care much.

For those that do care. The people that Graham is liable to label intentional moderates are most apt to have as rich an opinion as accidental ones. Not expressing strong positions in public in America is how you avoid having to hear other people's strong opinions that you don't much care to hear.

In America it's not courageous to hold strong opinions from both sides of the aisle especially as a rich person. Most people will experience zero downsides. For those public figures that do they start off so much better off than most of us that their maximum downside is still much better off than most of us.

</comment><comment><USER11> The famous MLK speech on moderates: [http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...](http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)

> First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely > disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable > conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward > freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the > white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers > a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which > is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the > goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who > paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's > freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises > the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from > people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from > people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than > outright rejection.

This is the problem with the "intentional" moderates: their position isn't a coherent one, it's instead pure unwillingness to engage. I understand people being conflict-averse, but it can lead to being backed into a corner by the people who are not afraid of conflict.

<comment><USER16> It may be an unpopular view, but I disliked this quote ever since I saw it. There is value in order. In particular, there is value in order over justice, when justice is pursued with scorched earth tactics that risk leaving everyone worse off, even those that were meant to be helped.

To use a perhaps extreme example: there's lots of injustice happening right now in China, and not a lot can be done directly to fix it. Are the people seeking justice willing to risk a nuclear war with China just to force changes? Would that help anything?

I worry about this, because I see that quote (along with an abuse of Popper's paradox of tolerance) thrown around a lot these days, by people who I don't at all trust to be of good will. The times we're living in are of great potential, but they're also incredibly fragile. Too much pressure, too much disruption, and the civilization may break down - which means not just rolling back a good thousand years of progress, but also leaving the next hundred or thousand generations stuck in these conditions on a thoroughly broken planet. You can't just reboot a technological civilization. Which makes me think that there _is_ a solid argument to be made for minding the order, and not jumping to extreme action in pursuit of justice.

EDIT: I suppose this may be the "accidental moderate's" answer to the complaint about "intentional moderates". It's not about unwillingness to commit, or being extremely conflict-averse, or trying to appeal to all sides of the issue. It's about refusing to engage in actions - or call to actions - that lead to too much of collateral damage.

<comment><USER11> > To use a perhaps extreme example: there's lots of injustice happening right > now in China, and not a lot can be done directly to fix it.

Well, that's fundamentally the tradeoff that China (and quite a lot of the other Asian states e.g. Singapore) have made; their ruling class picked stability over freedom, and hoped that the economic growth would keep everyone happy while at the same time preventing organisation outside the party.

I agree that needlessly destabilising situations is bad, but also that very large injustices can persist in the name of stability. It's not a simple problem.

<comment><USER16> Yes, and I'm not totally comfortable with their trade-offs. I feel they're on the side of "too much order, too little justice". So this already establishes a ceiling along some dimensions.

> _I agree that needlessly destabilising situations is bad, but also that very > large injustices can persist in the name of stability. It 's not a simple > problem._

My point exactly. And I bring this up because I see the MLK quote you pasted, along with Popper, used to rally people to actions seemingly promoting justice, but in practice just turning people against one another, and overall making things worse. I don't like seeing either of the quotes being used as a glorified "if you're not with us, you're against us" line by people extreme in their views.

<comment><USER66> 'too much order, too little justice' is _never_ a conclusion that is made by the people in charge

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> As a British moderate conservative, the differences between US and UK (arguably European) politics are fascinating. What moderate means is so different. For reference I'm a lifelong conservative voter that grew up under Maggie Thatcher.

We do have a middle of the road Liberal Democrat party, but to my mind they maintain their position in the middle ground by dodging the hard issues. They are intentional moderates in that respect and I just don't trust them to tackle really tough issues effectively. So I'm a moderate conservative because the Conservative party is generally an effective party of government that often leans moderate for practical political reasons. Often enough that I'm ok with it, cripplingly badly thought out referendums aside.

