IMO the saddest part of it all is that many people seem to be choosing paths of division. I have different family members who are firmly inside bubbles on both sides of the political spectrum. And all of them are way too comfortable in parroting the divisive language they hear on their favorite network news channels. The terms right/left, red/blue, republican/democrat, conservative/liberal are commonly used with insulting tones towards opposing sides. And when they use these broad terms they seem totally content that they have made a strong argument on some issue that actually boils down to making huge over-generalizations of people, and over-simplifications of complex issues.

I don't accept the demonization of fellow Americans based on bad faith arguments, but I sometimes I feel like this is a minority opinion. We should absolutely fight against specific events, behaviors, political rhetoric, and policies we disagree with. And sometimes individuals or small groups deserve to have their actions demonized as completely against our values. But looking for simple labels to place on literally millions of complex humans in order to point at simple answers to issues where simple answers don't exist is a fool's game.

I am not aboard with this type of "both sides are problematic" thinking.

Only one side denies climate change. Only one side denies medical consensus on vaccines and pandemic prevention techniques. Only one side is okay with mocking a disabled reporter (to pick one egregious example among countless).

Yes, if you're red/republican/conservative/right, you're voting for those things, you're signing off on them.

We don't need to "come together and find common ground" on those issues. We need to figure out how truth and decency lost their footing and slipped off the center stage.

First, the comment you replied to didn't argue both sides are problematic, just that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bad person. Both sides being problematic also doesn't imply that one side isn't more problematic than the other.

I think it's crazy that so many people voted for Trump and honestly believe he's the best person to run the country. I'd have a hard time respecting someone who didn't see how bad Trump was in a lot of ways. But I think most people on the left seem to have no idea why anybody would vote for Trump, and don't realize that is more of an indictment of the extent they are out of touch with 49% of the country, rather than an indication of the idiocy of their political opponents.

An effective rejection of Trumpism must first involve understanding and relating to the people who supported him, and I think a lot of people are lamenting the general lack of interest in such discourse.

Edit: fixed two words which drastically changed the meaning of sentence.

Sure, but when you engage on why they voted for Trump, you receive a litany of mistruths and nonsense and it goes nowhere. Biden is going to raise taxes! Biden is going to take away guns! Hunter Biden's corruption! It's pretty hard to have a conversation when a third party is honking and playing a tuba five feet away, and that's essentially what Fox News, Facebook, Breitbart, et al are doing.

>Biden is going to raise taxes

Biden campaigned on raising the corporate income tax rate from 21% back to 28%. If you have a stock market portfolio (including an IRA or 401(k)) and this proposal is enacted, it will adversely affect the value of your investments. It's also been tied to student loan forgiveness, so people without college degrees who are investing for retirement (and those who've paid off their degrees) will in effect be subsidizing those with student loan debt, which is a demographic that skews affluent:

>https://www.educationnext.org/mass-debt-forgiveness-not-prog...

>Households in the upper half of the income distribution hold more student debt than those in the lower half. The highest-income quartile of households owes about one-third of that debt; the lowest-income quartile owes about 12 percent. People who don’t go to college don’t have student debt. They have lower incomes and more constrained job opportunities than others.

You would, but we were banned long ago if we made anything approaching valid points on places like this. Your ignorance is the result of the bubble, which follows from censorship. You cannot see it because the censorship makes the edges of your bubble invisible to you.

The problem is the points you perceive as valid are the products of your own bubble, which operates as an automated factory of lies and deception. As with holocaust deniers, arguing with you is not a valid approach: only shutting you out.

https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...

And to make it even more ironic, this comment was dead, and invisible to most HN readers.

> I think it's crazy that so many people voted for Trump and honestly believe he's the best person to run the country.

...out of the two options on the ballot. Which is also the only reason why so many people voted for Biden. The most mind-boggling thing from my German point of view is how little movement there is to leave the two-party system behind.

Exactly! While our (Czech Republic) voting system is far from perfect (the current president is rather controversial and the prime minister is a populist with some rather shady financial deals) political parties regularly go out of business if they fuck up strong enough. And this system will likely also fix the current problems over time, resulting in possibly less bad state.

Having just two parties is insane, that simply means they can get away with anything & just take turns once in a while as voters have no other choice.

I assume that you guys have some version of proportional representation. The US doesn't. It would take a complete rewrite of the US constitution to get rid of the two party system.

Re-empowering electors could help with respect to presidential elections. Popular election of senators really ties our hands at the senate level, though. Point being, it is difficult to turn a plurality into a compromise majority without either a runoff or a delegated negotiation of some sort. Parliamentary systems have that baked in, of course.

I was under the impression from recent reading that the situation in Czechia is really bad with mass protests and serious problems. You're happy with the system though?

There were some protests against anti covid measure a few weeks ago that got quite a bit of publicity due to taking place on the iconic Old Town Square in Prague - but nothing relly major or really ongoing.

The situation is not perfect and the protest not without merit, as the government preatty much squandered any success we had handling the first wave of covid by doing preatty much no preparations, releasing almost all restrictions and then failed to respond in time when things turned for the worse in september.

I guess it can make people angry, if their livelyhood is in danger due to the restrictive measures needed after you fuck up the initial response to the second wave like we did here. Still violent protest is not really an answer and it was indeed an one-off so far. Hopefully people will remeber at least a bit of they not to vote the populist currently in power during the next elections next year.

Also there are regular protests in Belarus and now even in Poland these days that are bigger by many orders of magnitude that what we managed to pull off here since the Velvet Revolution when indeed preatty much everyone was in the streats, which resulted in the fall of the soviet aligned comunist regime back then.

This.

There are in fact many parties in the USA. But unfortunately the USA is still using an early alpha release voting system that was invented in the 1700s before voting theory had been even understood.

The result of a majority win voting system is that it only legitimizes 2 parties in practice. This worked 'ok' so long as the 2 parties acted in good faith.

However the last 20-30 years the Republican party got twisted into a movement to undermine government, enrich themselves, and narrowly focus on a couple of right-wing Christian interests to distract a populist base. They've maintained their relevance by turning Fox news and other right-wing owned outlets into effectually state-run propaganda machines. Leaving only the Democrats trying to govern with the Republicans trying to undermine and obstruct that very government.

The only way out of the USA's problems is to have a modern preference voting method, or in the long term the country may be doom to fail.

I almost always for an Nth party, where N>2. Literally every single election, I’ve been told that I was wasting my vote, that this was the most important election of my life, etc. There is a tremendous amount of social pressure to vote mainstream. I don’t have high hopes of breaking the cartel anytime soon.

I think the pressure mostly comes from the value that if you're in favor of an outcome, you should be in favor of the prerequisite actions to that outcome. If your favored actions are counterproductive to your favored outcome, then it strikes others as irrational.

Not sure they are bad people per se... but where do you draw the line?

Sure Hitler improved the German economy, does that make it defensible to support him?

This is the fundamental question in nationalist movements that are driven by ideologies, tribalism, and cult of personalities... instead of real facts backed up by science and data.

Given that provably almost nothing Trump ever says is even true, how can these people know he is the best person to govern? If there are no facts, it is just beliefs... and that is incredibly dangerous.

Look, an objective observer might say, only one side advocates for abortion. You might personally dismiss it and say it's a woman's right, but you have to at least acknowledge that people who equate abortion to a form of murder aren't totally out-of-line.

Point being, anyone can pick and choose a handful of issues (and ignore others) to "prove" that anyone who votes for [insert party here] is morally bankrupt.

No.

No objective observer would ever say that either side “advocates for abortion”. That’s the sort of thing a demagogue right-winger would say to try to score cheap political points.

California forces anybody buying health insurance to pay for abortion, and pay have to pay a tax if you don't buy health insurance. If they aren't advocating for it, why are they trying to force me to pay for it?

Interesting.

Can you provide a scan of a health insurance invoice where there’s a line item for an abortion which you didn’t request or receive? It doesn’t have to be your receipt; any insurance invoice from literally anybody in California where they were charged specifically for an abortion that they didn’t request or receive?

I’ll wait.

Or is this a specious argument like the perennial classic, “I had to pay taxes which went in part toward maintaining the roads and I never drove on that particular road over there and so therefore the taxes are unfair”? Because I am very interested in your opinions if that’s the direction you’ve decided to argue, here.

In your road example, they are in fact paying for the roads, and you aren't disputing that, so maybe try finding a better analogy that doesn't undermine your argument.

Or maybe you didn’t understand my argument. All the best.

You make a fairly excellent point about the nature of debate and public opinion.

However, denial of scientific and historical fact is not something "anyone" can find instances of for "[insert party here]". Only on the right does that occur.

That's no longer true unfortunately. Denialism on the left about certain things is becoming rampant:

- Blacks commit far more crime than other racial groups. There are sociological explanations for this, but that is currently a fact, and one that people on the left do mental backflips to avoid acknowledging.

- Gender pay gap in most industries is small or non-existent once you adjust for experience and other factors. Not to say that there is no discrimination at all, but this is another thing people on the left can't or don't want to acknowledge.

Those are just two among many.

Hmm. But what if you reframe the data? Instead of "Blacks commit more crimes than other racial groups", you're more likely to get on the path of finding constructive solutions by framing it as "People who grew up in predominantly black neighborhoods commit more crimes than those who grew up in predominantly non-black neighborhoods."

I mean, I think we've pretty well established that crime isn't genetic. It's environmental. So why frame it as if the opposite were true?

I haven't studied the demographic data at length recently, but fairly sure that your assertion does not hold for high income blacks.

I have no comment on the pay gap, I don't know much about it.

I think you're proving my point. Can you just state the fact? You can even add some qualifying statements like I did. But for christ's sake just say it first! No need to go out of your way to find a subset that is (no doubt) excepted from the average. It's politically inconvenient, yes. But it's also the truth, and one that might help explain why african americans are more likely to have interactions with police (a group I have no love for, tbh).

