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What really hit home was this passage: > I acknowledge many people’s lived experience that the thread felt right-wing; my working theory is that most of the pe

What really hit home was this passage: > I acknowledge many people’s lived experience that the thread felt right-wing; my working theory is that most of the people I talk to about this kind of thing are Bay Area liberals for whom the thread was their first/only exposure to a space with any substantial right-wing presence at all, which must have made it feel scarily conservative. I moved from Western Washington where I grew up to the Bay area. I lived in a liberal area in WA, but conservatives existed and more importantly were visible. The congressional district I lived in flipped between Republican and Democrat twice while I was a kid. Some of my parents friends made cases for conservative viewpoints, and in retrospect I really respect my father encouraging me to listen even if I didn't agree. When I moved to the Bay area it felt like I stepped into a world where conservatives might as well be foreigners, or even a different species given the way some people talk about them. Even though I usually agree with the positions they hold, I've become alienated from much of my co workers by the way they openly express disdain for conservatives in a way that demonstrates a clear lack of experience in talking with people on a different end of the political spectrum as normal people. It's jarring to see people simultaneously patting themselves on the back for being inclusive and welcoming at the same time as they exhibit disdain for half the country. I also worry that this is a positive feedback loop of exclusion. Fewer non-left people join Bay area tech companies because of the liberal monoculture. Then the liberal monoculture becomes stronger as there are fewer people calling out ways in which the company is being exclusive towards non-liberals, this leading to an even bigger monoculture, and so forth. It's probably the second biggest thing that is makinge consider moving away from the Bay Area, after cost of living. Sure, I prefer to hav mostly like-minded (liberal) friends, but consider this: in close to a decade of living and about 6 years working in the Bay area I have met exactly one co-worker that openly expressed conservative views. I just don't think that kind of extreme political segregation is healthy.

