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One of the biggest markers of ideological blindness is when people lose their ability to do basic arithmetic. The United States is 65% white. How you gonna ge

One of the biggest markers of ideological blindness is when people lose their ability to do basic arithmetic. The United States is 65% white. How you gonna get to 51% of the vote when your primary message to white people is "check your privilege"? Bonus points when it's coming from a 25yo making $200k a year.

crooked-v 8y ago
Who exactly is making that their "entire message" in politics?
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  I should have said "primary message". Edited, thanks. That said, the primary message is basically the entire message in a world of soundbites.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    And yet you still haven't answered his question. This[0] is the democratic party platform. Can you point to the portion that says "White people; Check your privilege"? If you were not talking about the democratic party, as I've assumed you are, I'm sure you can find the party platform of the group you are referencing. [0]: http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/2016_DNC_Platform.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/2016...
    - yourbandsucks 8y ago
      I'm talking about the social justice warriors who make up a disproportionate slice of tech community liberals. They're the loudest, their message is what gets through, especially when you've got people like Hannity and Limbaugh to help spread and 'interpret' their message[1]. Not about the broader democratic party, which very much includes me and many others who get annoyed as hell by the divisiveness of the above group. And I'm certainly not talking about the platform. If people voted based on that instead of media soundbites, we'd have a different country. [1]: If you're a democrat, and you find that Hannity and Limbaugh are excited to quote you, please shut the fuck up immediately until you understand why they love you so much.
      - kevincrane 8y ago
        > social justice warriors Never met an adult who's typed that nonironically.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        yourbandsucks 8y ago
        And yet it does get said. And all sorts of people who would agree with the above-linked democratic platform voted against it. Maybe there's a messaging problem, and maybe the people I'm grossly offending in this thread are part of it. If they can't handle liberal techie me without being triggered, how could they possibly converse with Joe Sixpack?
        colemickens 8y ago
        "triggered". Really though? The only people that ever use "triggered" and "social justice warriors" non-ironically are trolls and people with despicable enough views that we don't bother talking about or engaging with them. The fact that you're trying to act like there are a group of Democrats that actively, universally hate white people and proudly call themselves "sjw" is destroying any remaining credibility you have. It's also just painfully embarrassing to watch happen.
        yourbandsucks 8y ago
        You gotta update your lexicon bro. There's a new generation and they even say micro aggression. These people exist and they are huge in silicon valley. God bless ya if you haven't encountered them.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ajross 8y ago
Because half the population is women. Your arithmetic quip falls a little flat when you lose the ability to partition data along more than one axis. What was that about ideological blindness again?
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Wanna get back to me with the % of white women who still voted for Trump despite all his comments and history? It seems like your position is that "everyone gang up on white men" is a winning strategy because we've now sliced off a minority that doesn't get to 51%. Ethics of that aside, it hasn't been working. Obama and Bill Clinton won on thinking and inclusiveness. Not on division and resentment.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Ethics of that aside, it hasn't been working. Obama and Bill Clinton won on thinking and inclusiveness. Clinton and Obama received almost exactly the same criticism that you've made here of (presumably, you haven't actually named a target except by vague implication) current Democrats, by both those outside the party and some of their critics within the party. Sure, it wasn't well-founded, but it was no less well-founded than your criticism.
    - yourbandsucks 8y ago
      This thread is full of people defending and endorsing identity politics. The comment I'm replying to in this thread is a great example. Obama in particular was very careful not to do that.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > This thread is full of people defending and endorsing identity politics. So were random conversations with Obama supporters. > Obama in particular was very careful not to do that. And yet, to the extent that is true, he was still charged with it by critics just like you, because plenty of people in his base did it, and so that was—to them—the primary message of Obama's party. Of course, he was also a accused of doing it directly with his own statements, not just being the face of movement which did it, particularly after his “evolution” on LGBT rights during his first term, and also specifically in his speech addressing the killing of Trayvon Martin.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The United States is 65% white Closer to 77%. Oh, you meant non-Hispanic White. > How you gonna get to 51% of the vote when your primary message to white people is "check your privilege"? (1) US elections are often won with a plurality (and sometimes, e.g. 2016, simple minority) of the vote, 51% is not required. (2) No major US political group has that as a major message.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Yes, I meant white as it's used in political demographics, rather than how it's written on the census form. As far as the message.. one can send a message by omission. If you spend a lot of time pandering in a race-based manner to every group EXCEPT this one racial group.. some people might take that the wrong way. Especially if you've got a small, loud minority telling them to take it exactly that way. My solution is to drop the race-gender-whatev based pandering and move to shared ideals. It's how democrats win. They lose at the tribal game every time. How you gonna wrangle 20 different identities against a single more cohesive identity that also outnumbers you?
colemickens 8y ago
I haven't cringed so much at a set of HN comments as I have today. "Check your privilege" isn't a phrase that anyone seriously uses. Do you deny that privilege exists? Do you think that the only people who talk about privilege are non-white? Do you think that the concept of privilege makes all white people evil, or is a message that is un-hearable to all white people? You just showed more about your own biases than you did anything to advance any conversation here. Then you double down further in the thread about "Social justice warriors" being a real thing (it's literally only ever used as a boogeyman by people with really broken, wrong thoughts about "privilege" as an abstract concept, so thanks for confirming that I guess.) It's not even a "primary" message. What politician advanced that message recently? Which politically-affiliated political action group has "check your privilege" as a mantra? And here I am, again, pushing someone for evidence when it's painfully obvious that there's nothing there other than unsupported biases.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  A year ago I would have made this exact same comment. But here we are. All depends on who you're exposed to, I guess. Could you be a little more specific about what my thoughts are on privilege as an abstract concept? I've been wanting someone to tell me about that.
  - colemickens 8y ago
    Your own comment where you brought up privilege do plenty to demonstrate how you think about it. The fact that you compare the percentage of white people and act like "check your privilege" is a perfect opposite of "whiteness", I mean, maybe you have another interpretation of what you meant...
    - yourbandsucks 8y ago
      No, no, you keep going. You're doing great. How did my childhood impact these views?
      - 8y ago