My own mother can't do this. She goes on about how the fbi crime statistics are probably "biased" in some way, though has no interest in finding out if or how that's the case. "It's obvious" she says. This greatly upsets me. How can we deal with problems if we can't look them straight in the face?

> I think you're proving my point. Can you just state the fact? You can even add some qualifying statements like I did. But for christ's sake just say it first! No need to go out of your way to find a subset that is (no doubt) excepted from the average. It's politically inconvenient, yes.

It's not just politically inconvenient, it's also lacking a lot of nuance. Native Americans commit crimes at an even higher rate than African Americans do. The two groups share a long history of violent disenfranchisement. Taking the statistics in isolation, yes Native Americans and African Americans do commit crime at higher than average rates. But ignoring structural issues is just as disingenuous as ignoring the data.

> But it's also the truth, and one that might help explain why african americans are more likely to have interactions with police (a group I have no love for, tbh).

Can you prove this cause and effect chain? The rate at which African Americans encounter the police is much greater than the rate at which violent crimes are committed. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I haven't seen any causality research here, but the way you've juxtaposed these claims implies that you believe there's causality here.

I can acknowledge the statistics. Can you acknowledge that they're often misappropriated and decontextualized for the purposes of propaganda[1]?

[1] https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/1352-1...

Absolutely. F* those people.

> I mean, I think we've pretty well established that crime isn't genetic. It's environmental.

In reality, twin studies and adoption studies have shown a large genetic component.

We don't even need twin studies to know this. It must be true unless you're a young-earth creationist. If there wasn't genetic variability in criminality, humans wouldn't have been capable of evolving to be so much less violent than other primates.

(And of course, disparities in male/female behavior is obviously biological.)

> I haven't studied the demographic data at length recently, but fairly sure that your assertion does not hold for high income blacks.

In fact, it does hold in higher income brackets too. And I'd bet whites are more violent than Asians after controlling for income, too.

I'll just say this comment screams "deceptive reasoning" / "flawed use of sources" to me. Triggers my sensors from a mile away.

Like, there is tons of research on this. This isn't up for dispute, except for people who ignore the science.

The gender pay gap is a statistic that requires some nuance to evaluate and I think your analysis is reductive. Yes, if you add in controls it lessens, but why? Why do women as a population have systematically lower levels of work experience? The pay gap is an assessment of how well our society is structured to allow people of both genders economic opportunities.

Shouldn't choosing to raise a family account for the experience gap? Yes, this is an example of one way that we've structured society so that women tend to have fewer career opportunities. IMO, there is not a good reason men (as a demographic) shouldn't be spending an equal amount of time raising children.

> The gender pay gap is a statistic that requires some nuance to evaluate

If only nuance were present when politicians on the left make misleading or false statements like "women (are) paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men".

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jun/21/barack-oba...

> Shouldn't choosing to raise a family account for the experience gap?

Edit: I think I misread your second paragraph. Choosing to raise a family likely does account for the existence of the experience gap, if that's what you mean; but raising a family isn't equivalent to on-the-job experience.

You are not going to find racial activists who deny the first fact. The second "fact" seems to fly over the whole "and other factors". That's the entire point of the statement.

Not sure of your point?

Here are the major factors I've looked at: The previously mentioned (and most significant by far) years of experience (which for many women is affected by having children), hours spent at work, self-rated confidence, (personality trait) agreeableness, etc. etc.

The _entire_ point is that maternity, preconceived biases on women's behavior in the workplace, and expectations of women to do housework are factors that are to be contemplated and analyzed in their systemic causes.

There's a reason why in European countries parental leave is split between both parents and there's effort to make it easier for men to be caretakers.

If women are statistically likely to need to take more time off work than men due to being a parent, then I would argue this is effectively a systemic pay gap. Whether or not that needs fixing is another question but it's totally bizarre to say "if you ignore all the reasons why women are often in positions where they receive less pay that men don't have to deal with, there isn't a gap".

(To be clear: whether or not this pay gap needs addressing is its own question entirely. It makes total sense to me that a woman needs time off to recover from giving birth or from health complications during pregnancy.)

A fetus is a human life.

EDIT: I'd ask for valid science showing a fetus isn't alive, doesn't feel pain, etc., but the science is clear here. The question isn't in the science but in the implications. Like it or not (here... apparently not), the conservative position on abortion had a lot of hard science to back it up.

I agree for hard science, but I see more wishful thinking about society on the "left". A lot of the rhetoric about social justice implicitly hinges on the Blank Slate theory, the assumption that all (groups of) people would, in a vacuum, have exactly the same statistical outcomes. Therefore, all deviations from the average must automatically be a sign of systemic discrimination. When you look at studies, the situation is rarely as clear-cut.

The same is true with the "diversity is strength" mantra, where everyone seems to cite that one feel-good McKinsey study as if that told the full story.

This kind of naivety is not as bad as burning the planet, but at the end of the day, it's still people looking at studies and saying "can't be true".

And I think left has the opposite problem of denial of science by taking it as gospel and trying the most extreme solution possible instead of actually looking at the tradeoffs (let's be clear that the right buries their head in the sand instead of looking at solutions and tradeoffs as well).

Ironic that you would acknowledge bias then commit it yourself. Is the right, or the left, pushing to reject biological science that says XX = female, XY = male?

Hmm. My knee-jerk response is that the example you give is not in any way denialism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clearly it takes more than a dichotomy of chromosomal options to define one's gender. You're drastically oversimplifying "biological science" in order to put forth an example of the left denying scientific fact.

More importantly though, the left's "agenda" with regards to trans people isn't about rejecting medical or scientific consensus on gender. A trans woman's doctor is still going to give her advice tailored to her specific case of being born with a male body. It's about accepting people for who they want to be, and that doesn't clash with any category of facts or knowledge. Implying otherwise is disingenuous.

Depends on if you mean gender or sex. Both sides accept that as sex, but it's more common on the right to improperly accept that they mean the corresponding gender, and it's more common on the left to properly believe that gender is not sex.

I used to think about this in exactly the same way as you do, so despite the wall of text I hold no judgment against you at all. But you are mistaken, and I'll try to explain why (although I'm not sure I'll do the topic of "the epistemology of science" justice in a rambling forum post).

I think you have some misunderstandings about the term "definition", misunderstandings that I certainly used to have. We use this term both in mathematics and the sciences, but only mathematics has true definitions (as in, a logical statement which precisely determines a set). I can define a right angle as the angle that makes all four angles of an intersection of two straight lines equal. We can show that it's a unique value, exactly 90 degrees, and neither 40 degrees nor 89.8 degrees are right angles. Only 90 degrees _exactly_ is a right angle.

By contrast, in other sciences we usually only have categories with fuzzy borders. Take for instance the term "species". Wikipedia says "A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction." But as a definition, in the mathematical sense, this just doesn't work, at all. One obvious shortcoming is that every infertile individual forms a species by itself, by this definition.

But the main shortcoming is that on casual inspection, it looks like it's defining sets of organisms: the set of rabbits, the set of horses, etc. But it is not, because these sets don't exist. Let A0 be a rabbit. A0's parents are themselves rabbits, and the parents of those rabbits were themselves rabbits, and so on. But rabbits haven't existed forever, and at some point we reach an ancestor An of our initial rabbit that we would no longer consider a rabbit: species(An) /= species(A0) (where for all X: species(X) is a set). But this did not happen through some break in continuity: at any point, we would consider an organism and its offspring as belonging to the same species. But then this individual An must be of the same species as A0: species(An) = species(A{n-1}) = ... = species(A0). We have a contradiction.

So strictly logically speaking, this definition is useless. Nevertheless, the concept of species is clearly a useful concept that helps us communicate things about the real world. How do we explain this?

When we'd program a video game which has rabbits in it, we'd probably neatly define some data structure or class named "Rabbit" which simulates the rabbit. But this is not how reality works: we just have a bunch of particles that are interacting which eachother. Crucially, from these particle interactions emerge certain patterns which we can observe. Our concept of "rabbit" is not imposed on the universe from the top down, on the contrary: our brains pick up on recurring patterns in the particle soup around us, and giving these recurring patterns names helps us communicate, and therefore, survive (this is what we call abstraction; I have another long rant on this forum about abstraction, if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24429749). But no two instances of such a pattern are identical, and exactly where one pattern ends and the next begins is somewhat arbitrary. Any strict definition of "rabbit" is doomed to fail.

Think of it as neural net classification: each object in the universe has some "rabbitness" value. The keyboard I'm typing this on has very low rabbitness. A fox has significantly higher rabbitness (it breathes, has four legs, two ears, etc) but still not very high rabbitness. Crucially, rabbitness is completely determined by some distance metric from earlier examples. So rabbitness is determined by _relative_ distance to earlier examples, not by anything absolute. We draw lines, somewhat arbitrarely, in this space and name them to help us communicate (such as: anything over .95 rabbitness is a rabbit). But these names are but tools and different names or different borders can be used in different contexts.

So back to sex/gender. Within the particle soup around us, we recognise the pattern "human" (or any sexually reproducing animal). We notice another pattern in these humans: they seem to fall apart into two categories based on their role in reproduction and physical appearance. We name these categories "male" and "female". But again, the borders are fuzzy and no hard definition can be found. Not all men have penises, there are women with beards, etc. Eventually, we discover DNA and find out that men tend to have XY chromosomes and women XX chromosomes. So do we have our hard definition of gender/sex now? Not at all. Not every person has either XX or XY. There are also "male-presenting" people with XX chromosomes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome).

So attempting to define sex based on chromosomes falls flat, and leads to absurdities. Suppose you become friends with a male-presenting XX, who does not know he has XX chromosomes. He has male genitalia, has identified as male his entire life, and has been addressed as he/him his entire life. Then he gets tested for infertility and finds out he has XX chromosomes, and tells you this. Will you now insist to your friend that he is a woman? Will you insist on adressing him with female pronouns? Does he have to change his gender on his passport?

