HN culture is progressive on some things but very libertarian on others. It's not very left wing because a large portion of the posters here are quite insulated from the plight of blue collar workers.
blue collar workers have always been populist, and isolated from leftists. Read up on Marxist ideas about the necessity of a revolutionary "vanguard", by which they don't mean workers, they mean activists, agitators, professional revolutionaries, who work to create the conditions for revolution. Blue collar workers are too busy working and supporting their families.
Have you read this thread that is currently pinned to the top of the page [0]?
I'm a one-time conservative who moved to the center after Trump. I live in a deep red state but work remotely with an extremely left-wing company (the kind that regularly has deep discussions of identity politics during work hours). I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what each extreme looks like and every shade in between, and HN has by far the most balanced political discussions I've ever seen in any forum in-person or online.
Part of my evidence in favor of that claim is that people on each extreme both perceive HN to be biased in the opposite direction.
True, it one of the rare place where there is intelligent discussion that pop from time to time.
I find that the left mob is still very present and ready to shut down fast.
As it's a place of early adopters and visionary what we see here usualy get reflected back in other places one to many years later.
I see a shift toward conservatives values is happening here too that might then progress toward other places reddit, wikipedia, mass media, etc.
Both vision have their places and are necessary. The world is changing crazy fast so we need the progressives to adapt at the same time changing everything is destructive so we need to also save and cherish what work and has for a long time.
As long as the conversation is open there is hope.
> Just here in HN is progressive to ultra progressive. Any mention of the other side is a sure way to get downvoted to oblivion.
The idea that a forum that's a discussion and PR arm for a venture capital firm is progressive at heart is almost funny. If HN is anything, it's technocratic first, then libertarian to classic liberal matched with business/market friendly, then progressive at whatever margins are left. Plenty of room for someone who can argue non-progressive politics in the first two terms, and people do.
> Have you ever voted conservative? Do you have friends that vote conservative? Do you have colleagues that vote conservative.
Since you asked: yes, yes, and yes.
Bubbles are pretty much irrelevant to the question of whether NPR has changed over time. Someone who listened a lot in the 00s and then came back in the last few years is qualified to weigh in on that. And it's not like my comment is a glowing endorsement of NPR.
But assuming reasonable models of how you'd tell I'm in some kind of vacuum isolated from non-progressives... in terms of radio/audio habits alone I also spend a good deal of time listening christian radio networks that occupy the same parts of the dial as public radio stations, Rogan / Friedman and adjacent, I've spent an ungodly amount of time listening to Jordan Peterson although I dialed it way back once he became a vaccine crank and Russian shill. I get lots of whatever Musk and people who are still there because they like the direction he's taking Twitter get. I get lots of exposure from a social circle that has as many conservatives as progressives.
So, why is it you think I might be in a bubble again? Or was that just your rhetorical strategy to say "well your opinion is no less biased than anyone else's, if anything you're the biased one"?
It's from my experience, I live in progressive buble (Québec) that I could say is fighting with California for the top spot.
I too was progressive most of my life, it's the water I was in for all my life. I didn't understand the other side. Here Trump, Maga, guns, red states and faith are seen as backward, stupid and evil.
It's in the last few year that I poped that buble of thinking and now can see and understand the other side.
Here it's almost impossible to any discussion with a bit of nuance, the minute you stear away from the CBC talking point you get asked "are you a Trump supporter" with a raised eyebrow.
I have seen the censure in action in Twitter, Facebook, Google and most mass media in the last few years and also the statistic of political leaning in all the big tech company and all universities.
With the lastest thing happening at NPR, I am not surprised to heard that they are also ideologicaly compromised.
I could be wrong, but I think if we were to see the political leaning of journalists and people of power at NPR it think we would find again a 90%+ of left leaning that is very far from what we see in the population.
A test I was thinking, can you say openly at work or with friend that you will vote for Trump and keep your career options and your friends?
This take only works if you tunnel-vision yourself to only looking at the United States. It's all too easy to say "we believe X and you believe Y; who's to say which is right!? From our point of view, you're the one in the bubble!" But if you step back and look at the American political spectrum from a global and historical perspective, it's abundantly clear that it's the conservative side that is in a bubble; nearly even a cult. The rest of us would love to have two rational political parties to pick from. Few people are ideologically beholden to the Democratic Party directly, it's just literally our only option.
you've clearly never lived anywhere else. on cultural topics the US is far left nowadays.
- limits on abortion are more strict in most of the world's developed countries.
- legally-enforced and culturally-encouraged discrimination against the local majority race is is very unusual, it mostly happens in anglo countries.
- legalizing theft under $1000 in the name of anti-racism, legalizing the intentional infecting of other people with AIDS... laws like that are considered absurd in most of the world.
You realize that this comment does literally nothing to persuade anyone that HN isn't a left-wing bubble? You just provided a rather sweeping and frankly offensive assertion with no evidence whatsoever to back it up. You don't come off as a reasonable interlocutor, you come off as a bitter partisan and you got rewarded for it. If I didn't have enough exposure to HN to have been in threads where an equally lazy conservative take got upvoted, I'd agree with OP that there's a slant.
As it is, I strongly disagree with OP—HN tends to have very balanced conversations—but I wish that you would provide substance instead of shallow dismissals.
Do you have collegues that vote conservative.
Is it possible you are in the bubble?
Just here in HN is progressive to ultra progressive. Any mention of the other side is a sure way to get downvoted to oblivion.