Looking at the US political landscape there's no question in the 80s I would have been a Reagan Republican, but gradually over the last few decades my respect for Republicanism has collapsed. It's turned itself into a radical ideology that doesn't even seem conservative, or concerned at all with things conservatives everywhere usually obsess over. The democrats have recently lurched left in response though, so while I found myself, to my own bemusement, generally cheering on Democratic candidates and presidents in the last few decades, now I'm worried they're 'doing a Corbyn' and indulging in outlandish and fantastical economic policy positions that are always a temptation for the left. That leaves me in the wilderness in US political terms.

So I can't support the Republicans because they are immoral jerks who are selling out democracy, undermining the rule of law and sold out on their international security position for partisan posturing long before Trump showed up. And I can't support the Democrats any more because they are indulging in crazy leftist economic fantasies.

<comment><USER68> IMO, in the US the "coservative" movement is misnamed. It seeks not to conserve, but make radical change to both government (shrink it significantly) and culture (change mainstream values, cultural output). They're trying to push for extraordinary change and are willing to take extraordinary measures to get there.

Ironically, the closest thing we have to "true" conservatives here are self- fashioned centrists, who generally are interested in preserving the status quo, making small changes in one direction or another depending on how society is going, being generally vigilant against too much change.

<comment><USER30> Well, the conservatives want to conserve, not the _current_ status quo, but the status quo of, say, 1950. To get there from here, we'd need to make some drastic changes to the current status quo.

And that's not inherently an insane approach. If we've been going in the wrong direction for the last 70 years, the most useful move is to go back to where we were.

Now, in practice, it's not that simple. You can't just go back. You don't even want to just go back; parts of 1950 we do not want to return to. And you don't have the people you had 70 years ago, or the expectations, or even the societal values.

But I think this explains why a conservative could want to radically shrink (or, rather, de-grow) government, and still legitimately remain a conservative.

<comment><USER69> "Well, the conservatives want to conserve, not the current status quo, but the status quo of, say, 1950. To get there from here, we'd need to make some drastic changes to the current status quo."

They don't want that. Otherwise they would support tax increases and lower salaries for CEOs. They want to go back to a mythical past that never existed the same way they are Reaganites that would call the real Reagan a RINO.

<comment><USER30> Of course. They want the 1950s, not as they were, but as they imagine them. In the same way, the liberals want, say, Sweden, not as it is, but as they imagine it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Where the median is depends where the extremes are. Overton window I think is the fitting term here. The Overton window in the US might be shifted such that in other countries a moderate here might be perceived to be quite right wing there.

Chomsky put it well when describing this phenomenon:

\--- The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. \---

> I'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological > than the far left

I think it is because left opinions, even in mainstream media and social discourse do not get the immediate push-back and derision, but are treated more of like confusion or maybe immaturity. Say, if we see someone waving the Soviet flag in the streets at a protest we just sort of shrug at it instead of have a visceral reaction to it.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm not convinced there _are_ any intentional moderates. Isn't this just one big straw man? Noticeable lack of specifics, not even historical figures. Honestly it comes off like "I met a guy, didn't like him, I think this is why".

I think there's definitely something to the idea, but I wouldn't carve up the world into These People and Those People. If anything, we're more like calico cats and we all exhibit both behaviors simultaneously. Yes, I think the Overton windows "centers" some of our views, but I can't consciously tell you which ones without thinking about it first.

<comment><USER72> > _I 'm not convinced there are any intentional moderates._

Well, I know tons of those. People in journalism, and other high profile public related posts, are often such. They don't want to offend any side, and reap the benefits of both. Some politicians are also like that. I know people in media personally who have more extreme positions in private talks, but their public opinions are carefully calculated to advance their career.

> _Noticeable lack of specifics, not even historical figures. Honestly it > comes off like "I met a guy, didn't like him, I think this is why"_

Why do people on HN think everything is a big science paper? The post is observations about society, from someone who has lived in one for 5+ decades and paid some attention. It's not some sociology paper or nation-wide poll results. It's like people can't think without polls and figures, or have relegated their opinions to the "experts" and their stats...

<comment><USER73> While "I met a guy, didn't like him, I think this is why" is a bit too dismissive, your dismissal of a desire for factual data is disturbing.