I would find it absurd, not to mention cruel, to do so. We're in a situation here where it seems more productive to accept that we use overloaded terms to mean different things at different levels of abstraction. Sure, on a genetic level he's "female". But he's male in how society interfaces with him, which is much more relevant to him in most situations. So why not just say "he is male", and only discuss his genetic makeup if and when that is pertinent?

I read your wall of text. You make some interesting points. But I will be honest with you: I also used to think like you, in these long convoluted ways where I was trying to explain everything I saw via programming and all sorts of mathematical extrapolations, and I for a time I believed my own bit. But then I realised: it was all cp and youthful arrogance.

In a nutshell, you are nitpicking. You can always define an arbitrary scale at which nothing matters: you used time in your rabbit example very effectively to discount the usefulness of the "rabbit category". Or you used these XX males as a counter example to a rigid definition of gender. You even yourself realise that this way of thinking is completely useless as you yourself say that the category of species is extremely useful:

> So strictly logically speaking, this definition is useless. Nevertheless, the concept of species is clearly a useful concept that helps us communicate things about the real world. How do we explain this?

I can explain this for you: you are thinking life is logical and "discreet" because you are a programmer and this is what you were taught. It is not: life is... continuous! Like the integral: each point has measure 0 but when you "add" a transfinite amount of 0 measure points you get... non-zero area! This resolves your rabbit paradox: each generation of rabbit is a point with measure 0 since its "difference" is so small with the generation before and after that it we can model it as 0...

Or second model: Rabbit_n = 0.9999 * Rabbit_{n+1}

After 100 generations: similarity is already 0.99

After 1000 generations: similarity is 0.90

After 10000 generations: similarity is 0.36

Tadaa: problem solved. So don't think so hard about this, use your common sense and realise that most people are men and most people are women and a few edge cases do not matter for practical purposes. And this is the crux of the matter: we need to make decisions. Hence we do what you very well describe: we categorise the particle soup around us and we act. So the usefulness of categories/abstractions CAN ONLY EVER BE MEASURED BY THEIR USEFULNESS FOR DECISION MAKING (sorry for caps I but want to emphasize). When I say decision making I mean almost everything: from deciding what sandwich to eat to deciding on how to prove Fermat's last theorem. If categories help you to do things, they are useful. End of story (for me, you can go write a book about this, make sure to send me a free copy).

Finally, this is also all bs so don't take it too seriously: I am a person on the internet.

Here's your free copy :)

> you are thinking life is logical and "discreet" because you are a programmer and this is what you were taught.

Perhaps I did not express myself clearly, but my point is _the exact opposite_! Life is indeed not logical and discreet, as witnessed by the fact that vaguely defined categories are clearly tremendously useful. But these categories become misleading when one makes the mistake of identifying them with logically defined sets (ie when one thinks in logically reductive ways, the style of thinking you attribute to me). This is the mistake that I claim to identify in listenallyall's post.

They make the claim that XX _equals_ female and XY _equals_ male. To be clear, I don't actually think that the statement "men have XY chromosomes and women have XX chromosomes" is wrong or must be qualified every time. It's "mostly right", in the same sense that Newtonian physics is "mostly right", and adequate for most discussions where you're not looking at the edge cases of sex or gender, which is most such discussions.

But when talking about transgender people (it has not been explicitly stated that this is the subject of our discussion, but given the context I think it's fair to assume that it is), we are arguing _exactly about the edge cases_ of the gender categories. listenallyall's argument boils down to: the "male" set and the "female" set are clearly, logically defined by sex chromosomes, therefore there are no edge cases, and (speculating a bit from here on about what their point is) trans people just have to suck it up and stop claiming they are what they are not.

This is an argument based on the assumption that life is logical and discreet, that the universe has some obligation to provide you with neatly defined sets to help you understand the world. My way of showing that this is wrong is by making two arguments:

1) Life is not logical and discreet, as I tried to illustrate with the rabbit example (and I think you and I are making exactly the same point there),

2) If you go along with this discreet, "logical" reasoning, you end up with absurdities (the XX-presenting male example). I think this is where my post perhaps got a bit confusing: I am _not_ arguing for this style of thinking, but I'm going along with it to show that it is unproductive. It is undeniable that if you accept listenallyall's argument, you must either insist that a male-presenting XX is actually a woman, or be logically inconsistent.

A far more useful way to see gender is like the rabbit example. You have a bunch of sex-related characteristics which are bimodally distributed, and from that you can have a "maleness" and "femaleness" value for every person. How you weight individual variables (like "broadness of shoulders") is a bit arbitrary. Sex chromosomes are just one variable among many in this equation, with no special status. In fact, they are for most discussions probably one of the least relevant factors, as evidenced by the fact that we got by with our "male" and "female" categories for millennia without even knowing about chromosomes, and in everyday life our views of sex and gender don't seem to be particularly informed by chromosomes. We can then move on and treat gender as a "duck typed" property: if someone presents as a certain gender, refers to themselves as a certain gender, etc, they are that gender.

In conservative circles, statements like "gender is a social construct" are basically a meme, a clear proof that progressives are detached from reality. To be clear, I'm not sure I fully agree with that statement either. But for _decision making_, this is clearly a more productive view than "gender = chromosomes". I have XY chromosomes (I think) and a penis, but this is for most practical purposes much less relevant than the fact that I interact with society through the "male" interface (although I appreciate that I can use urinals). Why should I be not be free to choose which interface to interact through?

The progressive argument to treat transgender people as their preferred gender is the stronger argument for any sort of practical decision making: to refuse to do so causes needless suffering in people who have done no wrong. Insisting that a trans woman is actually a man, should be treated as a man, should be referred to with male pronouns, etc, makes the lives of these people significantly worse, and makes no one else's life better. It is also no different than insisting a male-presenting XX is a woman, which I think is also obviously cruel.

The only conservative argument I've ever heard against this is based on precisely the reductive thinking you attribute to me: to insist that one variable (chromosomes) out of many is not just more heavily weighted than what is justifiable for any practical purpose, but actually _strictly defines_ gender, ignoring _all other factors_. They then throw themselves up as champions of science and reason, because clearly progressives are detached from reality. This style of thinking is both wrong (as in, it leads to inconsistencies and is based on a high school level understanding of science and epistemology) and unproductive (you don't gain anything in terms of practical decision making).

> Finally, this is also all bs so don't take it too seriously: I am a person on the internet.

No worries, I enjoy these kinds of discussion, otherwise I wouldn't spend any time on it. But I can't help but take it somewhat seriously too. The outcome of this debate doesn't affect me very much, but there are people whose lives will be worse if "my side" loses the debate.

> it was all cp and youthful arrogance.

What is "cp"?

How do we reunite then?

If we are constantly going on about how bad one side is (fwiw, I basically agree with you about that), then it will only lead to more division and resentment. Based on my in group's behavior, it seems like most people who believe this think that continuing to publicly shame and wag fingers at the other side is how we get to a better world. And it so clearly is not.

I'm frustrated by this, but also truly searching for solutions or alternative explanations.

Simple solution is to not try to "solve" anything. Just be accepting of people who hold different opinions. I'm sure you would be tolerant of someone who believes Mohammed was the messenger of God. Nutty beliefs don't get much more serious than that when you consider the content of those messages.

Good points, and I largely agree with you. My "both sides" observation was more to do with how I see so many people willing to disown each other in our individual lives', not so much about broader policies. There is no common ground to be found between believing or not believing in science. But there is common ground for us as individuals to see the humanity in each other.

> Yes, if you're red/republican/conservative/right, you're voting for those things, you're signing off on them.

I wish I were able to convey this better to some stubborn family members. The argument I hear is that they are voting for partial representation of their conservative values, and they are aware of the downsides of this choice. But I don't buy it. I think they are undervaluing the negative costs of that vote, or completely ignoring them.

> Only one side denies medical consensus on vaccines

You’re incorrect about this one AFAIK. From the Safety of Childhood MMR Vaccine section of [0]:

> There are no differences between party groups about this issue. Moderates are a bit more likely than either conservatives or liberals to say that childhood vaccines are generally safe.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/07/01/chapter-5-pub...

That's talking about voters, not candidates.

Totally agreed. The biggest problem in the political discussion is false equivalency.

If one side doesn't believe in truth, facts and science, and the other side defends them as fundamental to everything... than those are not equivalent positions.

This has been largely a one-sided war on decency. Don't kill the messenger.

The disabled reporter example isn't what it seems. Trump had done that identical style of mocking to many non-disabled individuals before doing it to the disabled individual, most likely he didn't even know the reporter was disabled, it was just a way that Trump mocks people. The media framed it as though Trump was specifically picking on his disability even though this historical context (which they omitted on purpose) makes that explanation unlikely.

This is, of course, no defence of Trump's behavior in this instance.

maybe it has something to do with career war-mongers and sanctioneers campaigning on their 'decency' or pathological liars who waged a vindictive, no holds barred war against whistleblowers espousing themselves to be defenders of the 'truth'

i do not have to like or support trump to think that joe biden is a lifelong robber barron and his return to normalcy will be marked by suffering around the world and absolute blindness towards the the deaths of despair happening within our own country.

Well said. The “both sides” thinking only serves to take us even more the tipping point of a scale that’s been moved FAR too much to the extreme right. America isn’t a left/right nation anymore - it’s a far far right and center nation.

What really saddens me is that both sides recognize this problem in their opposition but never in their side. Or if they do recognize it, it's quickly hand-waved away because when their side does it, it's for the "greater good". The political double standards keep reaching new heights.

