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Shortly prior to the recent US presidential election, I worked next to a nice, smart young man from California who went to a well-known progressive university i

Shortly prior to the recent US presidential election, I worked next to a nice, smart young man from California who went to a well-known progressive university in the bay area. Politics was very rarely discussed at work, but in the weeks before the election, there was some cross talk in the isles. He trusted me enough to message me privately that he was planning to vote for Trump. At that time, I was quite anxious about the thought of a Trump presidency, but I'm pretty far along the open-minded scale, so we chatted about it privately a bit. My co-worker asked me to not speak about his position and to not let anyone else know about it, because he feared that his 'out of place' political views would, in his words, 'indirectly limit his career options.' Why he supported Trump is pretty irrelevant, but I found his opinion reasonable, though I disagreed with his overall choice. You know what? I agreed with his concern at the time, and I still agree with it. Consciously and otherwise, I think that quite a few of the fine progressive folk that we find ourselves surrounded by here in the bay area would hold such an opinion against him in important ways. I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. At this point, I can't imagine a path forward that has much of a chance of bearing fruit.

abraae 9y ago
Leaning in from outside the US, the path forward is obvious. "Progressives" should embrace guns and reject abortion. That would make them palatable to these mysterious deplorables that seem to hold sway over the US political system, giving them access to the halls of power. Then said progressives, having kept their powder dry, could expend it on what really matters - convincing the deplorables that science is a thing, and that climate change will kill us all if we don't act.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Unfortunately, most of the deplorables would just find new reasons to hate Democrats, because their party preference is rooted in tribalism rather than in policy, and you'd scare off lots of lefties who don't think the state should be outlawing important medical procedures.
  - reednj 9y ago
    > Unfortunately, most of the deplorables would just find new reasons to hate Democrats That is objectively false - Trump won because white voters in the rust belt swung 25 points from Obama to Trump. If you were right that they voted only Republican out of tribalism then Obama would never have won those states.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      I said "most," not "all." A 25 point swing among white voters in the rust belt does not come anywhere close to disproving "most."
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      Trump would have lost if he lost 80,000 votes in three states that could swing the electoral college. That doesn't sound as big a swing as 25 points.
      - reednj 9y ago
        Why not? Trump didn't win them by much, but it can still be a big swing if Obama won these states by a lot. A quick google shows that this appears to be the case. Trump may have won michigan by only 10k votes, but Obama had a margin of half a million in 2012.
- yesenadam 9y ago
  Sad that, it seems, any political comment with a spark of humour on here is voted down. From G.K. Chesterton: "A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignant reasonableness, “If you must make jokes, at least you need not make them on such serious subjects.” I replied with a natural simplicity and wonder, “About what other subjects can one make jokes except serious subjects?” It is quite useless to talk about profane jesting. All jesting is in its nature profane, in the sense that it must be the sudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not so very solemn after all. ... The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is a careless solemnity. If Mr. McCabe really wishes to know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by the mere act of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happy Sunday in going the round of the pulpits. Or, better still, let him drop in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Even Mr. McCabe would admit that these men are solemn — more solemn than I am. And even Mr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous — more frivolous than I am. Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent about the danger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? Why should he be so ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? There are not so very many fantastic and paradoxical writers. But there are a gigantic number of grave and verbose writers; and it is by the efforts of the grave and verbose writers that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everything that I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. How can it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe can think that paradox and jesting stop the way? It is solemnity that is stopping the way in every department of modern effort. It is his own favourite “serious methods;” it is his own favourite “momentousness;” it is his own favourite “judgment” which stops the way everywhere." - from Heretics, 1905 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/heretics.xvi.html https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/heretics.xvi.html
- reitanqild 9y ago
  I know this is a joke and I also think American gun laws could need some adjustment. That said what I've always been told is to start with myself: maybe my "opponents" are dumb. That doesn't help anything but my ego. Instead I'd recommend looking into common ground or another way to present my arguments. I disagree deeply with a good number of you but still I think most of you don’t realize most of the time since I either shut up or at least present my views somewhat carefully in the hope that someone might get some inspiration. I've also changed my own, long held opinions on certain topics (e.g. drug policy) not because anyone here ridiculed me but because somebody took the time to explain instead of shouting troll, downvoting and flagging. I wish more people here would opt for that solution.
