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Right, but this is what makes the situation so dangerous in the U.S. If no one’s mind is changed over events like these, then we’re at a point where there are e

Right, but this is what makes the situation so dangerous in the U.S. If no one’s mind is changed over events like these, then we’re at a point where there are essentially two citizenries which both see the other side as toxic. We’re slouching towards civil war. Most people don’t want war, but do see the other side as harmful, so we have to try hard to avoid it. Maybe we’re all looking at it wrong, maybe a civil war increases shareholder value for Facebook? Because the way they went about this is another escalation. Nothing drives engagement like military engagements, right?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 6y ago
I had assumed it was just that people were consuming two entirely different media streams. But I’ve had conversations recently where college educated people won’t even concede basic factual points left out of a media narrative. Like, things that can be established just by looking at some publicly available document, which I have given them. They keep just circling back to the narrative. It’s scary.
- duckMuppet 6y ago
  You're mistake was thinking that being college educated leads to critical thinking. On the contrary, college and the University system in general is largely a credentialing and signaling system now. Very often, the public education system in the US at least removed much of the critical thinking for thinking in narratives.
- qqqwerty 6y ago
  It is a "bad faith" problem. Bad faith arguments are made on all sides of the political spectrum, but anecdotally, it feels like one side is a little more fact challenged and relies on them fairly heavily. And the amount of arguments being made in bad faith means it is often more productive to just ignore or dismiss the other sides arguments outright. Here is a good example. Right wing media likes to point at the homelessness problem in CA and claim that that is proof that Democrats are bad at governing. The homeless issue is a fact, supported by data. And CA being a Democratic state is also a fact supported by data. But pointing to both those facts and claiming it as proof that Democrats==bad is a bad faith argument. Blue states have higher GDP, higher levels of education attainment, and lower poverty rates than red states. And homelessness is a weird metric to use as it is partially a by product of regional economic success, where a good job market coupled with an overheated housing market results in an increasing number of people willing to tough it out on the streets or in their cars. I could make a similarly bad faith argument, and point out that West Virginia has the highest number of opioid overdoses per capita, therefore Republicans==bad. But I don't need to do that because the statistics that most reasonable people would agree to use as an arbiter of state level success are already in agreement with my position. As you can see from the length of the above paragraph. These bad faith arguments require a decent amount of effort and/or knowledge to effectively counter. So as we move into this post-fact world, can you really blame people for just sticking to the 'narratives'?
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > homelessness is a weird metric to use Homeless is not a weird metric to use. It's absolutely a failure of government in the worst possible way. Democrats deserve all the criticism in the world for tolerating that situation. Still, you're correct that there is bad faith: the bad faith is that Republicans care about homelessness, which they generally do not either. Democrats deserve criticism for the failures of Democratic-controlled governments, and Republicans deserve criticism for the failures of Republican-controlled governments. In my opinion, they're both bad. Are they "equally bad"? Maybe not, but I won't accept that homelessness is a weird metric. There's a lot of bad faith is ignoring one's own faults.
    - vonseel 6y ago
      Exactly. California not the only Democrat-led place with major homelessness problems. Just look at Austin, Texas, for an example of exactly what not to do. And these bleeding heart liberals want to elect Biden... it breaks my heart what the toxic Democrat-led media are doing to this country.
      - _qulr 6y ago
        > And these bleeding heart liberals This doesn't really give the impression of actually deeply caring about homelessness...