When people focus on the details of strategies for success in facing our shared problems it is relatively easy to test ideas and get people from all political views on board with effective solutions. When people focus on identifying and criticizing enemies it turns people off, builds barriers, and prevents the generation and spread of effective strategies for facing shared challenges.

I feel like a big reason for the divide is the filter bubbles[1] the public has trapped themselves in. I wanted to force myself to read news from both sides of the divide rather than simply NPR, which was my go-to source for several years. In spite of RSS readers being essentially dead, there are still RSS feeds available. So I mashed up feeds from 10 left and right leaning sources each and created Smash the Bubble[2], mostly for personal consumption.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

[2]https://smashthebubble.com/

I have tried to do the same, signing up for the Flip Side newsletter, among other things. I think it’s still hard for me, an over-educated progressive, to understand the American right. Here are the problems:

1. Reality is often only reported in “liberal” news sources. A lot of information is censored on right wing sources.

2. Both types of news sources editorialize in the headline. Sometimes it’s hard to know they even refer to the same story.

3. People trying to achieve balance in reporting often relocate players onto the wrong team. For example, the Mueller report is not a “left wing” document and balance is not achieved by putting Mueller against a Trump surrogate.

4. “Liberal” sources already include plenty of right wing opinions. For example, David Brooks and Ross Douthat write for the New York Times. There’s no equivalent among the Wall St Journal columnists or Fox News hosts.

5. News stories found only in right wing sources are usually mendacious. For example, reporting about the Michigan ballot glitch without mentioning that it was human error and corrected before reporting the results.

Fundamentally, it’s not that we have differing information, it’s that we only accept information that confirms our world view. I can read dozens of articles written from the point of view that universal health care will destroy the country and not one will ever resonate with me. It’s just too silly to me.

> For example, David Brooks and Ross Douthat write for the New York Times. There’s no equivalent among the Wall St Journal columnists or Fox News hosts.

I used to think that too but it's not true. Example: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/president-elect-joe-biden-to...

I just took a peak at the comments underneath the article — saying it was wild would be an understatement.

Indeed I feel the same.

I am liberal who do read conservative newspapers regularly. The amount of lies in conservative papers is astonishing. Not bias, not choosing topics, but flat out lies.

I think that they see their role to push for their side and have zero ideological commitment to any semblance of anything else. Do you get sleepy Biden in clear stage of dementia, again and again.

Note that I an not claiming journals should be objective. They can't. Just that there are more lines to cross. And frankly, liberal journals do go out of their way to extend empathy to "other side" more often.

I do this over in the UK, I read a selection of newspapers with different agenda's and if a story catches my interest I go look at wikipedia if it has an article, if it's a "Science says"/"Study says" I go look at the abstract of the study.

It's really hard to get a balance look at the news when everything has it's own slant but it's worth the effort I think to understand the nuance.

Looks like a read-worthy site. Are you planning to add a RSS feed to it?

nice website friend. it'd be nice if i could see which domain you're taking the article from without having to hover over the link

Yes. Probably the worst thing about this election for me is that it seems to demonstrate conclusively that 2016 was no aberration, no temporary mass hysteria, no failed experiment in electing a political outsider to “drain the swamp”. This distorted world view of us-vs-them tribalism seems to have totally consumed our political system. Objective reality is dismissed by the majority of the population—most blatantly on the right, but also, increasingly, on the left. Even more shocking to me, highly regarded election data scientists have twice now somehow been blinded to this, releasing poll after poll that fail to capture what is actually happening in the minds of the electorate.

Carl Sagan, in his 1995 book ‘The Demon-Haunted World’, wrote:

> I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The moment he prophesied now appears to be upon us. I don’t know how we can restore this country to one where people mostly act in good faith and try to base decisions in science and fact. I see so many incredibly compassionate people supporting the most despicable politicians. Right-wingers on Twitter repeating false talking points that the left are trying to destroy the country while tweeting about how proud they are of local youth offering free lawn care to disabled and senior citizens. Left-wingers openly insulting rural and conservative people as the scum of the earth while relentlessly supporting policies intended to improve those same peoples’ lives. How does this happen? What do we have to do—as individuals, as nations, as humans—to get it to stop?

There was this really good take on this divide by Andrew Yang a few days ago on CNN [clip from Twitter - 0]. Yang is the only candidate I saw who seemed to understand people from all parts of the US. Also, it would have been nice to have a president who understood technology.

[0] - https://twitter.com/KySportsRadio/status/1324552953861210112

If only Yang himself understood technology. His blockchain voting proposal was hilariously bad.

The details of Yang's blockchain proposal may be off, but the basic idea that we could really use a strongly secured voting system and that a blockchain or other three column ledger accounting could be a part of that is sound.

He does understand VC though? Just add blockchain to the name and get all the funding

I prefer candidates that don't think they understand technology.

Thinking you understand technology seems to reliably lead to overconfidence. That's better left to advisers, who then have their advice filter by people who are sceptical of things that aren't tried and true and well understood on the holistic basis of actual use in practice.

I was talking to a US expat this afternoon. Besides the congratulations and commenting the expectations for the new administration we reflected on the damage the last 30-40 years of propaganda for individualism have made.

Individuals, their inner world and potential are very important, but you have systematically mortified the importance - and the “evolutionary advantage” - of the human societal organization.

Over optimization for the hedonistic “self bootstrapped” man turned most of you - that don’t have the strength, but most likely the luck, to be Randian heroes - into the exact opposite: submissive corporate drones.

It’s time to lay the groundwork for long term change, isn’t it?

Yes, the basic human societal unit is the tribe, as evidenced by Dunbar’s number. Within tribes, interconnected extended families used to facilitate the social cohesion. In the US, both the small-scale society and the extended family have been harmed by atomizing and dispersing people for mostly economic reasons.

this is absolutely incorrect. there is literally 0 reason to dispersing your family for economic reasons. It is always cheaper to cohabitate and long term care facilities are extremely expensive.... Especially in the US.

I very strongly agree with this. All of us need to talk, avoid judgement and just understand one another better.

A higher degree of basic solidarity will help us a lot.

Absolutely not. Every society that denies individualism or prefers collectivism finds itself sooner than later in misery.

There you go again, where’s subtlety gone in this world?!

There you go again, where’s subtlety gone in this world?!

Thanks for this perspective.

Or the employee of a sprawling corporation with a family to feed, a mortgage to pay, a family health plan to pay, college and university for their children to pay. Tell me someone that is more beholden to their master than these modern peasants. Yet their daily delusion is to be as free as Bezos could dream of.

housing, education, and healthcare were cheap until the federal government got involved.

you can make an exception for healthcare because of tech improvements, but the others are true.

lol what you are describing is responsibility. not slavery.

yes, it is a responsibility to have a house for your family, to keep food on the table, and to work for their education.

if you don't provide those things and rely on the government to provide them, what good are you? why bother to work?

you are a slave. or better stated you're a willing sacrifice. to your body and to the people you love. deal with it or rely on charity.

life isnt free. but it seems like you think union members have a life free of these ignorant and unimportant realities.

not many public companies ask for a 35 year work tenure and your nonstop political loyalty.

That's your problem there, the patronizing "life's a bitch now get back to work". Sure it's difficult and it takes effort and good will. But damn dude, I never said one should have all for free - that's a childish simplification. I'm arguing nobody deserves to live under the Damocles' sword of having their life thrown under the bus for a mishap, or an accident.

We have enough resources to do without homo homini lupus. enough

I described the life experience of caring for the people you love as a good thing.

you described it as "bitch now get back to work"

we aren't arguing about the possibility of insurance ruining your bank account.

as if the childish simplification isn't that when you're a union you're not beholden to some greater master.

We’re talking past each other so badly it hurts...

I've engaged with you on numerous points. you've ignored them all, and have never offered an alternative logical viewpoint.

you're talking past me, and almost bragging that I have asked you questions you're ignoring.

This sounds like an only having 2 parties problem, rather than a union problem

It's not like the tech entrepreneurs are from the same class as people who are in unions. The ability to take on risk to start a business is an economic privilege, so what's the point of this comparison? Rich people have more freedom in capitalism than poor people. Is that controversial?

It seems like the divide comes from an escalating fixation on having your side win, rather than doing the best for the country. As each side focuses more on winning even at the expense of public good, the other side has to ratchet up to match it to get any input at all.

I sort of feel like we're in that old tale where king Solomon says they should cut the baby in two, and both sides are like "ok, I'll take my half of the baby, then."

Ultimately, though, I personally blame the extreme right wing, mostly. I think they're dying, and they're not going down without a fight, like, you know, disinformation, bullying, holding the country hostage metaphorically, whatever. If they're going down, the whole system's going down with them.

I personally subscribe to the idea that week need to kill the self serving two party duopoly[0]

Part of the problem is the candidates the parties are fielding. I know lots of people who view trump, clinton and biden as corrupt. None of them are good candidates.

0. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/politics-industry/

Killing the two party duopoly requires significant constitutional changes to how elections are held. One way to do that would be ranked choice voting as implemented in e.g. Maine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting_in_the_Un...).

However, the key point is that such a system would mainly benefit a potential third party, but any changes to the system need to be agreed upon by the current representatives whose interests and reelection would be hurt by such a change.

Trudeau lost my vote by not going for this in canada, but the problems did hilight that there's a lot of alternatives and choosing a specific replacement is hard.

Most agree that FPTP is bad, but nobody agrees on what to replace it with

Just pick a major one, they're all good in similar ways.

From the perspective of a European outsider, I very much agree. A lot of problems seem to stem from the two party system.

I'm just wondering if there is a good way for a strong third (and fourth and fifth...) party to form under the current system? Are there any good examples from other countries making that transition, and can they be applied in the US as well?

New Zealand switched from a mostly 2 party first past the post system to a proportional multiparty (usually) coalition system about 25 years ago. We would also end up with governments that won the most seats but lost the popular vote.