iron0013 8y ago
I'm from the midwest, and the thread seemed consistently right-wing and reactionary to me. I don't encounter people with... let's be charitable and call it "controversial" politics like those of the typical Culture War Thread poster in my day-to-day life, so what exactly does Scott think is an appropriate contrast to the liberal bubble he thinks dominates west coast tech culture? East Texas? A Trump rally?
- api 8y ago
  I scanned the thread a bit and can second this. I am originally from Ohio the type and extremity of right wing ideas present there seemed far to the right of anything typical in the midwest. There are KKK types and similar in Ohio of course but they're pretty extreme outliers in most areas, especially anywhere near a city or a college. I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explosion of shockingly extreme right-wing thinking on the Internet in recent years... really since about 2008-2012 as near as I can tell.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explosion of shockingly extreme right-wing thinking on the Internet in recent years... really since about 2008-2012 as near as I can tell. I think you can attribute that seeming explosion (at least in part) to people suppressing moderate conservatives, who then have a choice between becoming enlightened classical liberals and bearing the cost of that path in social isolation, or joining the more extreme people where they've been banished to (which, for its moral hazards, is a hell of a lot more fun, and a lot less depressing). These people are not beyond help, but if you keep suppressing them, they will become more entrenched in the underground and the fringes, and they will become as fragile and bigoted as the academic marxists and intersectionalists who inhabit the same sorts of places on the far left. The high road takes a lot of fortitude when you are a social progressive who is seen as willing to hear and integrate good conservative arguments. Libel, vandalism, and assault are rampant against people visibly associated with conservatives, at least, they have been where I've lived (in southern Ontario).
    - heurist 8y ago
      I haven't seen a lot of active suppression of right wing views other than the more numerous liberals having more bodies to throw at arguments. If the tables were turned and liberal ideas were less popular than conservative ideas then by human nature we'd likely see the same kinds and amount of individual attacks. It already happens in right wing enclaves. I've been banned from multiple conservative subreddits for making reasonable centrist arguments that conservatives historically agreed with or asking questions that stir the pot in a gentle way. On Facebook and Twitter I get people responding with ad hominems to arguments which are not liberal but which do not toe the current Republican party line. Also, someone was arrested the other day for seriously plotting to murder a bunch of popular Democratic politicians. The grass is not greener, in other words. I have not attempted to engage on many other forums but it seems to me that arguing outside the local groupthink is what makes people angry, more than any particular ideology being the driver. Angry people do stupid things. If you're in the minority party locally, you might feel oppressed even if you could go to the next town over and feel right at home.
logfromblammo 8y ago
I have determined that I am far too liberal for Alabama, yet too conservative for California_SFO. The feedback loop of exclusion works for a lot of monocultures. They just have to be offensively fanatic about something, and the zeal will drive out anyone foolishly moderate enough to disagree. If you wouldn't enjoy assigning the Christian apostles to football team positions, you will feel like an alien somewhere. If you think veganism is nonsense from both ethical and nutritional stances, you will feel like an alien somewhere. The ideological monocultures have to be intentionally upset, or they progress into self-reinforcing shielded bubbles, that are even tougher to crack. I'd like to be able to live somewhere that I might hear people discussing open borders at the gun range, or misogyny at the gym, or military budgets at the coffee shop. I'm sick of people suffering "downvoted for disagreement" in real life. It's like the awful clique-caste system from high school has metastasized into (un)civil adult society, and no one can eat at anyone else's lunch table anymore.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  One of those books-that-would-be-a-fantastic-long-essay is "The Big Sort," it tackles this exact problem. Modern life actually seems to be driving people into micro-cultures, rather than bringing people with different beliefs together.
- thaeli 8y ago
  This is one of my favorite things about living in a (literally) inside-the-Beltway suburb of DC. The local governments are far enough left that I'm afforded civil rights protections, but the overall culture is accepting of a range of viewpoints. It helps that most of the zealots (of all stripes) are inherently political transients here, who come and go with the electoral cycle.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I’m also inside the beltway, and indeed, my first reaction to that comment was “come to the DC area!” As a bonus, a lot of the people are actually involved in the process somehow, so the discussion is a lot less abstract and theoretical than usual.
komali2 8y ago