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > anecdotally, it feels like one side is a little more fact challenged and relies on them fairly heavily. This is just filter bubbles and various cognitive biases. Stories from any cable news network are regularly full of major holes, which you overlook when they're on "your side" because you're not invested in finding fault with them. Stephen Colbert's perception of reality has a known liberal bias. > And homelessness is a weird metric to use as it is partially a by product of regional economic success, where a good job market coupled with an overheated housing market results in an increasing number of people willing to tough it out on the streets or in their cars. But the overheated housing market is the criticism, and is completely valid. California is correctly criticized for letting housing costs get so bad that people who are making twice the US median income are nonetheless sleeping in their cars. And California may be the worst, but it is actually a problem which is more severe in blue states than red states on average. Housing costs more in NYC than Austin, and more in Chicago than Charlotte, despite having a lower median income. So sticking to the "narratives" doesn't get you there. It causes you to ignore the problems in your own back yard. You have to look at the facts, even when they're inconvenient, and admit it when it's your team making a mistake.
rufusroflpunch 6y ago
I think people need to come to terms with the fact that the USA isn’t immutable and no government lasts forever. A divorce is coming and it’s better for everyone if it’s peaceful when it happens.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > I think people need to come to terms with the fact that the USA isn’t immutable and no government lasts forever. I agree with this. The Constitution is outdated in the extreme. We're long overdue for something new. > A divorce is coming and it’s better for everyone if it’s peaceful when it happens. A divorce? I don't think that's going to work. Who gets custody of Wisconsin?
  - rufusroflpunch 6y ago
    How about the Republic of Wisconsin? The divorce doesn’t need to end with only two parties.
  - no-s 6y ago
    >>A divorce? I don't think that's going to work. Who gets custody of Wisconsin? Some warlord from Michigan?
whoevercares 6y ago
Is Civil war possible at all in US’s military system today?
- hef19898 6y ago
  From an external position, I'd say theoretically yes. It is enough when a political rift goes through society and also the military. This rift could lead to failure of command coehesion, split of the military and ultimately infighting. Which could, if you ask me, be a risk in case trump wins but it is rather clear that the election was fradulent (not saying it will be, but let's assume for the arguments sake it was). In which case the military would have to decide which "president" to follow, or to follow congress, or the senate, or someone else. Which could tear the military appart, let alone to speak of the national guard.
  - jcadam 6y ago
    As a former Army officer, I completely agree with the CJCS recent statement that the military will play no role in the election process. Anything short of a clear landslide for one of the two candidates is going to result in a seriously tense/chaotic situation. Best to hunker down and hope the civilians sort their shit out before giving an order you know is going to result in a lot of resentment and formerly good, dependable people being locked up for insubordination (best case), or entire organizations dissolving in an orgy of mutiny, violence, and/or desertion (worst case). As far as a split goes, it wouldn't be "clean." Unlike in the 19th century, individual units aren't constituted from people drawn from the same geographic area. There's a centralized bureaucracy managing personnel, so most units really are a cultural melting pot made up of people from all over the country. So I don't see the military splitting, I see it falling apart.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      I was affraid that people with actual US military experience would share that sentiment. Also the international impact that would have. just thinking about a situation in which the US military would have any real role in who the next President will be gives me the chills. And it kind of would force every country with a US military presence to basically pick a side. Scary thought. I just hope that the outcome will be chrystal clear, hopefully democrat. And that if it is not unit cohesion is strong enough to prevent the US forces from falling apart.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 6y ago

