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America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

theatlantic.com

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Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#71

Post by [deleted] »

montyf wrote: post #67
akhilcacharya wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also remember a time when human decency wasn't shrouded in the pejorative "political correctness". Both myself and the leadership of The Atlantic listened to what Kevin Williamson said. I think it speaks for itself.

> I also remember a time when human decency wasn't shrouded in the pejorative "political correctness". Not sure what you're getting at with this rhetoric (no wonder you're a fan of vague, politically-correct statements -- I have no idea what the second part of your comment means). People don't like political correctness because it's a manipulation tool of policy makers, used to misdirect and to prevent unwanted discu…

[deleted]

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#72

Post by ModernMech »

justin66 wrote: post #44
humanrebar wrote: post #4

> What explains the gulf between most Americans’ hopeful outlook on areas and institutions they know directly and their despair about the country they know only through the news? In their anthropological foray, they notice that people generally get along with local people in local contexts. That's certainly true. A lot of the acrimony, tribalism, and fear comes from the growing divisiveness of American culture at lar…

No idea what he has to say for himself in the wsj since it's behind a paywall, but I did google him. I wasn't familiar with any of this but if this is accurate: It was Mr. Williamson’s hard-line stance on abortion — namely, that it should be treated as premeditated homicide and punished accordingly, perhaps by hanging — that generated the initial controversy over his hiring. Well, you know, his time at The Atlantic w…

> It's mostly distressing that a lunatic like that can get the time of day, let alone a paying job as an opinion writer.

That's who you've got remaining on the right. Take a look at sane conservative writers like Jennifer Rubin at the Post. She wrote as a conservative for years under Obama, and now she's suddenly labeled a leftist traitor now that she's critical of Trump. She didn't change, her party did.

Or just look at the economy. Fox News can't find reputable economists to come on air and say a trillion dollar tax cut and increased spending by a trillion is going to balance the budget. No one will say that because it's nonsense, yet that is the policy they have to sell.

Or look at the President's legal team. You'd think a billionaire President would have the pick of the biggest DC firms to represent him in the case of the century. But he is left scraping for guys like Sekulow.

The only people willing to toe a line like that are extremists, or people who are easily duped. Not people you would label experts or competent.

It's what Brennan meant when he called the US a kakistocracy - a government by the shittiest.

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#73

Post by sgift »

throwaway21333 wrote: post #43
bilbo0s wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...So when you live in these places and you see hatred for people like you, how are you supposed to be optimistic and excited about the prospects for your children and grandchildren?..." Yeah... but that's been going on forever. You see that with Muslims recently. We've seen that with hispanics. Further back, of course, we've been seeing it with blacks and native americans for a long time. That will ALWAYS happen. T…

How would eliminating the tribalism subroutine benefit the species? Is a homogeneous global population the most resilient?

I look around me and have neighbors from dozens of cultures and backgrounds, hundreds of opinions and all walks of life. Young, old, sick, healthy, everything in between. How is this homogeneous?

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#74

Post by pknight »

bluthru wrote: post #55
pknight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think the Japanese people would be happier if Japan was minority Japanese? The more interesting question is why are the Japanese so miserable, 53 other countries rank over Japan despite features that some say should promote happiness. You might even say that the hypothesis that social cohesion must be upheld by deterring ethnic influences in the pursuit of happier communities can't find a worse example in Ja…

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/these-are-the-top-10-happies... White countries with low diversity.

These are all modern economies, most of which operate immigration-friendly regimes. Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Finland are all signed up to freedom of movement, which doesn't discriminate on the basis of religion, ethnicity or place of birth, provided you are a citizen in the EEA or Switzerland, or if you are married to such a citizen.

Anyway, the point is not that diversity cultivates happiness (no simple answer to that), the point is that some people believe in keeping communities homogeneous and argue that this promotes happiness. That happiness boost is nowhere to be seen when looking at real world examples.

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#75

Post by mantas »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #15
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the desire to maintain a common identity is based on racial or ethnic identity... then that desire can be accurately described as racist or at best xenophobic. This would be true and understandable if immigration wasn't so incredibly skewed towards Mexicans, but it is skewed. There are over 11 million illegal immigrants in a country of 300 million, the majority of which are Mexican/Latino. That is an incredibl…

How many of the problems the US faces are genuinely caused by immigration, and how many would change if immigration ended? That's the crux of the matter. Factually, in the UK virtually none of our social and economic problems have been caused by immigration. When you look into the facts, unaffordable housing, a creaking health service, street violence, and job losses are all effects of policy, not specific groups of…

Immigrants do put pressure on housing and health services though. As well as directly causing job losses by dumping wages.