One person's experience, no matter how broad for an individual, is still just one individual's anecdotal experience. This is true even if they have a sharp mind, decades of experience, and the best credentials.

The principles of fact checking and bias analysis should not be relegated solely to academia.

<comment><USER72> > _While "I met a guy, didn't like him, I think this is why" is a bit too > dismissive, your dismissal of a desire for factual data is disturbing._

I find the over-reliance on second hand ("factual") data, charts and figures, disturbing.

People have to learn to observe, think, and understand themselves.

Not just passively consume pre-made charts and statistics (which are the easiest thing to manipulate). And learning how to spot BS statistical claims wont help when the raw data can be themselves cherry-picked, manipulated, and diced in tons of ways.

Not to mention that live experience is 360 (if one tries), where data will always paint less than the whole picture. One could arrange for great "official" charts and figures for every country -- and most countries do. Unless one gets on the field and talk to the people on the street and the workplace, and try to check the reality in various situations, they can have a totally BS picture painted for them by the statistics and "factual data".

> _One person 's experience, no matter how broad for an individual, is still > just one individual's anecdotal experience._

Well, you're not 10000 people. You're just one, like everyone else is. In the end, whatever you're fed or read or watch, you have to make up your mind for yourself.

> _The principles of fact checking and bias analysis should not be relegated > solely to academia._

Nor should fact checking and bias analysis start and begin with data people are handed down from official or other sources. Those can range from perfectly accurate to badly compiled to totally and mischievously misleading (for saving face, incompetence, for profit, etc).

If you lived in USSR, would you trust the official data, or you would try to balance things and do direct observation?

You shouldn't blindly trust "facts" and "figures" anywhere else either...

<comment><USER73> You keep saying charts and figures. Repeatedly, ad nauseum. As if that's what I was getting at. Quit talking about them, that's not relevant to this discussion.

Comparing two data points will always yield better results than having just one. Data points don't have to be literal points on a graph. They can be discussions with people.

Study historiography or journalism.

<comment><USER30> You know, it's _possible_ that Paul Graham might have had discussions with people, rather than just his own one-life anecdotal data...

<comment><USER73> No shit. Ever heard the phrase "trust, but verify?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> What about situational political preference?

Star Trek economy is all well and good and I think it is the eventual outcome, but in a specific time and place, with specific people and their baggage, the immediate best way forward may be something other than what I would prefer.

Didn't Marx say politics went through stages? Feudalism to capitalism to socialism or something? He might have had a really valid point on this. We can't jump from primitive barter economies to interstellar travel.

Besides, even though I like certain ideologies, I can't help but see the practical on the ground results of faulty, corruptible humans trying to implement them and it seldom turns out for the good from what I've observed. I have to imagine we will get there over time, perhaps with non human AI at the helm.

</comment><comment><USER75> Ron's first law: all extreme positions are wrong.

</comment><comment><USER76> I find it disappointing so many HN comments don't understand this post has nothing to do with politics really. It's general to any set of tribal belief set A and B.

</comment><comment><USER77> Besides "buying in bulk" there's also a question of "first principles" vs "empirical."

Republican/Democrat is more of "buying in bulk" these days as partisanship has aligned more with polarization.

On the other hand, consider Libertarian/Communist. Those both make policy arguments from first principles. They aren't so much buying policies in bulk as generating policies from a set of axioms. Many "intentional moderates" take it as axiomatic that the truth always lies in the middle, and thus are _also_ generating policies.

</comment><comment><USER78> Why is an article about someone praising how smart and brave their own politics are, on the front page of HN? Definitely not what I come here to read.

</comment><comment><USER79> "Or more precisely, you have to be independent-minded about the ideas you work with. You could be mindlessly doctrinaire in your politics and still be a good mathematician. In the 20th century, a lot of very smart people were Marxists — just no one who was smart about the subjects Marxism involves"

I'm wondering if all the science heroes from that era were pro-Eugenics from a science or political position.

</comment><comment><USER80> Radical centrism, or else!!