  - abraae 9y ago
    Yeah, I probably phrased my post overly provocatively but I wasn't trying to be funny, just logical. And thank you for a reasoned and courteous response. My thoughts were: 1) Mass shootings are horrific, and it seems insane that anyone can own an assault rifle with such low barriers, but at the same time, death from gun violence is statistically low compared to, say, auto accidents. If being in favour of stricter gun regulation to save a few tens of thousand of lives (in a country of hundreds of millions) means alienating a huge percentage of the population, then why not let that one slide. Things will be no worse than they are now. 2) Many people (certainly me) would say that abortion is a woman's right but even if abortion is illegal, back street abortions will still take place. They may be in unsanitory and dangerous conditions, and some deaths will result. But again, statistically speaking, that will only impact a small percentage of the population. 3) Climate change however, seems like it presents an existential danger that could wipe us out as a species. Our growth driven economies seem unequipped to deal with this ultimate tragedy of the commons. Statistically, it will kill 100% of us, or severely degrade our grandchildren's lives, unless we somehow get our shit together on a global scale. To use a crappy analogy, imagine we're all locked inside a giant container with limited air. There's a blocked air vent at the top, which we can only reach of we all stand on each other's shoulders - i.e. cooperate. In such circumstances, why continue bickering over what music we should play while we wait for suffocation? Surely it would be better to listen to the other guys music, if it got him onside, and allowed us to move away from our tribal stances and work together on some action against the common threat.
- ghostcluster 9y ago
  Are you kidding? Progressives openly reject science when it doesn't fit their ideology. We saw that with the response to Damore.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    You don't know why Damore was fired and neither does anyone else publicly know. His 'manifesto' is a poorly written rant that leaves holes for people to project their ideology onto, like you are right now. What he wrote was neither progressive nor even conservative, but a naive, meandering diatribe with cherry-picked evidence, all of which would have been water under the bridge if it wasn't blown up by a slow press cycle.
    - ghostcluster 9y ago
      Here is Stanford Medical school on the subject, from just this past Spring: http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-b... And a highly cited study from 2013 addressing Damore's topic directly: http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometrics-psychology/sex-differences-on-g-and-non-g-intellectual-performance-reveal-potential-sources-of-stem-discrepancies/ http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometri... The evidence is not 'cherry picked'. It is abundant, comprehensively researched, and well replicated. Take a trip to Google Scholar yourself. It is certainly not 'fringe'. That's why the public reaction was so absurd. Damore was fired for exactly the type of phenomenon Sam Altman is talking about in this post.
      - bduerst 9y ago
        Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology, not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some of his citations are cherry picked nonsense, for example the big five analyses saying women are neurotic [1], which have been discredited as being weak lexical factor analysis that can't be attributed to biology [2] (like gender). The fact that you think these papers are relevant to Damore's memo just further proves the vagueness of his diatribe, and demonstrates your own willingness to project your own views onto it. [1] https://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf https://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/
rtpg 9y ago
I don't mean to be trite, but are you saying this person voted for Trump to "own the libs"? Doing something out of spite like that is a pretty miserable experience...
- Diederich 9y ago
  > are you saying this person voted for Trump to "own the libs"? No, that's not what I said nor is it what I implied. He voted for Trump because, among other reasons, he thought Mrs. Clinton was a terrible candidate and would make a terrible president, and he personally weighed that more heavily than what he knew of Trumps disadvantages. I don't agree with that assessment, but it is reasonable.
  - rtpg 9y ago
    >I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. I read that as "we wouldn't vote for Trump, but did anyways because of how progressives see us". Maybe I misread this.
    - RonanTheGrey 9y ago
      > I read that as "we wouldn't vote for Trump, but did anyways because of how progressives see us". Maybe I misread this. Yep. I know a great many people who voted for that reason. They felt marginalized, and their vote was the only way they could strike back - because talking could ruin their lives.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Besides how you feel about it, how does your friend feel about it? Have his expectations been met?
    - Diederich 9y ago
      I believe that he feels like he made a mistake.
ironjunkie 9y ago
As an outsider to American politics. This is 100% my vision also. I know a lot of people that have moderate views that are simply shut down by liberals. As a response, they hide and vote for Trump. I see it as their way to elect someone that is not afraid to go against the accepted view of the elites and therefore going against all that political correctness nonsense.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- danso 9y ago
  What "political correctness nonsense"?
  - jochung 9y ago
