[cup]

My impression is that the site has gradually shifted right, but the Overton window has shifted right faster giving the illusion that it has gone left.

Edit: There is something ironic to be said about my very benign comment triggering someone to the point that they felt compelled to create an account and call me classically right wing slurs (subhuman, animal, low-iq). I think its worth considering that the internet/social media has contributed to a growing mental health crisis. Hurt, sick and lonely people seem to congregate online.

[version_five]

Are you saying the realm of acceptable things one can say had shifted to the right? I may have misunderstood because I've never heard that before. I can see that maybe one could claim the leftward shift has stopped and momentum is to the right, but I don't think the fever has broken yet, and I've never even heard anyone claim it has, outside of a few "tide is turning" twitter posts.

(I'm using left/right as I think they're commonly used now, the traditional split isn't really relevant)

[bawolff]

> Are you saying the realm of acceptable things one can say had shifted to the right? I may have misunderstood because I've never heard that before.

I'm kind of surprised by your surprise, because i feel like for years now people never shut up about the realm of acceptable things shifting right.

Although personally i think its less a right/left thing and more extremes on both sides becoming more vocal with the moderates being squeezed out. Its always easier to fixate on the crazy thing the other is saying then to look at one's own side.

[scarmig]

I suspect that if elections had the HN commentariat as the voters, it would result in landslide wins for most Democratic politicians. I don't think this has shifted much in the last decade.

That itself doesn't dispute your point, as I can sympathize with the idea that Democrats aren't particularly left-wing. But I'd also caution against using that as the yardstick, since most people do think of Democrats as "the Left" and it can result in confusion.

Broadly speaking, I'd say HN comments more or less center around the Democratic mainstream, but with a very high level of variance in political viewpoints compared to the general population. You get everything from unreconstructed Stalinists to Mencius Moldbug acolytes here.

[the_only_law]

> But I'd also caution against using that as the yardstick, since most people do think of Democrats as "the Left" and it can result in confusion.

The problem with reducing things to the colloquial US scale is it lets idiots dominate and control discussion and shits out people outside the status-quo.

Say I’m a radical right winger who’s not a republican or a radical leftist who is not a democrat, and I want to engage in a discussion.

There’s always some dumbass who will associate/accuse you of something you don’t actually believe because you’re [left/right] and therefore you must support Democrat policy X or Republican policy Y. Of course then you backtrack and try to refute them and it just becomes a pointless back and forth completely off topic.

Combine that with the general political illiteracy on this site and the fact that garbage seems not to get flagged if it’s within the zeitgeist of the thread’s current browsers and you get the political flamewars that aren’t supposed to happen here yet so commonly do.

[dvt]

Yeah, this is actually a great point, and also a possible contributing factor.

[ryokeken]

dang it, off to pursue this rabbit hole of "wait,what's dat?"

[civilized]

Re the larger world Overton Window shifting right: are we talking about law or culture? They have moved in different directions on different issues.

What would be an example of something people on the left advocate for that was acceptable some years ago but isn't now? According to whom?

[silisili]

Weird. I was going to posit the exact opposite. Like the window has shifted left and this site may seem lean a hair right of center because of it.

Maybe the window is shifting so fast in both directions everyone in the middle just kinda orbits back and forth?

[lmm]

The general culture has gotten a lot more polarized. I'm not sure there even is a singular Overton window any more; the set of things you can acceptably say to either political tribe is narrow and they've pulled apart so far that there's no overlap in the centre.

[flangola7]

That's a perfect summary of it!

[naasking]

On what issues has the Overton window shifted right?

[JenrHywy]

That's an interesting observation, but I think it depends on time period you look at.

A few years ago, the discussion certainly seemed more Left-ish than now, especially around BLM/trans/women-in-tech issues.

HN of 5+ years ago was a mix of libertarianism/pro-business on the economic side but I'd say center-left socially - ie generally supportive of social support programs

Now, I think both econ and social have both moved towards the center. The libertarianism is still there, but is more "pure" in that it's far more skeptical of business ethics. There still seems to be a decent contingent of hardcore socialists and communists, too. Politically, I think the "woke" stuff is being seen through a more critical lens (or at least, people are more comfortable expressing that criticism) than a few years ago.