I hear what you're saying, and as a Texan, I feel like I understand your viewpoint. I've got thoughts on the issue too, having lived in the Bay area for a couple years now. Mostly they revolve around this point: >half the country. I disagree that half the country is conservative. I was put onto this idea by Michael Moore actually, who argued that if you run the surveys, turns out most Americans support liberal values. This article is a good summary: https://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even-if-they-don%E2%80%99t-know-it https://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even... > 82 percent of Americans think wealthy people have too much power and influence in Washington. > 59 percent favor raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour. > 78 percent of likely voters favor establishing a national fund that offers all workers 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. > 60 percent of Americans believe “it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage.” > 60 percent of registered voters favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American.” > 58 percent of the public favors replacing Obamacare with “a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans.” > 63 percent of registered voters—including 47 percent of Republicans—of Americans favor making four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free. > 76 percent of voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about climate change. > 84 percent of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers. > 60 percent of Americans believe the recent killings of black men by police are part of a broader pattern of how police treat black Americans (compared with 39 percent who believe they are isolated incidents). I could go on. The point is, a true conservative is somewhat of a minority in America, and also, a "conservative" isn't what one might think. There are probably a lot of people in the Bay Area that believe they are liberals but are actually conservatives - tons of self-described libertarians here, for example, whose opinions on the invisible hand and free market I would argue are conservative. Then, there's the "modern conservative" - the MAGA hat wearer that thinks Mexicans are taking their jobs, but are also somehow draining tax money by illegally being on welfare. The racists, the homophobes the ones that believe bullying is a valid "treatment" for the "disease" of transgenderism. The ones for whom "conservatism" isn't so much a political belief as an ethical one - "we need a conservative judge to prevent abortions, and if he's a misogynist so be it, it's for the Greater Good." These people aren't necessarily "alien," but their thought process in 2019 is, especially compared to the rest of the world. I think the world as a whole is becoming more rational. I think more people are getting good educations. In a rational world, racism and homophobia and all the things that are "scarily conservative" just don't jive. There's no good arguments for it. It's the Mexicans are taking our jobs and our tax money at the same time thinking - totally irrational, totally incompatible. > I have met exactly one co-worker that openly expressed conservative views If "conservative views" means "government should spend less," I think SF could use more people like that, for god's sake just look up the budget for Van Ness improvements. The existence of opposition would help cases like that. But if "conservative views" means "gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry," fuck'm, why would you want someone like that around? How does that "help the public discourse?" How does exposure to that viewpoint help anyone? "Free speech?" I don't buy it.
dmode 8y ago
Honestly, Bay Area is like >50% recent immigrants. I think a lot of the problem arise because we ascribe the American label of "conservative" and "liberal" to a population who grew up in a very different society. A lot of behaviors that we assign to conservatives and liberals do not line up that way in other societies. For example, in Europe, the far right has very little interest in free markets, and has policy goals that are perhaps more common with the far left. In Asia, you will find deeply religious parties (e.g., BJP) who at the same time are pro-science and climate change. Also, a lot of recent immigrants in the Bay Area "escaped" deeply culturally conservative societies where freedom of sexuality is unheard of and really appreciate the tolerance that is in the fabric of Bay Area culture. So, in that sense, yes, it would seem to be a mono culture here of "liberals", but if you dig deeper the layers are not that simple.
- manfredo 8y ago
  BJP is pro science? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/indian-prime-minister-genetic-science-existed-ancient-times https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/indian-prime-m... Sure Modi is just an individual, but the BJP elected him to office.
creato 8y ago
> in close to a decade of living and about 6 years working in the Bay area I have met exactly one co-worker that openly expressed conservative views. In my experience in the bay area, it's very rare for co-workers to express political views at all. In fact, I find the bay area to be very politically reserved compared to the open embrace of conservative viewpoints where I'm from (I probably lean more conservative than liberal, so I don't think I'm simply being more sensitive to it). I have encountered people that aggressively espouse liberal positions every now and then, but in my experience, this makes most other people around them (including me) uncomfortable, and the conversation usually stops quickly. While it is maybe more rare for a conservative to do this, I find it to be met with the same response.
- manfredo 8y ago
  > I have encountered people that aggressively espouse liberal positions every now and then, but in my experience, this makes most other people around them (including me) uncomfortable, and the conversation usually stops quickly. While it is maybe more rare for a conservative to do this, I find it to be met with the same response. I had the same experiences in Western Washington, but I get the feeling that much fewer people feel empowered to step in and stop the situation where people espouse controversial viewpoints in a manner denigrating to those that believe differently. So people who do aggressively espouse controversial viewpoints think this behavior is acceptable. This does have tangible impact beyond slack and email lists. Our company has made several decisions that many would regard unethical or at least unsavory, and I think there's a strong probability that if there was less of a mono culture someone would have pointed out that these things went beyond the realm of mainstream morals. Granted, I'm totally complicit in this bystander effect. I don't want to risk any damage to career or network opportunities. The concerning takeaway, though, is that fact that this is an environment that engenders fear in people who try to
rgoulter 8y ago
Nicky Case & Vi Hart have a model "Parable of the Polygons", which relates to what you're saying. https://ncase.me/polygons/ https://ncase.me/polygons/