    Firing people for providing criticism of a company's diversity police, while citing science, and letting your friends in media drag the plaintiff through the mud. Cancelling events and boycotting sponsors because their speaker line up isn't sufficiently in line with imaginary industry demographics. Or even because a blind selection process, the thing people say they want, ends up selecting a wrongthinker. Bullying comet-chasing scientists into tearful apologies over their choice of shirt. Or a self deprecating joke. That's just in STEM, you see the same in comedy, in politics, etc. In each instance, a pitchfork wielding mob was summoned with social media outrage by bad faith actors. And get this, they are the ones who also loudly complain about trolls. The rule to make sense of it is quite easy: when they do it to you, it's just consequences for speech. When it happens to them, it's targeted harassment that makes people feel unsafe and someone needs to step in and ban it.
    - te_chris 9y ago
      'Citing science'. I can think of a few other groups throughout history who have said awful things and backed it up with 'science'.
      - 9y ago
jancsika 9y ago
> I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. That may be what you personally felt in this single personal anecdote, but it is not at all supported by the results for the bay area in the election[1]. There were an enormous number of Trump voters who explicitly stated that they voted for him because he was the only national candidate to criticize things like NAFTA and other policies which directly hurt them and/or people they knew. Presented with a series of bad options, they picked the guy who spoke to their concerns and naively wrote off the outlandish comments as news-cycle spam. Go back and look at the contested areas in Michigan and Pennsylvania where Trump did well. Or go back and listen to the town hall Bernie Sanders did after the election in West Virginia where Trump performed well-- you can listen directly to what swayed them the most. It wasn't a fear of retribution from progressive tech bosses for non-progressive ideas. It was jobs. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california-president-clinton-trump https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california-preside...
- RonanTheGrey 9y ago
  OP is talking about the fact that people did not want to talk about their voting choice, for fear of criticism and being ostracized. My mom - and almost all of her friends - are also in that group. What was so surprising about her group of friends was that NONE of them talked about who they were going to vote for, prior to the election - EVEN TO EACH OTHER. AFTER the election they were all shocked to find they all felt the same way and almost all had voted for Trump. Their silence was directly a consequence of the doxx culture that would have meant their entire lives would be thrown into ruin for sharing their point of view. Progressive culture in the US has become toxic. The sooner people realize this, the better.
  - jancsika 9y ago
    > Their silence was directly a consequence of the doxx culture that would have meant their entire lives would be thrown into ruin for sharing their point of view. You are making that claim where the evidence is people speculating about a case where they decided not to test the veracity of your claim. Is there any evidence that your Mom and her friends would have been fired for expressing their political views? I'm asking because here in the South people who voted for Trump a) express their views when I talk to them, and b) then go on about their day. Frustration, contention, and disagreements, and confusion abide but that's largely a function of Trump's high-noise rhetorical strategy and people (esp. older/retired) getting all their news from a single source. (Btw-- what happened to the stereotype of the proud/responsible U.S. working man reading multiple newspapers at the breakfast table? Is that just a myth of a bygone era?)
delecti 9y ago
> I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. I'm not sure this observation has much value. Voting for a candidate that shares your values in a time when those values aren't popular is equivalent to doing so when those values are popular. Either way you're voting for a candidate that shares your values. I'm never going to place a spite-vote for someone who doesn't support my views just because my views are unpopular. And in any case, I think certain views should be demonized. Expressing disparaging things about gay people (the example from the article) should be viewed with the same revulsion as we would today view the historical opinion that people of color were in some way "better suited" for slavery. The view that some people are somehow "less than" shouldn't be tolerated. The paradox of tolerance is very real.
- RonanTheGrey 9y ago
  > The paradox of tolerance is very real. True but we aren't talking about things at that extreme. We were talking about an unwillingness to talk about your policital candidate, for fear of how "liberals" would treat you. That should be alot more worrying to people than I think it is.
stevenwoo 9y ago
Trump used and continues to use racial dog whistles in his speeches and official tweets. It's part of the reason 90-95 percent of African Americans vote for anyone else over a GOP candidate given the opportunity - if you hear it, it's hard to accept anything else from that speaker. Trump got close to the same vote percentages as historical GOP presidential candidates, Trump is not special in that people departed from their normal behavior to vote for him in some large silent wave.
smsm42 9y ago
> because he feared that his 'out of place' political views would, in his words, 'indirectly limit his career options.' Why he supported Trump is pretty irrelevant, but I found his opinion reasonable, though I disagreed with his overall choice. I think in SV, it is a completely reasonable precaution. If you openly declare you are, say, a communist (I don't mean "support Obamacare", I mean real communist, as in nationalize everything, ban private property, etc.), chances that people would shun you and that hurts you carrier are pretty small. If you say you voted for Trump, chances are higher, and I've heard people say as much pretty much open text.