IMO we have had much better quality governments since from either end of the spectrum. We had a notorious populist authoritarian in the 70s and early 80s, and I don't see those days coming back.

In a "First past the post" electoral system, It's always more advantageous for the 3rd party to merge with the first or second party.

New Zealand changed away from First Past the Post to Mixed Member Proportional in order to fix that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...

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

I'm not sure how you'd implement it, particularly at the senate level.

The current system is game-theory-stable given the conditions of the USA structure of first-past-the-post. You can look at the historical third parties in USA - a third party can form and gain power (with great difficulty) but then it pretty much immediately displaces one of the two parties, so you're back to a two-party system just with different two parties.

> From the perspective of a European outsider, I very much agree. A lot of problems seem to stem from the two party system.

I used to think the same way, but many (most?) countries in Europe end up having coalitions anyway, so you end up really having just two blocks. More parties might give you the option to choose a party that is more after your taste, but in reality you (often) end up with coalitions that take most ideas from the strongest party within the coalition.

I would assume the same thing would happen within the Democratic/Republican Party in the States as well, i.e. a compromise between the left/right wings within these parties based on what is shared by most members(?)

Not really. The blocks change, especially in close elections without true winners. Then negotiations happen and smaller parties often make concessions on the grand scheme of things to get their key issues through.

So, much more compromise than division. This comes back to the voters also. On every divisive topic you have a number of viewpoints instead of two polar opposites.

The issue with that is that you can end up with ineffective 'rainbow coalition' governments. It can also give Independents far too much power since they can threaten to collapse a coalition at any time.

Duverger's law has a lot of redundancy in our current system. If you implement something like IRV on the state level for presidential elections without handling the Electoral College, then you've just further increased the odds of Republican presidencies.

Why Republican presidencies?

Good question. Because it will increase the probability of Electoral Votes going to third parties. That decreases the probability of any candidate reaching an outright majority of Electoral Votes. A plurality of Electoral Votes is not enough; it has to be a majority.

Without a majority, the election is decided by the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets one vote, where each vote is determined by a majority of that state's delegation.

And there, the Republicans have a built-in advantage similar to their Senate advantage, as every state is guaranteed at least one representative regardless of population. Even after the Democratic House victory in 2018, Republicans still had the majority of 26 state federal delegations.

I honestly believe this is just a return to normal for both sides. Conservatism, before being injected with neoliberalism by Thatcher and Reagan, has been about leaving other countries alone while focusing on protecting American interests. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Conservatives have never wanted US hegemony traditionally. Preservation of Bretton Woods has had to be a focus post-WWII in order to combat the spread of anti-American communism. Now that the Cold War has ended, conservatives have tried to find a way back to focusing on American interests. It’s a delicate balance that has to be struck though. I think this is also the reason for the split in the Democratic Party. “Establishment” members are focused on preserving the neoliberal Bretton Woods status quo. The progressives are focused on doing away with the oligarchy that system has created and moving towards a more socialistic global society.

I believe this is really just a return to the way things used to be, before the US decided to intervene in WWII and had to find a way to pay for the massive cost of that. Conservative and liberal are not opposites like everybody thinks these days. Conservative and progressive are opposites. Liberal and authoritarian are opposites. Both parties are (or should be) focused on the American ideal of liberalism and representative government chosen by the people while either preserving traditional values or advocating for enlightenment values.

However, real life is not that cut and dry, politics are messy, parties don’t fall exactly along these lines and the media plays a part in dictating who should believe what. But in general I think Trump is an indicator that we’re headed for a more traditional alignment of values. Who knows, perhaps a viable third party will emerge from this. A Conservative party, a progressive party, and a Bretton Woods establishment party.

> I honestly believe this is just a return to normal for both sides. Conservatism, before being injected with neoliberalism by Thatcher and Reagan, has been about leaving other countries alone while focusing on protecting American interests. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Conservatives have never wanted US hegemony traditionally. Preservation of Bretton Woods has had to be a focus post-WWII in order to combat the spread of anti-American communism. Now that the Cold War has ended, conservatives have tried to find a way back to focusing on American interests. It’s a delicate balance that has to be struck though. I think this is also the reason for the split in the Democratic Party. “Establishment” members are focused on preserving the neoliberal Bretton Woods status quo. The progressives are focused on doing away with the oligarchy that system has created and moving towards a more socialistic global society.

I would agree, to some extent, if Trump wasn't the Conservative candidate. Trump has flouted the law to the extent that very, very few American Presidents have. Where I was afraid that Obama was passing too many Executive Orders, Trump outright tried to rule by Executive Order fiat. Conservative parties pre-Bretton Woods were certainly isolationist and domestic-first, but also had a deep affection for the rule of law. I would oppose a traditionally conservative party politically, but would not be nearly as negative about it as I am about a President that seems to want to actively subvert rule of law.

I believe your second sentence should end as, "has been about focusing on protecting American interests while leaving other [more powerful] countries alone."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America%E2%80%93United_S...

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

What surprises me is how politicised American teenagers have become nowadays. I'm a (European) Millenial, and when I was 14 neither I nor my peers had any faith or interest in politics. Have a look on Reddit, where most of the population is US-based teenagers: in that place politics has infected every single discussion. /r/The_Donald was a bunch of angry teenagers.

Meh, I must have become a cynical grumpy old person: to me politics has always been a game for rich, old people.

I mean, at least on the surface, things seemed pretty optimistic in the late 1980s through the 1990s, from what I remember. It wasn’t a utopia, but it’s easy to see how there would be less pressure for young people to be involved in politics.

The Cold War ended and the USSR peacefully dissolved, democracy was ascendant, the Good Friday Agreement ended The Troubles, East and West Germany reunified, the Schengen Area and the Eurozone were established, the International Space Station opened an era of international cooperation in peaceful space exploration, life expectancy was up, disposable income was up, new and amazing technologies were developed at record pace, substantially improved treatments for fatal conditions like HIV and cancer were entering the market, we’d nearly cracked the human genome, we’d made great progress in eradicating infectious diseases, people around the world were being lifted out of poverty, crime was down, the Western economy was strong. The world seemed less divided and closer together than ever.

Today, tensions between superpowers are up. Russia and North Korea have renewed the threat of nuclear armed conflict. The UK exited the EU. There’s an obesity crisis. Many of our amazing technologies have turned out to be terribly unhealthy and destabilising. Authoritarianism is on the rise, along with domestic and sectarian terrorism. The Western economy was shattered in 2008 and now there’s a global pandemic. Immigrants fleeing instability in other countries have led to political upheaval and conflict. The US became an unreliable ally. And, above all, the existential threat of climate change looms over their entire future.

Maybe people just got bored? Maybe they don't like peace after all?

> Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades.

> Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner.

-Orwell

It could be you were just checked out. I certainly paid quite a bit of attention during the Bush years. (When I was a teenager) I wouldn’t say many of my peers paid as much attention but I grew up in a very conservative and rural area.

I did pay attention during the Bush era as well, I remember buying my first newspaper when US invaded Afghanistan. The point is none of us had any faith in those old farts. We wanted change and none of the parties represented change, they actually were the status quo to fight against.

Now it's like hope for a better, radically different world has just disappeared. It's with us or against us. There's no third choice.

I think it depends on how threatened you felt growing up. I grew up quite poor, and politics was a big part of my teenage years, because there weren't very many legitimate paths to stability or success where I grew up in the US. Friends I made as an adult who grew up in the more traditional upper-middle class milleu that make up Silicon Valley tech company rank-and-file were much more apolitical at that age.

Devolution of power is a solution to the polarisation. The division in the country is real and deep and in some places inconsolable, rather than just a media mirage. Rather than increasingly violent competition for the presidential office or the federal government, a more flexible union is probably a sane idea.

The US faces no threat of being conquered, it has the most powerful military and intelligence capacity in the world by a healthy margin. Insofar as foreign interference creates division, it's precisely the lack of decentralisation that makes these attacks dangerous.

From what I see, the polarization is continuing to grow, and with Trump grabbing 70 million votes even when his gov failed majestically at beating the virus, the next few years is going to ne interesting.

Most people I know are happy and celebrating, but I can't seem to get that worked up. Certainly I'm glad Trump lost, but the 70M votes he got, and the fact that this was a close election... man, this country is screwed long term if we can't figure out a way to find some common ground and listen to each other. Being at each other's throats all the time will only destroy us all in the long run.

Is the problem really listening? The conservatives of america are ignoring facts and making up their own reality. They ignore science and reason.

What can you listen to? You can't have a reasonable debate when one side if just making things up.

Abortion is science, climate change is science, race and gender differences are proven facts.

Edit:instead of downvoting me explain what's wrong? Wtf. So much for listening...

I think Trump appeals to some of the middles too. E.g. the "losers" of globalization. They are definitely not (all) radical right.

The thing is, Trump is just a symptom of some disease which the country has been suffering for many years. I'd say it's a mix of a lot of things, e.g. the decline of scientific education + decline of the middle class + a lot of other things.

Reagan and the republicans have hollowed out public education, and that's what the closeness of the race is a symptom of, I think.

We need to funnel money back into public education; the next generation is our only hope.

What do you do then? It's not listening or at least not a conversation if you need to educate someone one. Explain why they're not actually losers how they are in fact benefiting.

I don’t have a good answer, but I do have an idea. The next time you face this situation, instead of jumping to give information that you would need to know in order for you to believe what you are saying, ask the other person instead: “What would need to be true in order for you to believe X?”

While I’ve often found that people can’t handle this question and just disengage, if you do get an answer, then you can actually try to say what they need to hear. They may move the goalposts after getting an answer, but it’s better than wasting time throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.

al gore is the worst thing that ever happened to environmentalism.

> race and gender differences are proven facts

This sounds like a much more conservative opinion than perhaps you intended.