iron0013 8y ago

I'm from the midwest, and the thread seemed consistently right-wing and reactionary to me. I don't encounter people with... let's be charitable and call it "controversial" politics like those of the typical Culture War Thread poster in my day-to-day life, so what exactly does Scott think is an appropriate contrast to the liberal bubble he thinks dominates west coast tech culture? East Texas? A Trump rally?

api 8y ago
I scanned the thread a bit and can second this. I am originally from Ohio the type and extremity of right wing ideas present there seemed far to the right of anything typical in the midwest. There are KKK types and similar in Ohio of course but they're pretty extreme outliers in most areas, especially anywhere near a city or a college. I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explosion of shockingly extreme right-wing thinking on the Internet in recent years... really since about 2008-2012 as near as I can tell.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explosion of shockingly extreme right-wing thinking on the Internet in recent years... really since about 2008-2012 as near as I can tell. I think you can attribute that seeming explosion (at least in part) to people suppressing moderate conservatives, who then have a choice between becoming enlightened classical liberals and bearing the cost of that path in social isolation, or joining the more extreme people where they've been banished to (which, for its moral hazards, is a hell of a lot more fun, and a lot less depressing). These people are not beyond help, but if you keep suppressing them, they will become more entrenched in the underground and the fringes, and they will become as fragile and bigoted as the academic marxists and intersectionalists who inhabit the same sorts of places on the far left. The high road takes a lot of fortitude when you are a social progressive who is seen as willing to hear and integrate good conservative arguments. Libel, vandalism, and assault are rampant against people visibly associated with conservatives, at least, they have been where I've lived (in southern Ontario).
  - heurist 8y ago
    I haven't seen a lot of active suppression of right wing views other than the more numerous liberals having more bodies to throw at arguments. If the tables were turned and liberal ideas were less popular than conservative ideas then by human nature we'd likely see the same kinds and amount of individual attacks. It already happens in right wing enclaves. I've been banned from multiple conservative subreddits for making reasonable centrist arguments that conservatives historically agreed with or asking questions that stir the pot in a gentle way. On Facebook and Twitter I get people responding with ad hominems to arguments which are not liberal but which do not toe the current Republican party line. Also, someone was arrested the other day for seriously plotting to murder a bunch of popular Democratic politicians. The grass is not greener, in other words. I have not attempted to engage on many other forums but it seems to me that arguing outside the local groupthink is what makes people angry, more than any particular ideology being the driver. Angry people do stupid things. If you're in the minority party locally, you might feel oppressed even if you could go to the next town over and feel right at home.

logfromblammo 8y ago

I have determined that I am far too liberal for Alabama, yet too conservative for California_SFO. The feedback loop of exclusion works for a lot of monocultures. They just have to be offensively fanatic about something, and the zeal will drive out anyone foolishly moderate enough to disagree. If you wouldn't enjoy assigning the Christian apostles to football team positions, you will feel like an alien somewhere. If you think veganism is nonsense from both ethical and nutritional stances, you will feel like an alien somewhere. The ideological monocultures have to be intentionally upset, or they progress into self-reinforcing shielded bubbles, that are even tougher to crack. I'd like to be able to live somewhere that I might hear people discussing open borders at the gun range, or misogyny at the gym, or military budgets at the coffee shop. I'm sick of people suffering "downvoted for disagreement" in real life. It's like the awful clique-caste system from high school has metastasized into (un)civil adult society, and no one can eat at anyone else's lunch table anymore.

braythwayt 8y ago
One of those books-that-would-be-a-fantastic-long-essay is "The Big Sort," it tackles this exact problem. Modern life actually seems to be driving people into micro-cultures, rather than bringing people with different beliefs together.
thaeli 8y ago
This is one of my favorite things about living in a (literally) inside-the-Beltway suburb of DC. The local governments are far enough left that I'm afforded civil rights protections, but the overall culture is accepting of a range of viewpoints. It helps that most of the zealots (of all stripes) are inherently political transients here, who come and go with the electoral cycle.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I’m also inside the beltway, and indeed, my first reaction to that comment was “come to the DC area!” As a bonus, a lot of the people are actually involved in the process somehow, so the discussion is a lot less abstract and theoretical than usual.