abraae 9y ago

Leaning in from outside the US, the path forward is obvious. "Progressives" should embrace guns and reject abortion. That would make them palatable to these mysterious deplorables that seem to hold sway over the US political system, giving them access to the halls of power. Then said progressives, having kept their powder dry, could expend it on what really matters - convincing the deplorables that science is a thing, and that climate change will kill us all if we don't act.

mikeash 9y ago
Unfortunately, most of the deplorables would just find new reasons to hate Democrats, because their party preference is rooted in tribalism rather than in policy, and you'd scare off lots of lefties who don't think the state should be outlawing important medical procedures.
- reednj 9y ago
  > Unfortunately, most of the deplorables would just find new reasons to hate Democrats That is objectively false - Trump won because white voters in the rust belt swung 25 points from Obama to Trump. If you were right that they voted only Republican out of tribalism then Obama would never have won those states.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I said "most," not "all." A 25 point swing among white voters in the rust belt does not come anywhere close to disproving "most."
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Trump would have lost if he lost 80,000 votes in three states that could swing the electoral college. That doesn't sound as big a swing as 25 points.
    - reednj 9y ago
      Why not? Trump didn't win them by much, but it can still be a big swing if Obama won these states by a lot. A quick google shows that this appears to be the case. Trump may have won michigan by only 10k votes, but Obama had a margin of half a million in 2012.
yesenadam 9y ago
Sad that, it seems, any political comment with a spark of humour on here is voted down. From G.K. Chesterton: "A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignant reasonableness, “If you must make jokes, at least you need not make them on such serious subjects.” I replied with a natural simplicity and wonder, “About what other subjects can one make jokes except serious subjects?” It is quite useless to talk about profane jesting. All jesting is in its nature profane, in the sense that it must be the sudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not so very solemn after all. ... The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is a careless solemnity. If Mr. McCabe really wishes to know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by the mere act of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happy Sunday in going the round of the pulpits. Or, better still, let him drop in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Even Mr. McCabe would admit that these men are solemn — more solemn than I am. And even Mr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous — more frivolous than I am. Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent about the danger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? Why should he be so ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? There are not so very many fantastic and paradoxical writers. But there are a gigantic number of grave and verbose writers; and it is by the efforts of the grave and verbose writers that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everything that I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. How can it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe can think that paradox and jesting stop the way? It is solemnity that is stopping the way in every department of modern effort. It is his own favourite “serious methods;” it is his own favourite “momentousness;” it is his own favourite “judgment” which stops the way everywhere." - from Heretics, 1905 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/heretics.xvi.html https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/heretics.xvi.html
reitanqild 9y ago
I know this is a joke and I also think American gun laws could need some adjustment. That said what I've always been told is to start with myself: maybe my "opponents" are dumb. That doesn't help anything but my ego. Instead I'd recommend looking into common ground or another way to present my arguments. I disagree deeply with a good number of you but still I think most of you don’t realize most of the time since I either shut up or at least present my views somewhat carefully in the hope that someone might get some inspiration. I've also changed my own, long held opinions on certain topics (e.g. drug policy) not because anyone here ridiculed me but because somebody took the time to explain instead of shouting troll, downvoting and flagging. I wish more people here would opt for that solution.
- abraae 9y ago
  Yeah, I probably phrased my post overly provocatively but I wasn't trying to be funny, just logical. And thank you for a reasoned and courteous response. My thoughts were: 1) Mass shootings are horrific, and it seems insane that anyone can own an assault rifle with such low barriers, but at the same time, death from gun violence is statistically low compared to, say, auto accidents. If being in favour of stricter gun regulation to save a few tens of thousand of lives (in a country of hundreds of millions) means alienating a huge percentage of the population, then why not let that one slide. Things will be no worse than they are now. 2) Many people (certainly me) would say that abortion is a woman's right but even if abortion is illegal, back street abortions will still take place. They may be in unsanitory and dangerous conditions, and some deaths will result. But again, statistically speaking, that will only impact a small percentage of the population. 3) Climate change however, seems like it presents an existential danger that could wipe us out as a species. Our growth driven economies seem unequipped to deal with this ultimate tragedy of the commons. Statistically, it will kill 100% of us, or severely degrade our grandchildren's lives, unless we somehow get our shit together on a global scale. To use a crappy analogy, imagine we're all locked inside a giant container with limited air. There's a blocked air vent at the top, which we can only reach of we all stand on each other's shoulders - i.e. cooperate. In such circumstances, why continue bickering over what music we should play while we wait for suffocation? Surely it would be better to listen to the other guys music, if it got him onside, and allowed us to move away from our tribal stances and work together on some action against the common threat.
ghostcluster 9y ago
Are you kidding? Progressives openly reject science when it doesn't fit their ideology. We saw that with the response to Damore.
- bduerst 9y ago
  You don't know why Damore was fired and neither does anyone else publicly know. His 'manifesto' is a poorly written rant that leaves holes for people to project their ideology onto, like you are right now. What he wrote was neither progressive nor even conservative, but a naive, meandering diatribe with cherry-picked evidence, all of which would have been water under the bridge if it wasn't blown up by a slow press cycle.
  - ghostcluster 9y ago
    Here is Stanford Medical school on the subject, from just this past Spring: http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-b... And a highly cited study from 2013 addressing Damore's topic directly: http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometrics-psychology/sex-differences-on-g-and-non-g-intellectual-performance-reveal-potential-sources-of-stem-discrepancies/ http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometri... The evidence is not 'cherry picked'. It is abundant, comprehensively researched, and well replicated. Take a trip to Google Scholar yourself. It is certainly not 'fringe'. That's why the public reaction was so absurd. Damore was fired for exactly the type of phenomenon Sam Altman is talking about in this post.
    - bduerst 9y ago
      Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology, not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some of his citations are cherry picked nonsense, for example the big five analyses saying women are neurotic [1], which have been discredited as being weak lexical factor analysis that can't be attributed to biology [2] (like gender). The fact that you think these papers are relevant to Damore's memo just further proves the vagueness of his diatribe, and demonstrates your own willingness to project your own views onto it. [1] https://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf https://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/