crooked-v 8y ago

Who exactly is making that their "entire message" in politics?

yourbandsucks 8y ago
I should have said "primary message". Edited, thanks. That said, the primary message is basically the entire message in a world of soundbites.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  And yet you still haven't answered his question. This[0] is the democratic party platform. Can you point to the portion that says "White people; Check your privilege"? If you were not talking about the democratic party, as I've assumed you are, I'm sure you can find the party platform of the group you are referencing. [0]: http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/2016_DNC_Platform.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/2016...
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    I'm talking about the social justice warriors who make up a disproportionate slice of tech community liberals. They're the loudest, their message is what gets through, especially when you've got people like Hannity and Limbaugh to help spread and 'interpret' their message[1]. Not about the broader democratic party, which very much includes me and many others who get annoyed as hell by the divisiveness of the above group. And I'm certainly not talking about the platform. If people voted based on that instead of media soundbites, we'd have a different country. [1]: If you're a democrat, and you find that Hannity and Limbaugh are excited to quote you, please shut the fuck up immediately until you understand why they love you so much.
    - kevincrane 8y ago
      > social justice warriors Never met an adult who's typed that nonironically.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - yourbandsucks 8y ago
        And yet it does get said. And all sorts of people who would agree with the above-linked democratic platform voted against it. Maybe there's a messaging problem, and maybe the people I'm grossly offending in this thread are part of it. If they can't handle liberal techie me without being triggered, how could they possibly converse with Joe Sixpack?
        colemickens 8y ago
        "triggered". Really though? The only people that ever use "triggered" and "social justice warriors" non-ironically are trolls and people with despicable enough views that we don't bother talking about or engaging with them. The fact that you're trying to act like there are a group of Democrats that actively, universally hate white people and proudly call themselves "sjw" is destroying any remaining credibility you have. It's also just painfully embarrassing to watch happen.
        yourbandsucks 8y ago
        You gotta update your lexicon bro. There's a new generation and they even say micro aggression. These people exist and they are huge in silicon valley. God bless ya if you haven't encountered them.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ajross 8y ago

Because half the population is women. Your arithmetic quip falls a little flat when you lose the ability to partition data along more than one axis. What was that about ideological blindness again?

