http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali...

In reality, it's all exactly the same sort of crap that was portrayed on Mad Men. Such prejudice is the same, whether it is enacted by tweed jacket wearing Ivy Leaguers, rural low-brow native americans, "poor white trash," urban black people, affluent Koreans, undergraduate students, "Social Justice Warriors," or Bay Area programmers. I should know, because I've been on the receiving end of it from all of the above, while also being a member of about half those groups. (Often having diametrically opposed things projected onto me!)

When it comes down to it, people should be given a chance as individuals, not summarily judged as units of a group. (Martin Luther King Jr. put it best...)

I swear, when I hear some fellow "liberals" talking about their own rural underclass or Republicans or Christians, the kind of disdain that comes across seems like something that should no longer exist in the 21st century, outside of movies about the Jim Crow south.

Doesn't Vox exist to perpetuate this kind of nonsense? It's undergraduate level politics dressed up as stone tablet commandments. Isn't Vox's very reason to provide political analysis to those otherwise 'too stupid' to know what's going on?

A Guardian columnist walking round one of the UK's poorest districts bewildered that white working class people do not share his opinions on the European Union:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jun/14/l...

Smugness is certainly a fact, but so is that brexit will leave the UK economically worse off in pretty much all respects. Especially the poor.

Citation needed. But not those made-up by economists, pundits and bureaucrats making money by being pro-EU and working within EU organization and with EC money...

Sterling is up against USD since March. Besides, a low pound can be good for exports/manufacturing. The idea that if the pound drops against the USD it's categorically "bad" is untrue and simplistic.

When David Cameron was campaigning, he said he'd be glad to have a referendum and he thought that a Brexit might actually be better for the UK. Thanks to that he was voted in with a majority, and promptly changed his tune to saying a Brexit would be lead to a catastrophe. Funny how he changed his mind so quickly. Also funny how the "neutral" economists didn't pipe up to correct Cameron during the election.

The US housing bubble collapse was widely and publicly predicted by leading independent (that is, those not working for banks or government) economists of every political stripe for many years before the collapse.

They were widely reported in major news media, including appearances on "media talk shows".

Politicians being politicians. Here's Borris before and now.

https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/the-great-eu-debat...

And they comingle with people in power and others with large interests all the time.

It's like having a computer science professor in "databases" that's also a stakeholder in MongoDB.

>which sell off everytime the risk of Brexit rises, and rally when the risk of Brexit falls. So people put their money where their mouth is.

That's only short term assets they play with -- to make a quick buck on the uncertainty before and after a Brexit--, it doesn't show anything with regards to the medium- and long-term prospects of a Brexit.

If the Republicans made themselves more like the Lib Dems in Australia, or the Christian Dems in Germany they'd have a clean sweep. But then they'd also lose Wall Street, large chunks of the Libertarian wing of Silicon Valley, and would probably end up having to fracture first.

The point being, you could likely make a party in the U.S. that kept most of the socially conservative stuff from the GOP and still picked up more of the economically "liberal" issues in the U.S., many of which are moderate in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere, and make it work.

They seem like basic facts to me. Not even arguable.

Pretending groups are somehow above criticism is more about manners than fact.

PS: I have watched several people become more and sometimes less racist after moving to DC. This has far more about cultural friction than the people involved.

Individuals are individuals. Sub-cultural mores are products (distortions) of the media. The two are not the same. However, the latter seems to have tremendous power in framing public debate.

Not that everyone in a group identifies with every assumption of that group, but these things are more complex than simply being shaped by the all powerful media.

This notion itself is becoming more nebulous with the rise of social media. Traditional media has lost much of its power, and much of that power has been taken over by social media. When the media merges with and to a large extent becomes us, what happens? I'm not so sure.

Your reply supports this: whether they do or don't (and to what degree) is an individual matter. I wasn't disputing that experience can change a person's attachment to racism.

At the same time you will find people going against type regularly. Which has a moderating effect. It's hard to think X are bums when you see hard working people from X.

I also often see people complain about their own ethic group a lot, though this is more about class than race.

I have noticed a strange flip-flop over the last 30 years or so. While the most prominent in and out groups have changed, the folks who used to talk the most trash about outsiders are now much more reticent. Now many of the folks who used to complain about getting put down are now the ones (mostly in private, but many times in public) with all the trash talk, i.e., acting like they always thought all the other guys did. (This was never actually the case, though.)

