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

theguardian.com

331–340 of 674 posts

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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how someone can say this with a straight face. Whitewater was a New York Times created scandal. It was the New York Times that ran cover for the Bush administration in invading Iraq. It was the New York Times that a week before the 2016 election ran dueling stories that played up the Clinton e-mail story and simultaneously absolved Trump of any links to Russia. All of these stories got widespread m…

If you genuinely believe the mainstream US media doesn't lean left, have a look at the Media Bias Chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ The methodology is thorough and non-partisan (that's the point). Note that the triangle's apex is literally left of center.

So how do you explain the many times in which the media trumpets news stories that benefit the Republicans that don't hold up? Judith Miller's reporting on the lead-up to the Iraq War, reporting on leaks from the Democrats of dubious news-worthiness (like John Podesta's risotto recipe).

If you want a chart, look at this chart of the most common words associated with each candidate in 2016: https://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-candidate-word-clouds...

That's as clear an example of media bias in favor of the Republicans as you can wish for.

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

#332
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had to "confess" that I'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. So, basically inquisitor wannabees and pseudoscience cultists. Your colleague dodged a bullet. The idea that claiming that you are racist makes you not racist is totally gaga, random, and based in magical thinking, not in science. It only helps to hide in plain sight the real racists making much easier to admit…

The trainings I'm familiar with have the opposite intent: to help people who don't believe they are racists (or believe racism doesn't exist) understand the unconscious mental processes that feed into racism and the nature of structural discrimination, even when unintended.

How is that not the same as forcing people to stay in an unpleasant class until they confess to racism?

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

#333
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had to "confess" that I'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. So, basically inquisitor wannabees and pseudoscience cultists. Your colleague dodged a bullet. The idea that claiming that you are racist makes you not racist is totally gaga, random, and based in magical thinking, not in science. It only helps to hide in plain sight the real racists making much easier to admit…

If you go around asking who the "real racists" are, you'll never find any. Turns out self-reporting is dubious.

Are you a real racist?

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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...

It's ridiculous to say that Asian Americans have experienced anything near the racism that black people have in the United States. I don't think they should even be included in the conversion when talking about racism. The racism they experience is mostly prejudice-type racism, not systemic.

> the growing number of fatherless homes that correlate with many factors influence positive outcome.

Well yeah, that's another systemic problem, that's partially caused by fathers being in prison and such.

> 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".

I don't follow your logic. If it's so easy for black people to get out of the cycle, why don't they? Why is it that so many black people are in the cycle vs. white people? Are you saying that black people are inherently worse?

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

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting it's required to "confess that you're a racist" in a Mao-style struggle session to work with people from diverse backgrounds?

I'm definitely not. I also hold such descriptions of these trainings in high skepticism, because I've been through a similar training and had a coworker describe it as such when all the training was doing was surfacing the scientific evidence suggesting unconscious bias is a real phenomenon that people aren't aware of. The fact my colleague took it so personally says more about them, I think, than the training.

You might have visited different seminars than the ones this thread was originally about, or you might just experience them differently given that you appear to be a staunch believer in white privilege & the post-modern theory of racism.

Religious rituals seem totally normal to the initiated and strange and cult-ish to others.

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

#336

From my perspective, it doesn't really matter to me what percentage of the population holds what beliefs, or how many different political stances they're balancing. What matters is the beliefs they have and the outcomes of these beliefs. For example, if you think about support gay marriage and LGBT nondiscrimination protections, these are things that would have been framed as fringe progressive ideas a few decades ag…

> It doesn't really matter whether 30% of the population supports these things or 60%. In two-party democracies, 30% and 60% are exactly the percentages that do matter. At 30% support you can expect no change - even human rights violations will scarcely be considered a relevant political issue with such a level of support. Once you hit 60% support, you can expect reform that won't be rolled back. Exactly as we have s…

It’s true that these numbers do matter when it comes to _implementing_ these laws, my argument is that it isn’t a useful barometer for the quality of the ideas.

In your example, 60% of people didn’t support gay marriage in 2005. I would argue that gay marriage didn’t become a “better” idea between 2005 and 2015. It was always a good idea that provided tangible benefits to gay people, public opinion didn’t just reflect this.

This is sort of aimed at other comments in this discussion, which seemed to be lamenting that the “polarizing” ideas were being pushed in people. I don’t really care if something like, say, a “bathroom bill” is considered a polarizing culture war issue or how many people support it. It has an effect on me and the other trans people in my life, and I don’t feel any inclination to compromise on my position

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

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. I understand your argument but I also in no way want to distract from the culpability owned by social media companies, their product designers and managers, and the people who wrote the code to implement their desires. They are ultimately guilty for the damage they have wrought on our societies. Traditional media companies may have exacerbated the…

Do you have any evidence for that point? Like sure, I'd love to blame Twitter and Facebook for all of our societal ills, but they aren't new. Culture wars didn't just suddenly happen in the early 00s. Cue the 1960s and 70s long before any social media and the amazing amount of not just protests but bombings, assassinations and so on that make the current culture war seem like a mere shouting match.

"The Social Dilemma" on Netflix touches on this - in part, the algorithms that run these platforms and govern (guide?) user interaction are responsible in large part for pitting people against each other. It's in their best interest to keep eyeballs on their respective sites as much has humanly possible.

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

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re doing is called a motte and bailey fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy You’re defending diversity training, which nobody is attacking. We’re talking about a particular kind of rhetoric where people take personal responsibility in behalf of their race and label themselves with words that, in ordinary usage, have extremely inflammatory meanings. I’m from a “diverse background.” I…

You'd have to nail down what rhetoric you mean for me to have any response to that.

I don't think specific examples are really useful here. At the end of the day, either I'm allowed to say "I am not a racist" at work and be left alone for making that statement, or I'm not. If I'm not, it's a cryptofascist struggle session.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if dang or others could comment on whether this is true of HN too.

I think dang has commented in a number of other threads basically saying that HN pretty much follows this rule as well. Hopefully someone will be able to find an example because my Googlefoo is failing me.

I found a thread with the search term

    hackernews comments to visitor rate

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

#340

I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. "Vox pops" have formed part of filling air-time or column inches for a long while, but this is largely replaced now by journalists looking at Twitter and either a) using that as a stand-in for 'this is what the public think' or b) making it the story itself. Social media is no longer just "second screen" below-the-line commenting on events, it's hel…

>I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. I understand your argument but I also in no way want to distract from the culpability owned by social media companies, their product designers and managers, and the people who wrote the code to implement their desires. They are ultimately guilty for the damage they have wrought on our societies. Traditional media companies may have exacerbated the…

It’s not clear that cigarette smoking is actually net harmful, due to the substantial decrease in obesity associated with smoking.
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