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Ask HN: How might we create a more United America?

6 points by arikr 9y ago

Is a more United America with less us vs them political conflict too ambitious a goal? How might we achieve a more United America?

arikr 9y ago
I'm living with a mix of Trump and Clinton supporters. People seem divided now, as they have been for a while. Is it possible to create a more united America, where it doesn't feel like Trump and Clinton supporters mostly cannot get along and see eye to eye? Here's how I see it. I don't know if this is accurate. Say there's 5 groups: - Mainstream liberal, ~29% - Extreme liberal, ~0.1% - Mainstream conservative, ~34% - Extreme conservative, ~0.1% - Unaffiliated, ~36% It seems to me like the unaffiliated and mainstream right and mainstream left have a lot in common, and collectively oppose much of the extreme right and left on each side. This is probably an oversimplification. I wish there were more mainstream candidates on both sides. I wonder if the two party system encourages more extreme candidates, though.
smt88 9y ago
Step 1: stop believing that intelligence + facts = your opinion. To put it another way, someone is not either stupid or under-informed just because they disagree with you.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  I read a rule once, I forget where, that said that you can only express disagreement with someone once you can re-state their position to their satisfaction. Then, you can disagree as much as you please. But at least you're disagreeing with their real position, not a strawman. I think that a lot of the "you're stupid to even think that" can often come from strawman versions of peoples' real positions. It's easy to decide that a strawman is a stupid position; that's kind of the point of the strawman.
  - qbrass 9y ago
    >But at least you're disagreeing with their real position, not a strawman. A troll would understand your position, prefixed with "So, you believe..." Throw it out once you acknowledged they understood it, and replace it with their straw-man. Then they'll tell you that you're too stupid to understand their position so you don't get to refute it.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
Seeing the other side as having the same problems? For example, take the case of the Christian baker who wouldn't do a wedding cake for a gay couple. This has gone all the way to the Supreme Court; it's being heard next week. But the problem is, a hard-core Christian group (let's call them Christians Against Homosexuality, just for instance) could have a convention. It's small, so it's maybe 20 or 30 people. But they want to eat. So they order a sheet cake, with the name of their organization written on it, and four Bible references. And the baker that they order the cake from turns out to be gay. And if the gay baker refuses the order, now it's religious discrimination. Once you realize that the problem is symmetric - it can happen to your side - things can get more reasonable. You realize that you can pick an evangelical Christian baker, and a gay baker, tell them that that whatever rules they come up with are going to apply to both of them, stick them in a room for two hours, and expect that they'll figure out something reasonable. But how do you make people see the other side as having the same problem? Especially, you have some extremists (on all sides) who don't want to see the other side as having any shred of a valid point. How do you fix that?
vinchuco 9y ago
Find intelligent life in space.
tpkj 9y ago
I don't want this comment to be construed as a partisan hack, which is the last thing in the world that will bring about any real unity in the country. Anyways, you might be interested in Senator Ben Sasse's book, "The Vanishing American Adult", or other of his writings (his twitter account is often amusing.) https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-American-Adult-Coming-Crisis/dp/1250114403 https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-American-Adult-Coming-Crisi... From a review on The Atlantic: "He believes Americans have lost their sense of personal integrity and discipline. For the country to deal with the troubles ahead—including automation, political disengagement, and the rise of nativist, huckster politicians, he says—people must recover their sense of virtue. The republic depends on it." https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/ben-sasse-virtue-politics/528015/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/ben-sas... Or have a read of his extensive comments on Charlottesville: https://www.facebook.com/SenatorSasse/posts/1356425404455401 https://www.facebook.com/SenatorSasse/posts/1356425404455401
- arikr 9y ago
  Looks great, thank you

6 points by arikr 9y ago

Is a more United America with less us vs them political conflict too ambitious a goal? How might we achieve a more United America?

arikr 9y ago

I'm living with a mix of Trump and Clinton supporters. People seem divided now, as they have been for a while. Is it possible to create a more united America, where it doesn't feel like Trump and Clinton supporters mostly cannot get along and see eye to eye? Here's how I see it. I don't know if this is accurate. Say there's 5 groups: - Mainstream liberal, ~29% - Extreme liberal, ~0.1% - Mainstream conservative, ~34% - Extreme conservative, ~0.1% - Unaffiliated, ~36% It seems to me like the unaffiliated and mainstream right and mainstream left have a lot in common, and collectively oppose much of the extreme right and left on each side. This is probably an oversimplification. I wish there were more mainstream candidates on both sides. I wonder if the two party system encourages more extreme candidates, though.

smt88 9y ago

Step 1: stop believing that intelligence + facts = your opinion. To put it another way, someone is not either stupid or under-informed just because they disagree with you.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
I read a rule once, I forget where, that said that you can only express disagreement with someone once you can re-state their position to their satisfaction. Then, you can disagree as much as you please. But at least you're disagreeing with their real position, not a strawman. I think that a lot of the "you're stupid to even think that" can often come from strawman versions of peoples' real positions. It's easy to decide that a strawman is a stupid position; that's kind of the point of the strawman.
- qbrass 9y ago
  >But at least you're disagreeing with their real position, not a strawman. A troll would understand your position, prefixed with "So, you believe..." Throw it out once you acknowledged they understood it, and replace it with their straw-man. Then they'll tell you that you're too stupid to understand their position so you don't get to refute it.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

Seeing the other side as having the same problems? For example, take the case of the Christian baker who wouldn't do a wedding cake for a gay couple. This has gone all the way to the Supreme Court; it's being heard next week. But the problem is, a hard-core Christian group (let's call them Christians Against Homosexuality, just for instance) could have a convention. It's small, so it's maybe 20 or 30 people. But they want to eat. So they order a sheet cake, with the name of their organization written on it, and four Bible references. And the baker that they order the cake from turns out to be gay. And if the gay baker refuses the order, now it's religious discrimination. Once you realize that the problem is symmetric - it can happen to your side - things can get more reasonable. You realize that you can pick an evangelical Christian baker, and a gay baker, tell them that that whatever rules they come up with are going to apply to both of them, stick them in a room for two hours, and expect that they'll figure out something reasonable. But how do you make people see the other side as having the same problem? Especially, you have some extremists (on all sides) who don't want to see the other side as having any shred of a valid point. How do you fix that?

vinchuco 9y ago

Find intelligent life in space.

tpkj 9y ago

I don't want this comment to be construed as a partisan hack, which is the last thing in the world that will bring about any real unity in the country. Anyways, you might be interested in Senator Ben Sasse's book, "The Vanishing American Adult", or other of his writings (his twitter account is often amusing.) https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-American-Adult-Coming-Crisis/dp/1250114403 https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-American-Adult-Coming-Crisi... From a review on The Atlantic: "He believes Americans have lost their sense of personal integrity and discipline. For the country to deal with the troubles ahead—including automation, political disengagement, and the rise of nativist, huckster politicians, he says—people must recover their sense of virtue. The republic depends on it." https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/ben-sasse-virtue-politics/528015/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/ben-sas... Or have a read of his extensive comments on Charlottesville: https://www.facebook.com/SenatorSasse/posts/1356425404455401 https://www.facebook.com/SenatorSasse/posts/1356425404455401

arikr 9y ago
Looks great, thank you