</comment><comment><USER81> While I am what he calls an "accidental moderate", there is an argument to be made for the intentional moderate stance. If you think the damage from your error is proporational to the square (or some higher exponent) of the actual error, then an intentional moderate will have far fewer (perhaps no) fatal errors. They may choose 50 when they should have chosen 30, but they won't choose 100 when they should have chosen 10. If the damage from the one is like (50-30)^2=400, and the damage from the other is (100-10)^2=8100, then you can have a lot of modest, intentional moderate errors that don't add up to the damage of the one thing an accidental moderate is really, really wrong about.

As usual, there is a relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1170/](https://xkcd.com/1170/)

Again, I myself am mostly an accidental moderate. But I think he's underselling the case for intentional moderates.

</comment><comment><USER82> There are two types of "accidental" moderates in America. Rich fiscal conservatives who are socially liberal but don't want to pay their fair share ("libertarians") and the blue collar union workers who are socially conservative for religious reasons.

There is no far left in America, the "leftist" candidate is campaigning on radical ideas like universal health care and free public education, things that every other first world country already provides.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care)

[https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/policies/is-beginning- seco...](https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/policies/is-beginning-secondary- education-tuition-free?filter=crc)

</comment><comment><USER83> Neoliberals like PG love to pretend that their ideology - <USER2> capitalism - is not actually an ideology. It is ideological framework, just as much as Marxism.

The notion that neoliberals are above the fray of ideology and independently minded, might be comforting to them, but it's a lie. Across the globe, PG and his ilk fit squarely in the various right and centre-right parties.

</comment><comment><USER84> What a delightfully garbage take!

Also:

"The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk. You don't get to pick and choose."

PG has clearly never encountered two leftists in the same room together. We argue on critical issues more than a thanksgiving dinner table.

<comment><USER85> i'll never understand people's preoccupation with other people's ideas on things it is known those people are not experts on.

paul graham has a phd in computer science. he is a successful startup founder and vc. that is the extent of what i'm interested in his opinion on.

if a famous political theorist started opining on the organization of software or product/market fit or angel investing how many people here would take them seriously?

<comment><USER86> >>paul graham has a phd in computer science. he is a successful startup founder and vc. that is the extent of what i'm interested in his opinion on.

Smart people are much more likely to believe that they have intelligent and well-informed opinions on areas outside their expertise. PG himself is no exception.

<comment><USER87> intelligence is correlated with (and arguably defined by) insight, so that's a reasonable, if fallible, belief.

intelligence doesn't guarantee insights in areas outside expertise, but it's certainly more promising in that regard.

what's baffling are the high expectations in the populace for the general opinions of famous but not demonstrably intelligent people, e.g., many actors, tv personalities, singers, etc. (comedians are a notable exception, as insight is integral to their craft).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I enjoy pg's essays but must say this one strikes me as unusually trite. For context I would be one of his 'accidental moderates' who has since moved far to the left - though not universally, and despite my tongue-in-cheek bio I'm not a Marxist.

 _[2] For some reason the far right tend to ignore moderates rather than despise them as backsliders. I 'm not sure why. Perhaps it means that the far right is less ideological than the far left. Or perhaps that they are more confident, or more resigned, or simply more disorganized. I just don't know._

As a long-time student of the far right I can answer this easily: they _do_ despise moderates, but being fascist, they plan to rule over them and figure (with some basis in fact) that the moderate middle will just go along with their program because it's expedient to do so.

As this treats of loaded topics I might as well clarify my own understanding by saying that I think the far left is characterized by its antipathy to property rights (and arguably individual rights in general depending on the particular dogma they adhere to) while the far right is characterized by its antipathy to human rights (and arguably the existence of distinct populations in general depending on the particular dogma they adhere to).

</comment><comment><USER89> It's strange that if you're going to write this type of essay, it might behoove you to define right and left in your own words so the audience has a baseline for what you're really talking about.

Otherwise you're just saying "I'm right and everyone else is totally clueless. If you don't pick any side you actually have the most ~ ~ enlightened ~ ~ opinion."