rtpg 9y ago

I don't mean to be trite, but are you saying this person voted for Trump to "own the libs"? Doing something out of spite like that is a pretty miserable experience...

Diederich 9y ago
> are you saying this person voted for Trump to "own the libs"? No, that's not what I said nor is it what I implied. He voted for Trump because, among other reasons, he thought Mrs. Clinton was a terrible candidate and would make a terrible president, and he personally weighed that more heavily than what he knew of Trumps disadvantages. I don't agree with that assessment, but it is reasonable.
- rtpg 9y ago
  >I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. I read that as "we wouldn't vote for Trump, but did anyways because of how progressives see us". Maybe I misread this.
  - RonanTheGrey 9y ago
    > I read that as "we wouldn't vote for Trump, but did anyways because of how progressives see us". Maybe I misread this. Yep. I know a great many people who voted for that reason. They felt marginalized, and their vote was the only way they could strike back - because talking could ruin their lives.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Besides how you feel about it, how does your friend feel about it? Have his expectations been met?
  - Diederich 9y ago
    I believe that he feels like he made a mistake.

ironjunkie 9y ago

As an outsider to American politics. This is 100% my vision also. I know a lot of people that have moderate views that are simply shut down by liberals. As a response, they hide and vote for Trump. I see it as their way to elect someone that is not afraid to go against the accepted view of the elites and therefore going against all that political correctness nonsense.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
danso 9y ago
What "political correctness nonsense"?
- jochung 9y ago
  Firing people for providing criticism of a company's diversity police, while citing science, and letting your friends in media drag the plaintiff through the mud. Cancelling events and boycotting sponsors because their speaker line up isn't sufficiently in line with imaginary industry demographics. Or even because a blind selection process, the thing people say they want, ends up selecting a wrongthinker. Bullying comet-chasing scientists into tearful apologies over their choice of shirt. Or a self deprecating joke. That's just in STEM, you see the same in comedy, in politics, etc. In each instance, a pitchfork wielding mob was summoned with social media outrage by bad faith actors. And get this, they are the ones who also loudly complain about trolls. The rule to make sense of it is quite easy: when they do it to you, it's just consequences for speech. When it happens to them, it's targeted harassment that makes people feel unsafe and someone needs to step in and ban it.
  - te_chris 9y ago
    'Citing science'. I can think of a few other groups throughout history who have said awful things and backed it up with 'science'.
    - 9y ago