I hear friends talking about their neighbors and community in terms I know for a fact are not reciprocated -- and it goes far beyond just condescending. It's a bitter, desolate, and spiteful thing. You'd think they were marooned living in a cave with Stone Age man, waiting for the next human sacrifice to occur.

Very strange. I wonder if they know how they sound to others? We need a name for these guys. "Redneck Liberals" comes to mind. Perhaps "Faux Progressives"

For example, liberals might hyperbolicly call Trump a crypto-fascist, and Sanders supporters might call Clinton a crypto-Conservative, or a crypto-neoliberal. Granted, it's not used in mainstream political discourse much, but I hear it more on the fringes, and it probably has some academic use.

It used to be that the left was anti-authoritarian and the right was authoritarian. Libertarians were extremely anti-authoritarian. What has evolved, however, was that "soft" libertarianism got co-opted by the right. The left also co-opted libertarians, but not to the degree the right did. As the right gained more libertarians, it gave up some of its boardroom elitism. The result here was that the right's base become less elite while the left's base became more elite. (Because in the disparity of how both sides appealed to the libertarian center. In addition the left was naturally filled with smaller, more organized and fervent groups around a single cause, while the right had a broader base)

Then both the right and left became more and more authoritarian (along with the associated in-and-out clanning behavior) What with endless wars and the security state, I think we're seeing the end of the ride for the natural libertarians on the right. Perhaps the left too. Remains to be seen.

It will be interesting to see if the coming election involves a split in either/both major parties, and if so, along what fault line that split occurs.

Since the "right" as we know it remains, as ever, in favor of banning gay marriage, recreational marijuana, and alcohol sales on certain days of the week, I'm very skeptical that this story happened as described.

Insert standard parable of the blind men talking funny about elephant parts. Like it or not, there's at least five "right" wings and its like herding cats. The Christians were dominant maybe two decades ago, neocons were dominant for awhile, not so much recently. You can guess who's on the rise and the progs don't like it very much.

1) Neocon / megacorporate lackey. Never seen an eternal war their defense contractors who pay their re-election funds don't love. Koch Bros. Loves immigration; the middle/lower classes and the whites are to be eliminated. Thinks "Brazil" and "1984" and "brave new world" are instruction manuals. Loves income inequality. Globalist Imperialists. Basically they embrace their inner "bad guy James Bond villain" rather than suppress it. Some women (and men) really like the bad boys. Popularity in the population was much higher in the recent past. Have more money than they know what to do with, none the less struggle to get votes. These guys buy ads on social media and run campaigns.

2) Evangelical progressive Christian. If your church has electric guitars and spotlights and a projection TV and glitter as part of ceremonies you are here. Also see prosperity gospel and theological concept of "buddy jesus". This is where small local businessmen chill. Foreign policy is turn the other cheek. Weakest nominal attachment to the R party. Can't get these people to stop social signalling on facebook ("like and share this prayer" etc)

3) Bible belt southerners. If your church hates gays you are here. Strange alliance with Utah churches. Doesn't like alcohol, caffeine, or weed. Mostly a group defined by who and what they don't like. Like abortion, for example. These guys don't use computers or social media because those and Dungeons and Dragons are a tool of the devil.

4) Establishment / conventional wisdom / co-opted psuedo controlled opposition. These are the guys you see on TV and in congress. Maybe if we steal the platform of the progs from 20 years ago they'll love us. Cut to chase, no, the progs still hate them. Generally don't care about anything but gaining power. Kind of like neocons but less spine and much lower energy. Thinks about morals and ethics in terms of voting poll percentages. These guys buy ads on social media.

5) Alt right / 1488 / Libertarian crowd. Explosively growing. Trump. Average age is about half the above groups or lower. Smokes weed but calls it degenerate when others smoke up. Looks at gays the same way. Build a wall. Abortion is OK but to be avoided. This wing is meme central. Some memes: An alt right is a libertarian who finally noticed the worlds average IQ is below 120. Another meme: A 1488 is a guy who figured out the dominant belief of progs is they are anti-white people. The only group with a sense of humor, which is unfortunately (or entertainingly?) caustic and corrosive and so dark its like blacker than black humor. Foreign policy is non-interventionist, anti-imperialist and anti-globalist. Generally broadly speaking anti-corporate and anti-social media.

