‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#301

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

reedf1 wrote: post #33

pjc50 wrote: post #5

Yes. The culture war is to a great extent a US import. The US is extremely polarised, possibly uniquely so for a country with a single national language and mostly-shared ethnic background (compare Belgium, which is highly polarised but along language lines). The UK has its own natural fragmentation lines (north/south, class system, four nations, catholic/protestant) but those are not the lines on which the culture w…

As a twenty-something who grew up in Texas but has spent my adult life learning and working in the UK - I really disagree with calling any large cultural ideas as "US imports". The perception from the UK is that the US is much more polarised than it actually is - and from my perception the UK is even more polarised, but just refuses to believe it. I think this is because minority populations are so much smaller in th…

> I really disagree with calling any large cultural ideas as "US imports".

Apart from film, pop music, reality television, the Yankees baseball cap, jeans, and a constant stream of news articles about Trump, what have the Americans ever done for us?

Compare how many cultural products are American in origin or mention America or American news to how many you get about, say, France or Germany. The influence is _huge_. This is why France has laws requiring a fraction of culture (especially TV and film) to be in French.

The UK is certainly polarised, and racist, but in different ways to America. It may be the case that a police murder in Portland starts a riot in Bristol, but it would never be the other way round.

When was the last time there was a protest by Americans outside a British embassy over British politics? The US embassy in London practically has a rota for all the different groups that have protested there.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#302

Post by rayiner » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #70

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying talk Radio and Fox News aren’t part of the problem, but blaming that alone for the polarization is short-sighted. A huge part of our polarization is due to our Supreme Court resolving social disputes before society has reached a consensus. Folks in Europe often don’t appreciate how different American constitutional law is on social issues compared to European norms: The UK makes teaching religion manda…

“ [England] makes teaching religion mandatory in public schools” Just to add some nuance to this... RE is the lesson in which pupils are taught about religion. It does not instruct that any particular religious claim is true or false. And the “daily act of collective worship” is one of those laws that is widely disregarded, to the point where OFSTED inspections will note that schools are not compliant but not mark th…

Sure, but: http://www.spinnensacre.medway.sch.uk/About%20Us/REpolicy.ht...

> The Education Reform Act (1988) requires that: -

> 2. Religious Education should be taught in accordance with an agreed syllabus.

> 4. The agreed syllabus reflects "the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian while taking into account the teachings and practices of other principal religions represented within Great Britain". (Education Reform Act 1988, Section 8)

Even if the concepts aren't taught as "truth" it makes things vastly easier for Christian parents to socialize their children in their religion. (Which the U.N. recognizes as a human right.) And it would likely be illegal in the U.S. (Teaching about religion generically would not be, but the provision about the Christian tradition of the UK would likely push it over the line.)

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_worship_in_schools

> Schools with a formal faith designation are required to arrange worship in accordance with their trust deed or, if they have no trust deed, in line with the practices of their designated faith. For schools without a formal faith designation, the majority of the acts of worship should be "of a broadly Christian character". In practical terms, this has been interpreted to mean that 51% of school days each school term must have an act of worship of a broadly Christian character.

Social conservatives in the United States would be thrilled to have laws like the one in the U.K. Obviously a country like the U.K. that's becoming irreligious might not take the legal requirement too seriously. Folks in San Francisco probably wouldn't either. But folks in Iowa would probably take these requirements seriously. Under current U.S. law, schools in Iowa in communities where 80% of people go to Church every week are required to operate like schools in France. (My wife and I once calculated that her little town in northwest Iowa had a church for every 150 people.)

Forcing Iowans to act like the French drives a lot of polarization and resentment. When you hear people complain about the "war on Christmas" that's what they're talking about--stripping away the fact that "the religious traditions in [the United States] are in the main Christian."

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#303

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #160

leftyted wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or are you suggesting that unintentionally disadvantaging a group is not only not discriminating against that group, but that also it is is also excusable and needs no correction? i.e. that the consistent, albeit unintentional, disadvantaging shall continue? It depends on the policy. Is the height of a basketball hoop a policy that is unintentionally discriminating against me because I can't jump that high? Is the…

>Why is it correct for tests to attempt to discern innate ability rather than current ability? The issue was that they were testing for neither; rather, they were testing knowledge irrelevant to the thing ostensibly being tested (but specific to a class group). From Wikipedia: "For example, questions about the role of household servants or classical composers were far easier for middle-class children to answer than f…

Is there any evidence that these types of questions are currently driving the majority of the difference in test scores?

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#304

Post by curation » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

valboa wrote: post #150

barrkel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jumping from generalizations about groups to specifics of individuals is inherently unjust - as is the inverse, generalizing about a group from a few individuals. Generalization from systematic group aggregation is useful for exposing systemic biases, but action should be specific to the circumstances of individuals independent of group membership or the risk of injustice is very high. Unsafe generalization is at the…

Identity politics and group thinking are the cancer of society. Everyone can be oppressed, everyone can be an opresor. Just give them a reason.