Ouch whoops, yeah I mean differences like wage gap, effects of racism after generations

> yeah I mean differences like wage gap

...has actually been disproven more than it's been proven. Or rather, proven to be caused by things other than discrimination, as "wage gap" is meant to imply.

Scientifically, you were also right the first time.

I guess technically...

> Abortion is science

No, to me it is ethics!

Edit, added: Killing an innocent child does not have anything to do with science.

I dont see the point of hoisting the rights of the unborn and the undead over those unfortunate enough to be living through 2020.

Ethics has nothing to do with defining what life is or what human is.

And a fetus is a human life. A person does not get redefined based on their location. What science is there that defends the right to an abortion?

Why do you feel a fetus is a human life? What does location have to do with it?

A fetus isn't viable until week 20ish. Even then it won't survive outside the mothers body. 1% of abortions happen after week 20.

About 90% of abortions happen before week 13. It's not even a fetus at this point. The body it self might abort still at this point, this is when mis carriages happen.

Why do you feel an unviable collection of cells is a human?

> Why do you feel a fetus is a human life?

Because it is human, and it is alive.

It is human, in the sense that it is descended from humans and is not dog or a dandelion or a caterpillar. It has human genetic code. It is one continuous line from the merge of two human sex cells to full-grown human. There is no jump, somewhere along the way, from not human to human.

It is alive. A plant is alive, so surely so is a fetus.

> A fetus isn't viable until week 20ish.

Whether it is viable doesn't determine whether it is human or alive. A two-year-old outside the womb isn't very viable either. In fact, some 20-year-olds aren't very viable.

Viability is shaky ground upon which to base legal protection. Just think of the handicapped or those with other chronic maladies. Or any of us can become unviable temporarily through some accident or acute illness. Does our right to life disappear?

> Why do you feel an unviable collection of cells is a human

A "collection of cells" does not describe a fetus any better than an adult.

- At about 18 days, there is a heartbeat

- At about 40 days, there is brain activity

- By the end of the first trimester, it has all its organs. It just needs to grow.

"Photography of the human fetus developing in the womb": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD1gW88Lm-Y

> What does location have to do with it?

Inside the womb or outside the womb, its location seems to be the dimension used by those who say abortion is okay.

That's not what a human is. These things have names, zygotes, embryos, fetus. None of these are living humans yet. They're pre humans. collection of cells without an identity or awareness. Simplest of brain function where they might only respond to stimulus.

The difference between fetus and infants is the first is still attached to its mother. Its continued growth depends on its attachment to mother. Similar to a tumor.

I don't think you actually understand what you are talking about if you are confused about the term viability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viability

Your link to photos means you are forming your opinion based off emotion and not understanding the difference between cells splitting, and what a independent human is.

At what point do you think the sperm and egg are human? Even the first split after they join is still just two cells.

What proof do you have that says a fetus at 16 weeks is alive? How are you defining alive?

> it has all its organs. It just needs to grow.

This is still dependent on the mother, it is not its own thing at this point.

> That's not what a human is. These things have names, zygotes, embryos, fetus.

Yes, and they are all human, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human

> None of these are living humans yet. They're pre humans.

Citation needed.

> without an identity or awareness

That is pretty easily disproven scientifically. Not even a biologist who is for legal abortion would say that a baby in the womb is unaware. There was an ultrasound a long time ago where you see the fetus recoil from the abortionist's knife. Of course it's aware. Just because it can't see the outside world yet doesn't mean it's unaware.

As far as identity, well, it has a unique fingerprint, DNA, etc. Are you saying you don't have an identity until there's a birth certificate?

> At what point do you think the sperm and egg are human?

Well, they are human from inception (see above). But they are a separate human being at conception.

> What proof do you have that says a fetus at 16 weeks is alive? How are you defining alive?

Even a single cell is alive. You have drifted from textbook science at this point.

> This is still dependent on the mother

Dependence doesn't disqualify you from being human or alive.

Awareness and consciousness is different then responding to stimulus.

> Even a single cell is alive. You have really drifted from textbook science at this point.

We're not talking about human cells being alive. were talking about the whole organism being considered alive and its own thing.

Talking about whether an organism that can not exist independently of its host, that hasn't experienced life yet can be aborted by that host.

It feels like your being disingenuous arguing semantics like cell life with me. Yes cells are live, no the organism is not an independent thing with its own rights. An nonviable fetus is not a fully grown human, this isn't killing babies.

> Awareness and consciousness is different then responding to stimulus.

This is not some clump of cells that "responds to stimulus" before birth and magically becomes "conscious and aware" after birth. It doesn't even line up with fetal viability.

> We're not talking about human cells being alive. were talking about the whole organism being considered alive and its own thing.

The whole organism is alive and its own thing from conception. This is undisputed among biologists.

How reliable is the science you are referencing? 50 years ago "Science" predicted an ice age. Recently it's Climate Change. 50 years from now Science will predict we're all doomed from something else. I am not against Science, but a lot of things that pass as Science isn't Science at all. In fact, some of what passes as Science seems more like a Religion.

There is only one race, the human race. There are differences between ethnic groups, but we are all created in God's image because we're all descended from Adam. I don't know anyone who seriously thinks there are no differences with gender? Except maybe some gender confused professors at my University, but that aside does anyone who is sane really think they are the same? Man and Woman, while having physical deferences, different roles, and responisbilities, are nonethless equal before God.

I don't know what you mean by Abortion is science, but I do know that it is wrong because it's killing an innocent human being.

Science is iterative, there's a process to it. It's unreasonable to expect to be perfectly right the first time. But that is still a better effort then any one else is trying. There is logic and visible proof of climate change happening and effecting our world.

I explained my poor wording somewhere else in this thread.

Why do you feel an unviable collection of cells is a human life? It has no thought, that is what makes us human. At that point its a collection of cells leaching off the mother

So I'm saying we shouldn't fully trust in the areas of science that are likely to be wrong, especially those affected by finding, bias or groupthink. Climate change is one of those areas. The climate has been changing since the Creation of the world. God has promised that He will give us seasons and the ability to plant and reap for as long as the earth remains. (Genesis 8:22). That doesn't mean the climate won't change, maybe it will be bad for some parts of the world and good for others. But I do know we have God's promise for seasons and He has kept that promise every year for over 4300 years. He's not going to break His promise. I'm also not saying we shouldn't be good stewards of earth. We need to rule over it and take care of it. But we don't need to be worried about this planet becoming uninhabitable because of climate change, man made or natural.

Humananity is not defined by the ability to think. Even before the first thought the human embryo is not just a collection of cells. It's a distinct organism. It is dependent on the mother but those cells are independent in the sense that it directs itself on how to form. If you could remove an embryo from the womb and give it a good environment and nutrients it would form just the same. The unborn baby isn't slowly assembled out of parts to make a whole, the embryo is already functioning, it's a distinct human life. It is already human. If you define humanity by thought would you say a 3 year old is less human than a 10 year because their thoughts are less complex? What about when you're sleeping, are you less human when you're unconscious? Humanity is also not defined by it's viability. Is a wounded soldier who will die without life support all of a sudden less human or less valuable because his life depends on an outside source?

The embryo is a distinct human being that can direct it's own formation. It is separate from the mother's cells. And that is why it is a human life.

Yeah reminds me of the previous 20s and 30s when the great depression brings about the rise of polarized left and right and things only got turned around when WW2 broke out...

frsnkly i think economic populism that doesn't generate wealth for urban corporatists by desiccating the entire center of the country, combined with a cultural outlook that is not openly adversarial to people who don't listen to npr would be pretty unifying.

but instead we keep running referendums on failed obama policies combined with the sociocultural neurosis of overmedicated grad students while trying to pretend all of that is not the whitest shit imaginable.

Practically all western governments failed majestically.

Germany is doing quite okay.

Oh, really? As a direct neighbor, I hadn't noticed.

As a direct neighbor from the opposite side (Czech republic), I think they handled it well so far. They don't have a high rate of death per capita, maintained a level of alertness during this summer, and went to a partial lock down only this Monday. Of course I think that Denmark, Norway and Finland handled it better, but those are tiny countries, which makes it hard to compare with US.

Interestingly, tech workers are responsible for such a resilient divide. Tech workers, the most numerous demographic on this thread, are the ones coding up the bubbles or creating and maintaining their infrastructure.

The purpose of the bubbles is to keep you clicking or pressing. The purpose of that is to deliver ads or sell premium services. If uncomfortable views are presented a user may click or press out of the service. Those uncomfortable views are not to be confused with click bait allowed to drive bubble responses.

No use blaming the architects or company leaders. If you are coding it up, maintaining the infrastructure, or providing auxiliary support to the bubble, you are responsible. The companies making the bubbles can't do it without you, and you are the one actually making it happen.

how would you design away filter bubbles though? people actively seek out agreement and avoid argument even when there are no filters and barely any moderation like still begets like, see the split between /pol/ and /leftypol/.

I absolutely agree with you and I think we've gotten ourselves into a state where the "fix" (whatever it may be) will be so unpalatable to either party or to anybody who wants to survive in a political environment that it'll be impossible to implement.

For example, want to bring manufacturing jobs back?

1. Implement trade-protectionist tariffs and import restrictions.

2. Unionize rural workforces to make the pay and work conditions attractive.

3. Offer massive tax incentives to build manufacturing centers in rural states.

4. Reinstitute a manufacturing oriented education system that outputs ready-to-work trained trade employees.

The parties are too far apart now to be able to put in place something like this.

Build strong international relationships.

Open the gates for immigration.

Work with allies to impose extreme tariffs on China.

Build manufacturing in India, Mexico, Vietnam, and Africa. Own the shipping.

Offer US statehood to Taiwan and keep the South China Sea open to all US Allies. Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc.

Congratulations, you just proposed the exact opposite.

I don't think your plan works. US manufacturing is too expensive without extensive automation. And automation won't feed workers.

