Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers • Hacker News Board

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#841

Post by throwaway894345 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #425

solidasparagus wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christmas is a very secular holiday. There is still mass, but in American culture the religious aspect of Christmas is minuscule in comparison to the secular and consumerism aspects. "Most of the songs are very religious" is just not true for most mainstream Americans. For most Americans Christmas is about family, Santa (Coke's version), Reindeers, Elves, Trees, and Gifts. And then local or family traditions which ma…

> If you'd like some stats - 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas. Fewer than half of Americans consider Christmas primarily a religious holiday. Maybe we're looking at different stats. I'm looking at the ones you linked from Pew, which show that 61% of Americans who celebrate Xmas consider it to be Christian, down from 64% in 2014. That's supposed to convince me that it is a secular holiday?

That seems like strong evidence that there is a “secular Christmas” that is distinct from “Christian Christmas”. Certainly it suffices to disprove the original claim that “celebrating Christmas identifies someone as Christian”.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#842

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #760

JAlexoid wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buddhists in Jordan must not eat in public during Ramadan That is very different! Buddhists in Jordan a legally barred from doing so, whereas there's no law demanding that you actually celebrate Christmas.

There is a law that Federal government workers must not work during Christmas, however. You are legally barred from having employees who report in to you come in on Christmas. If you’re a Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist you will be given Christmas to celebrate. Come on, this is blatantly non-separation-of-church-and-state. It’s not anything that upsets me but observationally it is so obvious. M

But this is a vestige, and presumably one that would go away if challenged in court. It’s not strong proof that America is a Christian nation (de jure or de facto) or any such thing.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#843

Post by JKCalhoun » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:04 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #597

JKCalhoun wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that climate change is a settled issue across the political spectrum? I have seen the contrary.

Here is the core problem that I have a hard time articulating: Here is what OP is doing: 1) Point out ills on the other side - QAnon, Climate denial, etc. 2) Make a sweeping statement that being a centrist means giving attention to aforementioned theories and giving "equal" importance to both sides. That's not what centrists do. OP's condenscending take on Centrists is based on low-blows and not much substance.

I feel like there was a time when you could be centrist and it made you appear objective, wise, open to discourse from both sides (a bit like Switzerland, LOL?).

I think that time has passed though. Maybe it's the extremists that are forcing us to take sides. It's a little too nuanced in today's political climate to say, "I'm a centrist and entertain ideas from both sides … but not those crazy ideas."

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#844

Post by tomc1985 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:04 AM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #770

tomc1985 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Americans support an abortion ban, but they also support exceptions for rape or incest. This is news to me, can you qualify this statement?

https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-aborti... > Fewer take the position that in all cases abortion should be [...] legal (25%) 75% of Americans support some kind of ban (with differing positions on what loopholes should be carved out.)

The link contradicts your statement

> Most Americans support an abortion ban

Doesn't imply the same thing as

> Fewer take the position that in all cases abortion should be [...] legal (25%)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#845

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:09 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #763

rkk3 wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the fact that this stuff happens repeatedly for Christian institutions and rarely (almost never, in fact) for others is not something that escapes me. Probably just because there are a lot of Christian institutions.

This is transparently not the case when exceptions are made for a Christian institution but not a Jewish one as frequently occurred during COVID-19 restrictions.

Where did this happen? Are you perhaps observing that Jews are disproportionately located in municipalities that were stricter on religious communities in general while Christians are all over (including the places that were very lax on COVID restrictions)?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#846

Post by amoorthy » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:16 AM UTC

fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

This is incorrect. Our readership at The Factual is polled every day on trending questions and results show that they do not fall along party lines consistently. The same person often agrees with different sides on different issues. (Our polls often match up to national polls like Pew and Gallup so they may be representative of the US though we do not ask demographic information to prove this).

Moreover, research shows that reading different sides, when they are both presented in an informative fashion, helps people appreciate different viewpoints if not change it at times. It's only when viewpoints are presented with highly inflammatory language that we tend to dig into our pre-existing beliefs.

This isn't about finding some mythical center. People are often curious why people have different viewpoints. Indeed, I think this is a big reason why comment sections like HN work so well. The net effect likely is one of moderation in one's beliefs, which seems like a good thing overall.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#847

Post by xwolfi » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:25 AM UTC

fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

Credence isn't required to be neutral in the center. I vote center in my country (France) which I also disagree with should call center because it gives this impression to be at a border of two "sides" of the population but whatever.

I can understand what's credible or not on both sides but what matters to be is WHY they believe these positions. I don't want to synthetise them as much as I want these people to either stop suffering or stop believing they suffer.

So I vote not for more socialism or more traditionalism, but to remove the need for tradition while lowering the grouping effect of socialism. It is obviously a position in itself to reject the left or right visions of a path forward.

Your mistake maybe is that there are two sides to a political spectrum while there are many dimensions to the political hypercube.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#848

Post by xwolfi » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:29 AM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #473

fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

I don't think this article is necessarily arguing for centrism. Being able to understand the perspective of all sides of an issue doesn't mean your own views will necessarily fall directly in the "middle" of those perspectives. It probably does mean, however, that you're less likely to demonize those who disagree with you.

There are no sides, and certainly not just 2 positions to have on issues. The rest of the world is a lot less binary than US politics as well.

I live in China and I smirk painfully at people in a biparty telling us our monoparty is oppressive and reduce variation of solution (having only 2 mutually exclusive choices is not twice as good as only one, it's like 10% better if you consider there are 10 choices of solutions). I vote for French elections and the choices are much more nuanced. Hell our president could only be described to an American as centrist when he's a lot more than the synthesis of socialism and conservatism.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#849

Post by takeda » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:29 AM UTC

tremon wrote: post #364

takeda wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to it, even the Christmas tree doesn't originate from Christianity. It was just adapted from a pagan tradition. The Santa Claus image was created by commercialism. The original saint Claus is celebrating on December 6 (or 7, don't remeber exactly) and that was a priest that anonymously was donating toys to children in orphanages and later was discovered. Easter Bunny is another commercialisation of a Christian…

December 6th: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas > Santa Claus evolved from Dutch traditions regarding Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas). When the Dutch established the colony of New Amsterdam, they brought the legend and traditions of Sinterklaas with them

That's right, thanks for correcting.

The mobile app I used did not allow me to edit message and when I got back home HN no longer allows to edit the message.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#850

Post by myko » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:30 AM UTC

passivate wrote: post #796

myko wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those links don't disprove anything I've said on this subject in this thread.

I disagree. They do for me, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. Have a nice day.

Thankfully the facts are on my side. Have a nice day yourself.

If you wish to defend your position, please explain Don Jr's meeting where he's looking for help from the Russian government, trump's obstruction regarding that meeting, Manafort's working in Ukraine on behalf of Putin, and Roger Stone's involvement with guccifier 2.0/wikileaks.