alt Hacker News> Is HN now against western capitalism?
I think that's a (very) vocal minority.
Over my ~9 years reading HN daily, I'd say most of the HN community broadly accepts there is no perfect system, just different sets of trade offs, but that history has shown generally democratic systems based on enlightenment values (uniform rule of law, respect for individual civil & property rights, free markets, etc) usually net a better average outcome over the long-run - despite still being very far from perfect.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it's the worst system... except for all the others (which are even worse). :-)
Replies
In my almost 20 years on HN, for a long time the groupthink was basically standard libertarian-capitalism, worshipping billionaires and big tech companies, and skeptical of anything that could be construed as "socialism".
The last few years, though, while anything "anti-capitalist" or overly critical of some big tech companies that hits the front page gets flagged by bots pretty quickly, the overall feeling I get from the comments is much more skeptical of big tech and is pro-socialism.
Speaking for myself, I think we've become jaded after the constant barrage of big companies spying on us, charging more for less, enshitifying their products, and so on. I used to be optimistic about the future and my prospects, now I'm just hoping I can hold on and keep my health insurance until I retire. I worry about what my school-age kids are going to have to deal with in 5-10 years.
> uniform rule of law, respect for individual civil & property rights, free markets
These values are not specific to western democratic systems. For example, under Islamic Law (Shari'ah), the aforementioned apply as well.
And since when was churchill an expert at this topic?