We need to protect our lead in tech and information and attack China's chances of leapfrogging us. Protect our industries, protect democracy. Build up our allies. Build a stronger world.

The risk is that China becomes better than us at everything we do. Then what do we have? Being protectionist is anti-growth. Industry and innovation shut down.

A new cold war is coming. The sooner we get ahead of it, the better prepared we'll be.

The future is knowledge work. Manufacturing domestically is regressive. We need to put the supply chain in the hands of our developing allies.

We shouldn't want to train anyone to do menial jobs anyway. We're about to enter an era where we'll have plenty of creative, knowledge jobs for everyone.

But you still haven't brought manufacturing jobs back.

They're gone and they're not coming back. We don't want them back. These are repetitive, menial jobs that no human should have to do. The only way we want them back is if they're fully automated.

We need to protect and expand knowledge work.

knowledge work isn't gonna stop midwesterners and coal miners from od'ing on heroin.

and congratulations you've also missed the point of this thread.

2-4 would have a plurality of support in the country, And with that, bipartisan support.

They can also be done without isolationism, but probably not without redistributing the wealth that has concentrated in the hands of the 0.1% over decades (under both parties) back into the general population.

#2 would never receive Republican party support.

I think the events of the past week have really highlighted the divide, or rather the gaping chasm. And it's a gulf that seeks almost impossible to bridge, any time soon at least - it encompasses race, education, financial status, social class, even history.

Trump's actions this week have been utterly shameful. He and his cronies have lied and lied in an organised effort to sow discontent among the huge segment of republicans that appear to believe their every word (regardless of how baseless or ridiculous they may be).

It seems like such a blatant attempt to subvert democracy - the kind of thing we'd expect in a tinpot dictatorship, not the "land of the free". This is not only shameful, but downright dangerous, especially with the level of gun ownership in the US.

As a European, it seemed utterly incomprehensible how he has been able to get away with his actions, inactions and lies over the past few years - and I have not the words to describe how incomprehensible it is that many of his supporters are behind the past week's events.

was al gore utterly shameful when he contested florida? the prevailing attitude among liberals ever since is that he never should've conceded, that the bushes and the courts stole the election.

This divide is a business plan, not an organic phenomenon. If you want advertising revenue, you must build a cult of fanatical viewers/clickers. We won't solve this until we deal with advertising as a revenue stream for media.

Also realize that may not be possible. Regardless of who won this, half of the country does not approve. So the division you speak of has already occurred. Probably earlier than now. I could imagine a time when a Roman said the same thing you did there. "let's unite" and then the eventual collapse happens. I don't really see "conquer" in the normal sense, but the U.S. will be weaker and other countries will surely gain as a result of our division. Then I think I need to get out of here, and I wonder where I would go in the world? In the end, I agree with your sentiment. It's disturbing. The polarization is palpable. M

Political pluralism in other democratic countries seems to do a good job of countering this trend. When there's only two parties they are free to drift to ideological extremes, without other parties being able to take up the center.

US social discourse shows that people don't understand how to debate and how to negotiate with opposing views for a better outcome. These are merely group behaviours and they can change with time and education.

I feel that the first structural steps must be

1./ Replace First Past the Post (it distorts the will of the people) with some version of ranked balloting (already in use in at least one US state)

2./ Dissolve or fix/improve the Electoral College

> We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us.

Pardon, but isn't USA already divided approx. 50/50?

From the outside (I'm from Norway), I can't even believe how shit the US politics is.

It used to be that reps from both sides of the isle would come together on things. Think John McCain not voting to kill Obamacare as one of his last votes before he died. There was a give and take. It seems that that is what is missing.

Nah.

We’re actually at an inflection point where before white men were the elite, no question, that was what it took to get in the door outside a few congressional districts.

Now it’s still mostly that but it takes more, and due to demographic shifts it will be that less and less. The right — belatedly (far too little far too late, and quite awkwardly) — has already started outreach to Latino and black communities. They will continue but it will take a while (what an embarrassment for the party of Lincoln. FFS.).

Obama was a lighting strike to those who assumed it would always be the old way, and Trump was the response to Obama.

Fortunately, that failed (unfortunately it took hundreds of thousands of dead Americans to convince enough Michiganders, Wisconsinites, Pennsylvanians (I’m sure about “Michiganders”, being one myself, no idea on the others) but at least it happened.)

The left, quite cleverly, responded with Biden, an old white guy in the classic mold. Literally: nothing to fear here, white peeps... but with Kamala as VP — a powerless position yet a powerful symbol (especially as the VP of a VP cum President).

So It’s the changing of the guard. Republicans can no longer simply ignore black and brown people (at best) or use them as bugaboos (and then Democrats won’t be able to simply count on their votes by not actively being racist). Once the powerful engage those groups they’ll find them not to be uniform, and (hopefully) that will lead to meaningful, nuanced, deep engagement... if that happens, there will no longer be such a thing as the “black vote”. (This is further along with Latinos, where some groups aren’t too overwhelmingly for one party or the other).

So...

Not really an existential crisis, at least not to my mind. It’s real progress. We can no longer force certain groups into blocks based on whether we actively believe they should be subjugated or just kinda ignore them.

Hallelujah.

This makes sense to me.

Then the transition of power or the changing demographics you speak of will disenfranchise those once in power and that could lead to violence (think white heavily-armed men intimidating or worse those they disagree with). This is what I fear as well.

Yes, the fact that this is happening due to demographics and not positions "evolving" is obvious. Many recognize immigration as a tool to help Leftist parties all throughout the Western world. Eventually those who have been disenfranchised and blamed for all the ills have had enough it will certainly come to violence. Reactionaries really do not have to engage in "Democracy", democracy certainly does not last forever.

> white heavily-armed men intimidating or worse

Yes, BUT: this has already peaked. A long time ago. This started big a while ago and has had ever-weakening aftershocks... Oklahoma City, Waco, Charlottesville.

Now we’re at the stage of a flash Trump caravan maybe provoking a fender-bender and baseless lawsuits from a couple of NY goons.

It’s done.

The quicker people realize this the better. (They won’t realize it quickly, unfortunately. The champions of “conservative” right now are a porno-appearing, self-bragging pussy-grabber, and a bizarrely diminished former NY mayor who now unsuccessfully promotes conspiracy theories and is a punchline in a Borat movie.)

Why has this peaked? If you don't think there is a far-right that is suppressed, angrily stewing, and heavily armed you are living in a fantasy world. The kindling is all there, just because they have been deplatformed from mainstream social media does not mean they do not exist.

What country in the world could conqueror America? You would need a better blue water navy and the ability to sustain 3 thousand miles supply lines over contested waters.

As for dividing the US, I hope the lesson of this election is that you shouldn't assume what you see online is representative of the real US - otherwise it would have been a landslide for Biden.

Physical borders, yes it would be near impossible to conquer us. But our digital borders (social media) are wide open. You use the power of a beast to destroy itself.

I fear this too. As someone who had read a fair bit of the history of India, and how the British/east India company mind-fucked and pillaged them it scares the hell out of me. The after effects are still there even 70 years later.

“History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes”

They already are. Russia & China's tactics are not so much disinformation, but simply taking our own talking points and pushing them to us even harder.

That is a very interesting point of view. I fully agree with it, I think it will be an existential threat to the country as we know it now.

Do you think that the bipartidism is to blame, amongst other factors? If there were more options then some of the most radical electorate will have their own candidate and it could help divide the support they get at the Chambers.

Also smaller parties could help in having more negotiation for bills and laws.

By what measure is the US more divided than in the past?

Eh, it is difficult for me to respond to this in good faith, but I will make an attempt.

I will open by saying something that may not be immediately apparent. The use of force by US government ( be it state or federal ), has actually decreased over the last decades ( not to look very far back, check historical records of civil rights and unions in US to get an idea of how things were handled in the past ). The only real difference now is that it is on video. But yes, I am arguing there is less of state violence now.

The nation vilification is nothing new in US ( Bush "With us or against us" that made US population hate Muslims -- up until then average American barely knew; Disney WW2 propaganda just to name a few better known examples ). These days, it is China ( among others ). Do you see a pattern?

Increasing protests. I can give you that. BLM protests are probably biggest event in US political scene since Tea Party . That said, I am not sure, they are bigger than civil rights movement or Vietnam war protests. They are more visible due to social media. Thankfully, they seem less widespread though.

Blatant racism. Honestly, I am not sure if racism is a function of "By what measure is the US more divided than in the past?". Quite honestly, I would venture to suggest that today's racism is waay lower than at any point in US history. That said, this is just a guess.

Nationalism. Again, I am not sure if racism is a function of "By what measure is the US more divided than in the past?". Historically, US gets more nationalistic as things go downhill ( WW2, red scare to name a few ).

So.. I am not sure you have a point here. US is obviously divided, but the things you listed are not a function of that division.

edit: added China to the example list

> Increasing protests. I can give you that. BLM protests are probably biggest event in US political scene since Tea Party . That said, I am not sure, they are bigger than civil rights movement or Vietnam war protests. They are more visible due to social media. Thankfully, they seem less widespread though.

Even this is nothing new. The '60s and '70s saw widespread political protest and violence in America. Think the Weather Underground bombings. Political violence settled down around the Reagan administration in a brief lull (probably in exuberance/realignment from the end of the Cold War), but seems to be flaring up again.

> We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us.

I feel like we're likely already in the middle of a divide and conquer situation.

> We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us.

The problem is that the US has a historical example of what happens when the "economic engine" and the "conservative culture" reach an impasse.

The "economic engine" wins. The question is how much damage will get done until that happens.

Russia, Facebook and the media have already divided and conquered us. The conquest is over. We are just trying to collect the bits and scraps. The conqueror doesn't have to be another nation. Fox News, CNN, Twitter and Facebook are the countries that have benefited the most.