komali2 8y ago

I hear what you're saying, and as a Texan, I feel like I understand your viewpoint. I've got thoughts on the issue too, having lived in the Bay area for a couple years now. Mostly they revolve around this point: >half the country. I disagree that half the country is conservative. I was put onto this idea by Michael Moore actually, who argued that if you run the surveys, turns out most Americans support liberal values. This article is a good summary: https://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even-if-they-don%E2%80%99t-know-it https://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even... > 82 percent of Americans think wealthy people have too much power and influence in Washington. > 59 percent favor raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour. > 78 percent of likely voters favor establishing a national fund that offers all workers 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. > 60 percent of Americans believe “it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage.” > 60 percent of registered voters favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American.” > 58 percent of the public favors replacing Obamacare with “a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans.” > 63 percent of registered voters—including 47 percent of Republicans—of Americans favor making four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free. > 76 percent of voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about climate change. > 84 percent of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers. > 60 percent of Americans believe the recent killings of black men by police are part of a broader pattern of how police treat black Americans (compared with 39 percent who believe they are isolated incidents). I could go on. The point is, a true conservative is somewhat of a minority in America, and also, a "conservative" isn't what one might think. There are probably a lot of people in the Bay Area that believe they are liberals but are actually conservatives - tons of self-described libertarians here, for example, whose opinions on the invisible hand and free market I would argue are conservative. Then, there's the "modern conservative" - the MAGA hat wearer that thinks Mexicans are taking their jobs, but are also somehow draining tax money by illegally being on welfare. The racists, the homophobes the ones that believe bullying is a valid "treatment" for the "disease" of transgenderism. The ones for whom "conservatism" isn't so much a political belief as an ethical one - "we need a conservative judge to prevent abortions, and if he's a misogynist so be it, it's for the Greater Good." These people aren't necessarily "alien," but their thought process in 2019 is, especially compared to the rest of the world. I think the world as a whole is becoming more rational. I think more people are getting good educations. In a rational world, racism and homophobia and all the things that are "scarily conservative" just don't jive. There's no good arguments for it. It's the Mexicans are taking our jobs and our tax money at the same time thinking - totally irrational, totally incompatible. > I have met exactly one co-worker that openly expressed conservative views If "conservative views" means "government should spend less," I think SF could use more people like that, for god's sake just look up the budget for Van Ness improvements. The existence of opposition would help cases like that. But if "conservative views" means "gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry," fuck'm, why would you want someone like that around? How does that "help the public discourse?" How does exposure to that viewpoint help anyone? "Free speech?" I don't buy it.

dmode 8y ago

Honestly, Bay Area is like >50% recent immigrants. I think a lot of the problem arise because we ascribe the American label of "conservative" and "liberal" to a population who grew up in a very different society. A lot of behaviors that we assign to conservatives and liberals do not line up that way in other societies. For example, in Europe, the far right has very little interest in free markets, and has policy goals that are perhaps more common with the far left. In Asia, you will find deeply religious parties (e.g., BJP) who at the same time are pro-science and climate change. Also, a lot of recent immigrants in the Bay Area "escaped" deeply culturally conservative societies where freedom of sexuality is unheard of and really appreciate the tolerance that is in the fabric of Bay Area culture. So, in that sense, yes, it would seem to be a mono culture here of "liberals", but if you dig deeper the layers are not that simple.

manfredo 8y ago
BJP is pro science? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/indian-prime-minister-genetic-science-existed-ancient-times https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/indian-prime-m... Sure Modi is just an individual, but the BJP elected him to office.

creato 8y ago

> in close to a decade of living and about 6 years working in the Bay area I have met exactly one co-worker that openly expressed conservative views. In my experience in the bay area, it's very rare for co-workers to express political views at all. In fact, I find the bay area to be very politically reserved compared to the open embrace of conservative viewpoints where I'm from (I probably lean more conservative than liberal, so I don't think I'm simply being more sensitive to it). I have encountered people that aggressively espouse liberal positions every now and then, but in my experience, this makes most other people around them (including me) uncomfortable, and the conversation usually stops quickly. While it is maybe more rare for a conservative to do this, I find it to be met with the same response.

manfredo 8y ago
> I have encountered people that aggressively espouse liberal positions every now and then, but in my experience, this makes most other people around them (including me) uncomfortable, and the conversation usually stops quickly. While it is maybe more rare for a conservative to do this, I find it to be met with the same response. I had the same experiences in Western Washington, but I get the feeling that much fewer people feel empowered to step in and stop the situation where people espouse controversial viewpoints in a manner denigrating to those that believe differently. So people who do aggressively espouse controversial viewpoints think this behavior is acceptable. This does have tangible impact beyond slack and email lists. Our company has made several decisions that many would regard unethical or at least unsavory, and I think there's a strong probability that if there was less of a mono culture someone would have pointed out that these things went beyond the realm of mainstream morals. Granted, I'm totally complicit in this bystander effect. I don't want to risk any damage to career or network opportunities. The concerning takeaway, though, is that fact that this is an environment that engenders fear in people who try to

rgoulter 8y ago

Nicky Case & Vi Hart have a model "Parable of the Polygons", which relates to what you're saying. https://ncase.me/polygons/ https://ncase.me/polygons/