Bible belt southerners _don't_ use projectors and bands? What do they use then? I would have thought choir and organ churches were the more left/liberal - they are in Europe.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this sounds very odd to me.

I don't think that there's anything particularly crypto about Clinton's neoliberalism. She helped create the New Democrats. She may not use the term "neoliberal" on the campaign trail, but the house intellectuals of her own movement applied it to themselves.

Of course, the gotcha with all such labels is that there are many liberal leftists who hear the term illiberal left and reflexively assume it applies tangentially to them, leading them to deny the existence altogether.

Anecdotally, a friend of mine in California is a huge Bernie Sanders supporter. Has attended rallies, fund-raised, and even designed T-shirts to promote Bernie's messages. A few weeks ago he apparently attended a private party of Bernie Sanders supporters, then messaged me back with "Wow, you'd been saying people like this existed, and I didn't believe it. These guys made me feel much more moderate than I once did."

I don't think people realize just what a late group this really is. Often times they're more under the Libertarian umbrella, though, but still... there's more shades of purple than there are red or blue.

And sure, one can somewhat respect the rights of a human being who denies scientific evidence, and I do believe many liberals need to be receptive and open-minded to others' arguments even when they violate their deepest convictions. The rise of safe-spaces and vehement protests against conservative speakers shows that libs are not great in this regard either. You need not and should not make fun of their heritage, their accent or make assumptions about their personality or behavior. At the very least, if you really don't care about being fair, disregarding evidence without offering a counterargument or giving a reason[1] is bad enough of a sin that no one needs anything else to accuse an opponent of.

[0] http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

[1] I really mean this, a discussion is the right thing that needs to happen.

It's the behavior/mental stance that I'm calling out. Being the victor doesn't entitle one to be a douchebag. Being right doesn't entitle one to be a douchebag. If one subscribes to humanism and to being humane, then it simply doesn't do to view certain people as being less than human. Just because their views are less valid in your opinion, that doesn't make them less valid.

So long as you can make this distinction, you're fine in my book.

It seems like intolerance follows pendulum shift every 30 years or so. Liberals have the new intolerance, its just incredible how much disdain there is for everyone who isn't to the left of Elizabeth Warren and my god, the SJW stuff is out of control.

I have no idea if we've hit a peak with this stuff yet, but its hard to imagine how much worse in can get.

Hogwash. Now, Professor Stearns almost certainly has valid, well researched points which we could use to adjust certain policies, but humans are very much more than economic creatures , though it seems like we forget this readily nowadays in the US. This also means there are many more factors influencing American societal and mores than class divides. There's many strong cultural factors driving various network effects and topologies which require more complex analysis to understand. E.g. trying to use a first level "approximation" will fail to rationally understand our society. Besides in places like California even the idea of a white/Caucasian majority isn't even valid anymore.

This made me smile, as my dad and I did the exact same thing. He would get coffee and I would get eggs and hashbrowns before we set out on the days errands, and I remember doing long division problems with crayons for fun. I hadn't thought of those days in a very long time, thank you :)

The founder of CfA had controversial conservative views, but he is dead now, so you don't have to let that stop you anymore. Personally I wish they had stay out of politics altogether.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriag...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/06/14/chick-fil-a-o...

edit: spelling

And the cleaning agent remains in the oil for subsequent frying. (Or that was the practice 30 years ago, anyway.)

It's not like the old days, where you could get any sandwich fresh as a custom order, and otherwise a maximum of 10 minutes post-wrap hold time.

Oddly, several Jack-in-the-Boxes here are the most clean, with Carl's Jr. being worst -- a complete inversion from 20 years ago.

Oh, and free Android tablets! You can really bask in the judgement of others :)

It's actually quite frustrating because my kids and I are vegetarians and while the wrap suits me just fine, my kids get stuck with their mediocre grilled cheese sandwiches (vegetarian children are still children - they think the wrap is weird).

It's not that I need every place to go to the lengths the clown does. I don't expect Pita Pit or my local felafel place to build playgrounds. I just wish there was a second chain providing this kind of product.

Did they have that brief experiment with the Santa Fe wrap and the Mediterranean Vegetable vegetarian wraps? The latter involved feta cheese, and you can imagine how wonderous McDonald's feta cheese was. In the end they killed the Santa Fe wrap but they made the Mediterranean wrap better, and so now that's my go-to McFood.

Sounds like a false dichotomy. Why not prepare actual healthy food, and not 'slapped together kids meal' ?