Identity politics and group thinking squished together loses a dangerous amount of nuance. Identity poltics is how self-identified liberals assert their form of universal subjectivity by splitting the working class racially (read Wilderson, Hartman, Moten and afropessimistic thought and of course Lacan). While Groupthink is naively but generally defined as: " a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome". The distinction thus becomes clear. Identity politics is born of the desire to divide the working classes using the disharmony of racialization causing irrational decision making, while Groupthink has the same ending but with explicitly the opposite desire.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#305

Post by standardUser » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

monoideism wrote: post #265

This is not my experience in the US. Culture wars have invaded both work and family life. It's not a tiny minority, it's many, if not most, Americans. I feel sure most Americans have the same experience, but perhaps I'm an outlier?

I'm curious how culture wars have impacted your work and family life. I've lived most of my life in large metro areas, so from my perspective "culture wars" are mostly people in far away towns waving fists at us city folk. The actual impact on my life is minimal.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#306

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #270

Swizec wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s more complicated than that based on some of the diversity books I’ve read. For example I wasn’t even “white” until I moved to USA a few years ago. Took me 6+ years to even grok how “white” works and what it means but I’m told I was racist all along. And yeah sure I want the system to change, but honestly I have enough work with being an immigrant without inherent rights. Hell I’m technically a visitor so…

I wasn't a "person of color" until 2009! (I distinctly remembered when it happened. I was reading ad copy about my law school, and saw that our incoming class was 30% "people of color." I had never seen the term before, and was confused by what it could mean, until I realized they were grouping all non-white people together.)

It includes some white people too! No Latino would think for half a second before identifying me as white, but because I'm also Latino, I end up as a "person of color" whenever these statistics are aggregated. And this isn't a minor edge case - something like 10% of the US population is white hispanic.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#307

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

charlesu wrote: post #130

barry-cotter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elite colleges relying on high school grades and letters of recommendation instead of objective blindly marked tests open to all is replacing one test with others. The others allow much more room for picking the right sort of person. That was the entire point of instituting holistic admission at prestige US universities, to keep out Jews. The modern drive to eliminate tests is in large part to keep out Asians. Nothin…

Standardized tests could also be considered a way for picking the right kind of person: namely, people who know that standardized tests are something to prepare for. I’ve tutored students at both elite and underperforming high schools. Students at elite schools, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, are highly aware of the importance of standardized tests. Some of the underperforming high schools don’t even adm…

Studies disagree that you on avg. see large gains from test prep on the SAT.

https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the...

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#308

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

shoemakersteve wrote: post #204

nailer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Collusion is a very specific charge. Yes. And Russiagate was the belief that the Trump org colluded with the Russians. Which was debunked. Not that citing Wikipedia means anything, but from the main article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... : > there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.

It was not "debunked" in any way. We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents. They just couldn't prove criminal intent. As far as Trump's obstruction of justice, correct me if I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure the Mueller report basically said "He did it, but we couldn't come up with solid enough evidence that we would be confident we could indict a sitting president" and the last line saying something like…

The key part of that, as you've noted, is sitting President.

Citizen Trump would have been vulnerable to federal charges three different ways in 2018 if he hadn't been elected President.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#309

Post by cabraca » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

Miner49er wrote: post #232

cabraca wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give me an example what constitutes systemic racism from your point of view?

It's just systemic things that end up, on large scale, hurting minorities more. For example, the judicial and prison system. Black people aren't incarcerated at such a high rate [1] because the judicial system and the police are full of KKK members or anything. It's due to a bunch of systemic problems and America's history of racism and slavery. It's a result of when America was clearly straight-forwardly racist. Lik…

> It's due to a bunch of systemic problems and America's history of racism and slavery.

How do you explain then, that asian-americans (on average) outearn whites, have a higher SAT score and are less likly to be in prison? They have been impacted by racist policies too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

> This of course will lead more black people to turn to crime, because they have less good options, because they are on average, poorer and less educated. All the old laws and our history going back to slavery still has effects today that are compounding and allow the problem to continue to exist.

poverty and education dont explain those numbers, but there is (at least partly) the growing number of fatherless homes that correlate with many factors influence positive outcome. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/18/533062607/poverty... https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/line/107-children-in-s... You want black people to get out of this cycle? Dont be a criminal, comply with police, educate yourself, help others do the same. But somehow this is called "acting white".

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#310

Post by vonmoltke » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #237

wombatmobile wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neil Postman wrote in 1985: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism." "Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley fe…

Neil Postman's books influenced me tremendously. I've been rereading McLuhan, Postman, Huxley, etc. Manufacturing Consent is the most directly applicable to understanding social media. With at least two updates to the thesis. #1 The outrage machine is fueled by advertising, right? What's new is the motivating control (choice) moved from the advertiser's intent to the algorithmic recommenders. #2 Third parties learned…

> The outrage machine is fueled by advertising, right?

The purpose of purchaing advertising is to increase sales of the advertised product or service. How does the "outrage machine" lead to increased sales of the products or services being advertised? Do you think many people are actually buying products through advertisements posted in, say, Trump vs. AOC flamewars?