I had assumed it was just that people were consuming two entirely different media streams. But I’ve had conversations recently where college educated people won’t even concede basic factual points left out of a media narrative. Like, things that can be established just by looking at some publicly available document, which I have given them. They keep just circling back to the narrative. It’s scary.

duckMuppet 6y ago
You're mistake was thinking that being college educated leads to critical thinking. On the contrary, college and the University system in general is largely a credentialing and signaling system now. Very often, the public education system in the US at least removed much of the critical thinking for thinking in narratives.
qqqwerty 6y ago
It is a "bad faith" problem. Bad faith arguments are made on all sides of the political spectrum, but anecdotally, it feels like one side is a little more fact challenged and relies on them fairly heavily. And the amount of arguments being made in bad faith means it is often more productive to just ignore or dismiss the other sides arguments outright. Here is a good example. Right wing media likes to point at the homelessness problem in CA and claim that that is proof that Democrats are bad at governing. The homeless issue is a fact, supported by data. And CA being a Democratic state is also a fact supported by data. But pointing to both those facts and claiming it as proof that Democrats==bad is a bad faith argument. Blue states have higher GDP, higher levels of education attainment, and lower poverty rates than red states. And homelessness is a weird metric to use as it is partially a by product of regional economic success, where a good job market coupled with an overheated housing market results in an increasing number of people willing to tough it out on the streets or in their cars. I could make a similarly bad faith argument, and point out that West Virginia has the highest number of opioid overdoses per capita, therefore Republicans==bad. But I don't need to do that because the statistics that most reasonable people would agree to use as an arbiter of state level success are already in agreement with my position. As you can see from the length of the above paragraph. These bad faith arguments require a decent amount of effort and/or knowledge to effectively counter. So as we move into this post-fact world, can you really blame people for just sticking to the 'narratives'?
- _qulr 6y ago
  > homelessness is a weird metric to use Homeless is not a weird metric to use. It's absolutely a failure of government in the worst possible way. Democrats deserve all the criticism in the world for tolerating that situation. Still, you're correct that there is bad faith: the bad faith is that Republicans care about homelessness, which they generally do not either. Democrats deserve criticism for the failures of Democratic-controlled governments, and Republicans deserve criticism for the failures of Republican-controlled governments. In my opinion, they're both bad. Are they "equally bad"? Maybe not, but I won't accept that homelessness is a weird metric. There's a lot of bad faith is ignoring one's own faults.
  - vonseel 6y ago
    Exactly. California not the only Democrat-led place with major homelessness problems. Just look at Austin, Texas, for an example of exactly what not to do. And these bleeding heart liberals want to elect Biden... it breaks my heart what the toxic Democrat-led media are doing to this country.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      > And these bleeding heart liberals This doesn't really give the impression of actually deeply caring about homelessness...
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > anecdotally, it feels like one side is a little more fact challenged and relies on them fairly heavily. This is just filter bubbles and various cognitive biases. Stories from any cable news network are regularly full of major holes, which you overlook when they're on "your side" because you're not invested in finding fault with them. Stephen Colbert's perception of reality has a known liberal bias. > And homelessness is a weird metric to use as it is partially a by product of regional economic success, where a good job market coupled with an overheated housing market results in an increasing number of people willing to tough it out on the streets or in their cars. But the overheated housing market is the criticism, and is completely valid. California is correctly criticized for letting housing costs get so bad that people who are making twice the US median income are nonetheless sleeping in their cars. And California may be the worst, but it is actually a problem which is more severe in blue states than red states on average. Housing costs more in NYC than Austin, and more in Chicago than Charlotte, despite having a lower median income. So sticking to the "narratives" doesn't get you there. It causes you to ignore the problems in your own back yard. You have to look at the facts, even when they're inconvenient, and admit it when it's your team making a mistake.

rufusroflpunch 6y ago

I think people need to come to terms with the fact that the USA isn’t immutable and no government lasts forever. A divorce is coming and it’s better for everyone if it’s peaceful when it happens.

_qulr 6y ago
> I think people need to come to terms with the fact that the USA isn’t immutable and no government lasts forever. I agree with this. The Constitution is outdated in the extreme. We're long overdue for something new. > A divorce is coming and it’s better for everyone if it’s peaceful when it happens. A divorce? I don't think that's going to work. Who gets custody of Wisconsin?
- rufusroflpunch 6y ago
  How about the Republic of Wisconsin? The divorce doesn’t need to end with only two parties.
- no-s 6y ago
  >>A divorce? I don't think that's going to work. Who gets custody of Wisconsin? Some warlord from Michigan?

whoevercares 6y ago

Is Civil war possible at all in US’s military system today?

hef19898 6y ago
From an external position, I'd say theoretically yes. It is enough when a political rift goes through society and also the military. This rift could lead to failure of command coehesion, split of the military and ultimately infighting. Which could, if you ask me, be a risk in case trump wins but it is rather clear that the election was fradulent (not saying it will be, but let's assume for the arguments sake it was). In which case the military would have to decide which "president" to follow, or to follow congress, or the senate, or someone else. Which could tear the military appart, let alone to speak of the national guard.
- jcadam 6y ago
  As a former Army officer, I completely agree with the CJCS recent statement that the military will play no role in the election process. Anything short of a clear landslide for one of the two candidates is going to result in a seriously tense/chaotic situation. Best to hunker down and hope the civilians sort their shit out before giving an order you know is going to result in a lot of resentment and formerly good, dependable people being locked up for insubordination (best case), or entire organizations dissolving in an orgy of mutiny, violence, and/or desertion (worst case). As far as a split goes, it wouldn't be "clean." Unlike in the 19th century, individual units aren't constituted from people drawn from the same geographic area. There's a centralized bureaucracy managing personnel, so most units really are a cultural melting pot made up of people from all over the country. So I don't see the military splitting, I see it falling apart.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    I was affraid that people with actual US military experience would share that sentiment. Also the international impact that would have. just thinking about a situation in which the US military would have any real role in who the next President will be gives me the chills. And it kind of would force every country with a US military presence to basically pick a side. Scary thought. I just hope that the outcome will be chrystal clear, hopefully democrat. And that if it is not unit cohesion is strong enough to prevent the US forces from falling apart.