I expect nothing less from PG but it's hilarious to see him just blandly admit how intellectually out of depth he is. He's basically ignored the most rudimentary topics in political science and just flat out spread his academic ignorance for the world to see.

</comment><comment><USER90> Tl;dr: Everything in moderation, including moderation.

</comment><comment><USER91> First time I only got two paragraphs into a PG post.

</comment><comment><USER92> This is a very American perspective, occasionally a bit flippant (dismissing 100+ years of Marx-influenced intellectuals in politics and economics as "not smart" is definitely not smart, particularly after 2008) and overall mediocre.

There is a lot of stereotyping, and it doesn't account for the _interest_ axis, i.e. the fact that a lot of very smart people simply _do not care for organised politics in any way, shape, or form_.

More importantly, it lacks knowledge of consensus mechanics beyond Overton, which is why it struggles to get to grip with the right side of the spectrum - which is, historically speaking, the most consistently successful side, at least in the short or medium term when any new political issue arises. Dismissing that as "I don't know" shows embarrassingly poor subject knowledge.

So uhm, this piece could have been written by a 16-year-old trying to move his brain for the first time. That it comes from a much older and experienced person, somebody who holds a number of smart positions on other topics, to me is a signal that such person has done very little effort to actually study this particular field in depth.

Maybe it's an attempt at showing that one can be not-smart about certain topics? If that were the case, I don't think we really need it - Twitter and Facebook remind us every hour of every day that it is indeed the case.

<comment><USER93> > OP: In the 20th century, a lot of very smart people were Marxists — just no > one who was smart about the subjects Marxism involves.

In 40 years, the USSR, whose economy was about the size of Brazil's in 1917, and who waged a civil war and repelled two waves of invasions (the first of which included an invasion by the USA after WWI) - this country under Stalin had enormous economic growth, to where it could repel an invasion by continental Europe, then launch the first satellite, man on space, moon probe and whatnot. For a country that Lenin considered to be in a holding action waiting for revolution in the west. I find that impressive.

The western anti-Marxists went through an array of nonsense in the 20th century - "The End of History", the idea that Keynesian or monetarist or whatever remedies would smooth out the business cycle.

Marx predicted worsening economic crises like in 2000 or 2008, with accompanying unemployment, overproduction and a falling of profits. Lenin predicted an unquenchable and self-destructive drive for imperialism.

<comment><USER11> > he first of which included an invasion by the USA after WWI

I'm not familiar with this event?

> this country under Stalin had enormous economic growth

Ironically this is the same argument used by capitalists and colonialists when they claim that a huge body count or deliberate famine was "worth it".

<comment><USER94> Probably this?

[https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/fact-america- actu...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/fact-america-actually- invaded-russia-after-world-war-i-23150)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "and the far right and far left are roughly equally wrong"

I disagree with this in the strongest terms.

I realize that the people on this site lean right, and arguing politics isn't really cricket, so I won't go into to why.

The "center" is a political ideology that pretends that it's something else.

Also, being good at one thing doesn't make someone's opinion about everything else important.

<comment><USER95> In context:

> Accidental moderates end up in the middle, on average, because they make up > their own minds about each question, and the far right and far left are > roughly equally wrong.

I disagree as well, but it could be revised to:

> and the [accidental moderate believes that] far right and far left are > roughly equally wrong.

This would make the definition somewhat more sensible, though I'd still disagree with it.

I wasn't able to turn up demographics for the site, so I can't outright disagree with you on the political leanings of HN, but I'm curious to know what they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> In our current political system the accidental moderate seems left out. How do they choose the right candidate when the campaign system is wholly based on ideology? Sure, accidental moderates may have great opinions, but how does one put those in action in the current political climate within a political framework. They would seem to be best living outside the system, with no label defining the political affiliation or ideology, while the moderate is free to be wooed by the right or left choice of any given election.

<comment><USER16> > _How do they choose the right candidate when the campaign system is wholly > based on ideology?_

They don't. Perhaps that is why the voter turnout is so low everywhere.

For instance, myself, I cannot in good conscience support _any_ of the political parties that exist in my country. I agree with each of them on few points, and strongly disagree on most.</comment></comment>