Perhaps that is happening already, and some of the events we have seen in the last months are not by our own making but fabricated?

Rather than blame the left or blame the right for this, I think what we really need is a third party and Instant Runoff Voting.

Totally agree. How do we adjust our laws quick enough to stop strongmen using social media to whip up fear and anger?

An amicable solution instead of civil war, or being divided and conquered: how about a national divorce?

There's no divide larger than 50/50 which is just about where it's at.

gigatexal says>" the ever increasingly large divide that is the polarizing of the electorate. We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us."

No way. Polarization will continue. The politics of New York and California will remain anathema to the majority in "fly-over states" (e.g., Texas, Montana, etc.) for generations. The former two states (NY, CA) will economically self-destruct long before such acceptance occurs.

I realize this will sound snarky and/or overly aggressive. However, I'm being entirely serious and can't quickly come up with a better way to phrase this:

How do people with functioning moral compasses come together with the kind of people who see pictures of children in cages and say "America, fuck yeah?"

How do people who want some form of democratic government come together with the kind of people who think it's entirely right and proper for a president to do his best to prevent his political opponents from voting -- by disrupting the postal service, by soliciting the help of multiple hostile foreign governments to smear his opponent, calling for his opponents to be imprisoned without charge, and by attempting to halt vote counting in the courts?

How do people with any kind of respect for the value of human life watch video of the George Floyd killing and come together with the kind of people who watch the video and argue that the police did nothing wrong?

I don't think these divides can be healed. These issues are not matters, like arguments over the size of government, where compromise is both possible and mutually beneficial. Instead, they are moral red lines about which compromise is neither possible or desirable. What the 70-odd million who voted from Trump want out of their country isn't compatible with the basic moral outlook of the 75-odd million people who voted against him.

To take an extreme example, if a bunch of Nazis want to kill 10 million people, 'compromising' by agreeing to let them kill only 5 million people isn't acceptable -- and yet, this is exactly the kind of moral compromise (truly in the other sense of the word) that would be involved in bringing together Trumpist and anti-Trumpist factions.

In addition to the moral divide, there is a reality/gullibility divide between the Trumpist and anti-Trumpist factions. Trumpists believe an awful lot of stuff that is factually untrue. They reject global warming and dismiss the scientific evidence as the product of a Chinese hoax to destroy America. 56% of Republicans now believe in Qanon (an ideological conspiracy theory born out of the argument that Democrats eat babies) to some extent[0]. The overwhelming majority of Trumpists get their news from Fox, a media outlet which spreads more misleading information than accurate information.[1] How does anyone with a commitment to respecting consensus reality reach people who have chosen to live in comforting fantasyland rather than cope with the world as it is?

I don't see any way for the US to get out of this mess without breaking up into multiple countries.

And, to the usual 'downvote to -1' crowd: what part of this analysis is wrong?

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...

[1] https://www.politicususa.com/2015/02/06/fact-checker-finds-6...

Maybe stop watching CNN so much.

Do you have any substantive criticisms of my premise that the US is beset by irreconcilable differences of in moral worldviews?

Further, not that I watch CNN, but why should anyone who chooses to consume cable news choose not to get their news from the network with the highest rating for factual accuracy[0]?

[0] https://www.politifact.com/article/2015/jan/29/punditfact-ch...

Should just get rid of the two party system and in 20 years there won't be a divide... Of course easier said then done.

Unfortunately that would require a revolution. The system is designed to prevent substantial change because the players are already aligned with its incentives. The last big systemic change was direct election of Senators in 1913.

The past four years and this election has exposed some deep problems within American Society.

If about 47% of your country was happy to kill democracy and reward immoral behaviour just to retain power, often justified by religious beliefs...

And Trump is not gone yet... Who knows what the Republicans will do with the stacked Supreme Court...

I think you need to take a step back and really try understand those who disagree with you - your views or maybe just the way you express it is toxic and dividing. If you can't think of one reason why someone might not want to vote your candidate I feel sorry for you.

There are many valid reasons to vote for all candidates and the weighting of the issues is personal and perhaps not everyone agrees with the weighting that you do.

> If about 47% of your country was happy to kill democracy and reward immoral behaviour just to retain power

And these 47% would say exactly the same thing about the others. That’s the divide GP was pointing out and ironically your response is perpetuating it. Stop dehumanizing people.

But there was only one side that is proven literally trying to kill democracy. There is no both sides in this argument.

The republicans might be crying about it, but they have zero proof. Whereas they've literally given us their plan out loud of how they were going to cheat. And they followed through.

A lot of the right-wing people that I follow also seem to think that they are having democracy taken away from them. They point to their freedom of speech being restricted, biased fact checkers, big tech being against them, and ballot stuffing.

You might think that they have zero proof, but they're definitely doing their best to find something (https://twitter.com/toad_spotted/status/1325124277503406080), although a lot can be explained without "cheating" (https://twitter.com/HayekAndKeynes/status/132519429924449075...).

The side with proven ballot harvesters in MN?

Except there really was one candidate who would have been happy to kill democracy.

I can't speak for the beliefs or rationale of the people who voted for him but its crystal clear what Donald Trump stood for.

I don't think its dehumanizing to talk about the fact that lots people, many or most individually good, chose to vote for a sexist, racist, authoritarian.

And does anybody really doubt at this point that Trump is those things?

Even though it is a difficult, unpleasant, and heated conversation to have.

Do any downvoters believe Trump is a fan of democracy?

It's funny that you ask me to stop dehumanising people. But what did that 47% do constantly for four years?

What do you think those 47% want with gays, abortion (is murder!!!!) and foreigners?

Knowing full well what this last administration is up to?

> What do you think those 47% want with gays, abortion (is murder!!!!) and foreigners?

Trump didn’t run on an anti-gay platform.

You’re right that anti-abortion is still big. Until you can convince people that it’s not murder, it’s pretty hard to get them to back down from that stance. This is honestly the only reason the Republicans trap so much of the religious vote.

“Foreigners” is also not something Republicans are against, it’s illegal immigration that’s the complaint. That’s why they support reforms that still allow significant immigration.

From the GOP party platform for 2016 & 2020:

> Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. We oppose government discrimination against businesses or entities which decline to sell items or services to individuals for activities that go against their religious views about such activities.

https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values/#Item2

> Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a “judicial Putsch” — full of “silly extravagances” — that reduced “the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Storey to the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie.” In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court twisted the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond recognition. To echo Scalia, we dissent. We, therefore, support the appointment of justices and judges who respect the constitutional limits on their power and respect the authority of the states to decide such fundamental social questions.

https://gop.com/platform/we-the-people/#Item4

Then why did Trump cut legal immigration in half?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/07/21/trump...

I thought RAISE act was dead in the water insofar as things stand now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAISE_Act

Who changed the H1b visa rules so brown immigrants had to be paid a fair wage? The same guy who hates foreigners?

Ha, don't be fooled, that was an attempt to have two results:

- To make H1b people less appealing to companies, keeping them out - To hurt the companies that hire them (often more left leaning)

Are you seriously arguing "but they do it too"?

No, the dehumanising was mostly one particular side.

That’s not even true. Stop thinking that way if you ever want this country to unite.

This is a very western view, you have war criminals as former presidents. This was not the worst of the US. You have people bombing weddings and you find this to be the worst.

exactly. the fact that hes the only president in recent history not to wage a war should be reason enough for a nobel if we gave it to obama

he was too inept to start war

As someone who is no fan of the warmongers, imperialist US policy, or the debt treadmill that fuels them, I would still rather have a conservative president that serves the US power structure, than a president that shirks his job during a domestic crisis and kills a quarter million Americans. Sorry rest of the world, we will get back to trying to stop the war machine after we get our own house in order.

(Also, witnessing the ceding of Hong Kong to China two decades ahead of schedule did make me appreciate the projection of soft power where USG had been keeping order without dropping bombs)

> If about 47% of your country was happy to kill democracy

If you think half the country wants to rewrite the Constitution and remove democracy...I'm not really sure what to say.

I guess almost nobody wants to 'remove democracy' even in the least democratic places.

A more plausible explanation here would be indifference. Maybe they don't want to remove democracy, but not exactly trying to uphold it over everything else either.

Maybe seeing your cult of personality hero in office, or your religion or your flavour of boogieman (=not losing the country to commies kind of thinking) has ultimately higher priority than keeping the democracy alive.

I'm not saying that's what is happening, I'm just saying I can see how masses can smother democracy without specifically having the intention to kill it.

disclaimer: non-US, my opinion on anything US would be at best inaccurate.

It's more of the half of the 47% who are in the cult of personality. I don't think they were against democracy so much as for Trump (but it does go to show how little some folks care about democracy when they are losing).

I would be surprised if as many as half of those who voted for him believed that they were voting to either kill democracy or rewarding immoral behaviour.

Perhaps I’m overly-cynical, but in my (limited) experience, most people just don’t pay enough attention for such motivations — or even expectations — to be plausible.

It's probably worse: they want abortions illegal and gays back in the closet. Look at the packing of the SC.

Filling vacancies is not what "court packing" means. That's never what it has meant. Court packing is when you create new positions (and thus, vacancies) to fill. Filling a lot of court vacancies is not court packing.

And you know this. And Joe Biden knew this when he made the same claim in one of the debates. It's gaslighting, and it bothers me that absolutely nobody called him out on it. Court packing is a red line that nobody should cross. I feel it's important that we all choose our words carefully so that it continues to stay off the table.

IMHO if you ask Americans bluntly if they’d be willing to end democracy so that their candidate remains in power, you’d get only a small percentage agreeing.

What actually happened was that large numbers of voters are stuck in a filter bubble and their only news sources were telling them the election was being stolen. So by supporting Trump they probably thought they were defending democracy.

Of course, those particular news stories were pure lies. But we should focus on the peddlers of lies more than those who were duped by them.