jancsika 9y ago

> I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. That may be what you personally felt in this single personal anecdote, but it is not at all supported by the results for the bay area in the election[1]. There were an enormous number of Trump voters who explicitly stated that they voted for him because he was the only national candidate to criticize things like NAFTA and other policies which directly hurt them and/or people they knew. Presented with a series of bad options, they picked the guy who spoke to their concerns and naively wrote off the outlandish comments as news-cycle spam. Go back and look at the contested areas in Michigan and Pennsylvania where Trump did well. Or go back and listen to the town hall Bernie Sanders did after the election in West Virginia where Trump performed well-- you can listen directly to what swayed them the most. It wasn't a fear of retribution from progressive tech bosses for non-progressive ideas. It was jobs. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california-president-clinton-trump https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california-preside...

RonanTheGrey 9y ago
OP is talking about the fact that people did not want to talk about their voting choice, for fear of criticism and being ostracized. My mom - and almost all of her friends - are also in that group. What was so surprising about her group of friends was that NONE of them talked about who they were going to vote for, prior to the election - EVEN TO EACH OTHER. AFTER the election they were all shocked to find they all felt the same way and almost all had voted for Trump. Their silence was directly a consequence of the doxx culture that would have meant their entire lives would be thrown into ruin for sharing their point of view. Progressive culture in the US has become toxic. The sooner people realize this, the better.
- jancsika 9y ago
  > Their silence was directly a consequence of the doxx culture that would have meant their entire lives would be thrown into ruin for sharing their point of view. You are making that claim where the evidence is people speculating about a case where they decided not to test the veracity of your claim. Is there any evidence that your Mom and her friends would have been fired for expressing their political views? I'm asking because here in the South people who voted for Trump a) express their views when I talk to them, and b) then go on about their day. Frustration, contention, and disagreements, and confusion abide but that's largely a function of Trump's high-noise rhetorical strategy and people (esp. older/retired) getting all their news from a single source. (Btw-- what happened to the stereotype of the proud/responsible U.S. working man reading multiple newspapers at the breakfast table? Is that just a myth of a bygone era?)

delecti 9y ago

> I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump's votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives. I'm not sure this observation has much value. Voting for a candidate that shares your values in a time when those values aren't popular is equivalent to doing so when those values are popular. Either way you're voting for a candidate that shares your values. I'm never going to place a spite-vote for someone who doesn't support my views just because my views are unpopular. And in any case, I think certain views should be demonized. Expressing disparaging things about gay people (the example from the article) should be viewed with the same revulsion as we would today view the historical opinion that people of color were in some way "better suited" for slavery. The view that some people are somehow "less than" shouldn't be tolerated. The paradox of tolerance is very real.

RonanTheGrey 9y ago
> The paradox of tolerance is very real. True but we aren't talking about things at that extreme. We were talking about an unwillingness to talk about your policital candidate, for fear of how "liberals" would treat you. That should be alot more worrying to people than I think it is.

stevenwoo 9y ago

Trump used and continues to use racial dog whistles in his speeches and official tweets. It's part of the reason 90-95 percent of African Americans vote for anyone else over a GOP candidate given the opportunity - if you hear it, it's hard to accept anything else from that speaker. Trump got close to the same vote percentages as historical GOP presidential candidates, Trump is not special in that people departed from their normal behavior to vote for him in some large silent wave.

smsm42 9y ago

> because he feared that his 'out of place' political views would, in his words, 'indirectly limit his career options.' Why he supported Trump is pretty irrelevant, but I found his opinion reasonable, though I disagreed with his overall choice. I think in SV, it is a completely reasonable precaution. If you openly declare you are, say, a communist (I don't mean "support Obamacare", I mean real communist, as in nationalize everything, ban private property, etc.), chances that people would shun you and that hurts you carrier are pretty small. If you say you voted for Trump, chances are higher, and I've heard people say as much pretty much open text.