Of course, a magical policy may have stopped those issues. But taking in a lot of immigrants and not changing policies accordingly is what causes havoc.

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#76

Post by SlapHappy »

specialist wrote: post #61
humanrebar wrote: post #4

> What explains the gulf between most Americans’ hopeful outlook on areas and institutions they know directly and their despair about the country they know only through the news? In their anthropological foray, they notice that people generally get along with local people in local contexts. That's certainly true. A lot of the acrimony, tribalism, and fear comes from the growing divisiveness of American culture at lar…

Bigotry? Because every magazine needs an anti-abortion zealot on staff? For balance? Dear me, where will I get my daily trog talking points if The Atlantic doesn't spoon feed them to me?

This isn't about whether you agree or disagree with KDW. It's about the cowardly smearing he endured and the fact that Jeff Goldberg, the so called "editor-in-chief" of The Atlantic, is not really the editor-in-chief at all, his staffers and the Twitter mob are.

People are forgetting that KDW did NOT apply to work at The Atlantic, he did NOT actively set about getting a job there, he was contacted and recruited by The Atlantic, by the so called "editor-in-chief", they WANTED him there and extended him an offer.

His comments and views about abortion were public; he didn't mince words or attempt to conceal or walk back his comments. Knowing all this, the Atlantic extended him an offer, and then dumped him when the twitter mob went berserk.

They smeared KDW, they gave into the mob, they acted like cowards, and they should be shamed for publicly ridiculed by by sides of the political aisle for their behavior.

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#77

Post by ModernMech »

assblaster wrote: post #70
croon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A classic example is sexual harassment in the workplace: women are justifiably upset by it, but men are also upset at the blowback. Fact is, it’s pretty easy for a man to be threatening to a woman without realizing he is — most men don’t understand how much the sheer size/strength difference intimidates most women when emotions get heated. Navigating this environment takes empathy from both sides and is something t…

The problem with your statement on religious intolerance, is that wanting someone to change the fundamentals of their religion can be equated with intolerance of that religion, even having a term specific to it: Islamophobia. I think reform of Islam must involve accommodating people who are considered sinners. The problem is that communicating this critique of Islam can be considered hate speech by the tribalists.

When people talk about religious tolerance in the US as an issue, they usually are referring to letting white evangelicals get their way politically and culturally. For instance, I know many people who feel their religious liberty was infringed when gay marriage was legalized, but also voted for a guy who called for the "complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the US".

It's not about religious liberty as a concept or ideal. It's about I win You lose.

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#78

Post by sgift »

mieseratte wrote: post #56
NLips wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uninterested != intolerant You can scream your opinion on topic X all day long, but no one has to listen. That doesn't make them intolerant.

They're not interested because they want an echo-chamber. This is just intolerance, aka bigotry, with extra steps. It wasn't as if the man's writings were just panned. It was a typical social justice morality crusade.

> This is just intolerance, aka bigotry, with extra steps.

Here we have the classic case of interpreting a definition so loose that it gets useless. Everyone is intolerant of something. I'm intolerant of murderers, so by that textbook definition I'm a bigot, but then everyone would be a bigot and we end up with a synonym for "human" - Is that helpful in a discussion?

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#79

Post by tntn »

maxerickson wrote: post #59
strictnein wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying would make sense if he was there for three years, as opposed to, what, three days?

It's still not really "intolerant" to choose not to elevate a particular viewpoint. People saying Williamson shouldn't be allowed to publish anything anywhere are obviously being intolerant. People saying they'd rather not subscribe to a publication that pays him to expound on vile views? Meh.

Would you mind clarifying which vile views you are referring to?

Re: America is moving toward becoming a better version of itself

#80

Post by kadenshep »

chongli wrote: post #42
WhompingWindows wrote: post #35

Of course this is true. If anyone is naive enough to believe America is a hellish wasteland of terrible politics, and that that transfers to overall Quality of Life metrics for society as a whole, they might be surprised by this. Any honest look at data on employment, QoL, services available for free or very cheaply in the lives of the average citizen, there are many reasons for optimism. Personally, I try to cut fro…

I look at the opioid epidemic as a symptom, not the problem itself. The broader problem is globalization and the local inequalities it's producing. The Heartland of the United States is being hollowed out and turned into a desolate wasteland, economically speaking. The steady advances in economic productivity are accruing to an ever-shrinking proportion of the population. The media-political circus should also be tak…

> The broader problem is globalization

No it isn't.

>the local inequalities it's producing.

That's not caused by globalism.

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