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Wanna get back to me with the % of white women who still voted for Trump despite all his comments and history? It seems like your position is that "everyone gang up on white men" is a winning strategy because we've now sliced off a minority that doesn't get to 51%. Ethics of that aside, it hasn't been working. Obama and Bill Clinton won on thinking and inclusiveness. Not on division and resentment.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Ethics of that aside, it hasn't been working. Obama and Bill Clinton won on thinking and inclusiveness. Clinton and Obama received almost exactly the same criticism that you've made here of (presumably, you haven't actually named a target except by vague implication) current Democrats, by both those outside the party and some of their critics within the party. Sure, it wasn't well-founded, but it was no less well-founded than your criticism.
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    This thread is full of people defending and endorsing identity politics. The comment I'm replying to in this thread is a great example. Obama in particular was very careful not to do that.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > This thread is full of people defending and endorsing identity politics. So were random conversations with Obama supporters. > Obama in particular was very careful not to do that. And yet, to the extent that is true, he was still charged with it by critics just like you, because plenty of people in his base did it, and so that was—to them—the primary message of Obama's party. Of course, he was also a accused of doing it directly with his own statements, not just being the face of movement which did it, particularly after his “evolution” on LGBT rights during his first term, and also specifically in his speech addressing the killing of Trayvon Martin.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The United States is 65% white Closer to 77%. Oh, you meant non-Hispanic White. > How you gonna get to 51% of the vote when your primary message to white people is "check your privilege"? (1) US elections are often won with a plurality (and sometimes, e.g. 2016, simple minority) of the vote, 51% is not required. (2) No major US political group has that as a major message.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Yes, I meant white as it's used in political demographics, rather than how it's written on the census form. As far as the message.. one can send a message by omission. If you spend a lot of time pandering in a race-based manner to every group EXCEPT this one racial group.. some people might take that the wrong way. Especially if you've got a small, loud minority telling them to take it exactly that way. My solution is to drop the race-gender-whatev based pandering and move to shared ideals. It's how democrats win. They lose at the tribal game every time. How you gonna wrangle 20 different identities against a single more cohesive identity that also outnumbers you?

colemickens 8y ago

I haven't cringed so much at a set of HN comments as I have today. "Check your privilege" isn't a phrase that anyone seriously uses. Do you deny that privilege exists? Do you think that the only people who talk about privilege are non-white? Do you think that the concept of privilege makes all white people evil, or is a message that is un-hearable to all white people? You just showed more about your own biases than you did anything to advance any conversation here. Then you double down further in the thread about "Social justice warriors" being a real thing (it's literally only ever used as a boogeyman by people with really broken, wrong thoughts about "privilege" as an abstract concept, so thanks for confirming that I guess.) It's not even a "primary" message. What politician advanced that message recently? Which politically-affiliated political action group has "check your privilege" as a mantra? And here I am, again, pushing someone for evidence when it's painfully obvious that there's nothing there other than unsupported biases.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
A year ago I would have made this exact same comment. But here we are. All depends on who you're exposed to, I guess. Could you be a little more specific about what my thoughts are on privilege as an abstract concept? I've been wanting someone to tell me about that.
- colemickens 8y ago
  Your own comment where you brought up privilege do plenty to demonstrate how you think about it. The fact that you compare the percentage of white people and act like "check your privilege" is a perfect opposite of "whiteness", I mean, maybe you have another interpretation of what you meant...
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    No, no, you keep going. You're doing great. How did my childhood impact these views?
    - 8y ago