(Not saying most fast food is better, but McDonalds is about a 10/10 on the crap-o-meter).

Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad: Ingredients: Romaine Lettuce, Baby Spinach, Carrots, Baby Kale, Lollo Rossa Lettuce, Red Leaf Lettuce, Red Oak Lettuce, Red Tango Lettuce, Red Romaine Lettuce, Red Butter Lettuce. Ingredients May Vary.

Source: http://www.mcdonalds.com/content/us/en/food/full_menu/salads...

  Ingredients May Vary

Speaking of which, a general note: never, ever buy anything with Mechanically Processed poultry or pork... or at least read about exactly what that means first.

Also, for what it's worth, neither chicken nuggets nor the beef patties at McDonalds are made with mechanically separated meat anymore.

If it meets your definition of "meat", by all means stick with it. Just be aware of what MSM really is.

<neither chicken nuggets nor the beef patties at McDonald's are made with mechanically separated meat anymore>

The beef patties never were (it's illegal -- do you know why?) Their chicken nuggets originally were.

I totally get why cow MSM is banned, considering mad cow disease.

But it's mainly connective tissue with little nutritional value -- padding. And I'm not satisfied that pork MSM is completely safe from prion disease.

A: "I don't care what people think. People suck, and are so judgmental!"

B: "I too don't care what people think!"

A: "Let's be friends!"

So suggesting that they don't care so much about something that doesn't matter hopefully makes them think about whether caring what people think is worth the effort.

In general, though they're adventurous eaters at home, they don't eat well in restaurants because they prefer that we are all eating the same thing. And booths are much easier to contain them in than tables.

There are a couple other places in town to grab a meal and let the kids run around and play indoors, but often they're often more crowded, more expensive, and the food isn't any healthier.

I too had some fond memories of those parties.

You were a kid then, you had no role in choosing the venue, and you certainly don't bear some kind of moral responsibility for the putative evils of McDonald's as an institution just because you ate a hamburger there when you were six.

Be happy that you got to have fun on a playground with your friends! It is not tainted.

Just like most of the parents in all of history. People all throughout our history have made "sub-par" decisions. You could say it's the "human condition."

That's interesting, given that McDonalds purposefully designs it's restaurants to get customers in and out as quick as possible. The chairs are hard, uncomfortable plastic, the music is annoying, and the dining room is always set to some arctic temperature.

Most modern McDonald's have quite nice decorum, and many even have wifi.

I think your information is out of date.

I might also add I worked for McDonalds.

See this video for an idea how long the food at McDonalds takes to rot because of these artificial ingredients:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHxRwQqWFo

Also have fun time knowing that each time you visit McDonalds, you are supporting the slavery and killing of intelligent animals just to slap together a cheap as possible meal.

http://www.snopes.com/six-year-old-happy-meal-doesnt-rot/

It doesn't rot because there's no bacteria in it. There's no bacteria in it because it was cooked thoroughly.

Any well-done burger from any restaurant will last a similar amount of time. Try it.

BTW, what animal do they serve is "intelligent"? That one has me curious. The smartest thing on their menu I suppose would be the pork?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Gorske

I feel like if people skip sugary drinks and large fries they are eating better at McDonald's than most people eat at home.

http://www.marketplace.org/2013/07/03/sustainability/freakon...

McDonald's isn't a large part of our mostly wholesome diet. I feel good about what my kids eat on a day to day basis.

Also, I'm the mother. It's not really germane to the issue, but everyone in this thread assumed otherwise.

I'm curious about how the stigma actually plays out - do people you know actually say things to you about it? Would you actually experience more negative interactions if you just did what you want, or has it been internalized because you know people would disapprove?

Once we hadn't been to the grocery store in unusually long, and spent the weekend eating the things in the freezer and the back of the cupboards. We mentioned to the kids that we were out of food. My son went to preschool the next day and congratulated his teachers on always having food available.

Full stop. No need to continue with the rest of your judgements.

Parenting is a very hard job, and it's only made worse by all the parents (and even worse--non-parents) that want to make judgements.

Being a parent, I now have a profound respect and appreciation for my parents (especially my mother). Things weren't always great, but they did the best they could.

Is parenting some sacred thing, immune from analysis or criticism? Does parenting happen outside the realm of logic or reason, where all decisions are good, and any attempt at measurement or objectivity is worthless?

"Good internet citizenship."

Keep your criticism relevant to the topic, which was: McDonald's used as a community center in poor neighborhoods. Not, how to teach your kids good eating habits.

> Is parenting some sacred thing, immune from analysis or criticism?

Parenting MY kids, most definitely is sacred.

There is nothing sacred about your parenting that makes it above scrutiny. Nothing whatsoever.

Also, I never told a story about how I parent my kids.

In other words, my spouse can criticize my parenting everyone else can go frack themselves. Full stop.

Performing hard work doesn't make you immune from doing that work poorly, and it's kind of alarming to me that this insular attitude is so popular on HN.

That's what I've called 'free from being critisized' so yeah. Not sure what you mean by "No one is free from criticism". If you refer to rights of other people to express their critical opinion - sure, let them run their mouths in their own space.

The problems begin (as usual) when A is being forced to listen to B's opinions either because A cannot move away or because Bs are too numerous. That's where I think that B should have to shut up. "Your freedom to fo X ends etc etc". Participating in hard work is an aggravating factor here, meaning B should have to shut the f up right now or be forcefully removed.

In case of doubt just imaging an idiot shouting their mouth at the working surgeon.

A needs to learn to tolerate B, basically. A isn't performing surgery, A is trying to write comments on HN.

Huh? The topic was about people doing hard work. Writing comments is easy.

Dude, I was growing up in the dying days of the Soviet Union, with empty shelves and lines and ration cards, and growing vegetables on a little private plot to make it through the winter without vitamin deficiency. I know very well what it's like to try to provide the best you can for your family when the circumstances don't allow you to provide much at all.

But there's an enormous difference between going to a fast food place because the kids are hungry and the fridge is empty and that's the place which is open and nearby and affordable, and regularly bringing kids to a fast food place just because I like the ambience.

And as a general principle, if I am not open to criticism and judgment of others, I am hobbling my ability improve. In any aspect of life. Work or scholarship or raising a child.

OP: shared personal experience related to topic of the article.

You: shared off-topic comment that teaching kids to eat at McD's is not good.

Me: Directly--don't share your judgements on how the OP chooses to parent (also off-topic).

You could do much worse.

How?

You are purposely believing all this complete marketing BS so you don't have to feel like a junky if you eat this industrial trashfood.

And I can really not figure out for myself what could be more trashy than McDonalds food. Maybe living solely on peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate, but maybe even that would be better, as they are not full of flavor enhancer.

And actually I am not a McDonalds hater, I love to eat their hamburger. But it's like drinking beer, it's a drug, not food.

The apple: it's raw apple cut into slices... not fried, nor from a fictional bakery that their marketing apparently makes you think they want people to believe.

What does where the cows are milked matter, judge nutritional value between chocolate milk and sugar-filled soda. Maybe your judgement of chocolate milk is negative (sure, it's not the healthiest drink in the world) and I can't say I've ever looked up it's nutrional information, but... it's flavoured milk. It comes from cows, somewhere.

If you can't understand the logic that McDonalds serve lots of types of food and that some of them are more healthy and less healthy compared to each other then I'm not sure how to explain it better.

Same for the chocolate milk. But I leave it up to you to find out what great inventions of the chemical industry enable this always same creamy taste without clumped together cacao.

And the argument about bigger portions has something to do with eating habits, but not with healthy food.

Saying a foodstuff has come into contact with a chemical somewhere in the process means nothing without more information, yet you expect it to be taken as an automatic negative.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/product_nutrition.snacks...

> Ingredients: Apples, Calcium Ascorbate (a blend of Calcium and Vitamin C to maintain freshness and color).

Scary stuff! I guess the wax that is on apples at the grocery store is missing, but hey it still seems like real food to me.

And that is wrong, it doesn't matter what you eat at MacDonalds. You can swap the coke against "chocolate milk" to reduce sugar, therefore you get more emulsifier and more preservative. You can swap french fries for apple slices to get less fat, but therefore you get another mix of chemicals without any vitamins left. And all this discussion when the Deli around the corner sells fresh apples ...

That's quite an amusing statement, given that the "mix of chemicals" you're criticising is Vitamin C and Calcium.

I don't like McDonald's either, but they're not the personified evil you insinuate them to be.

That's how you know the McDonalds hate is really about judging and not about health.

It's like people who only care about rape when there's a Muslim suspect. If they really cared about it, they would talk about it outside of the context of religion.