Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 784 posts

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#211

Post by MrYellowP »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #204

So, this article states that 42% of Americans identify as politically independent. This beats the next largest political identity (Democrats, 29%) by 13%. Yet, the political system has been rigged - obviously so, for anyone who cares to look - so that an independent party fails to get the 5% necessary to get onto the ballot and future funding for the next election cycle for presidential running. How is it that there…

Nothing can be done, because the system is owned by the corrupt, which means that the system is corrupt.

The only solution against this problem is violence. Despite what a lot of completely delusional and clueless morons believe, voting solves nothing as long as all parties are basically run by rich people and or paid career politicians.

And I'm not even going to dive into the details. They're not necessary. You have not just the politicians against you, you also have the media against you, which means that you have most people against you.

Unless you manage to get people to realize what's going on, things will only change when those in charge want things to change.

Then it'll happen on their terms, they will provide solutions to problems they created and we all are going to pay for it.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#212

Post by themanmaran »

madeofpalk wrote: post #192
toastercat wrote: post #71

I tried being a Twitter user for a bit last year, mostly because a lot of engineers I admire use it to communicate about interesting topics and also their work. But after a while, I realized even they will pollute my feed with politically divisive topics, whether it be from them retweeting something, or liking a tweet, or even entering into the fray themselves -- Twitter will find a way to get me to see it. For a whi…

For what it's worth, you can disable retweets for people (and I think your entire feed).

Not for everyone unfortunately. But there is a ruby script that does it for you.

https://gist.github.com/robinsloan/a045d26c513681f13680f319f...

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#213

Post by datavirtue »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #204

So, this article states that 42% of Americans identify as politically independent. This beats the next largest political identity (Democrats, 29%) by 13%. Yet, the political system has been rigged - obviously so, for anyone who cares to look - so that an independent party fails to get the 5% necessary to get onto the ballot and future funding for the next election cycle for presidential running. How is it that there…

Most of the independents are not voting most of the time. The ones that do swing between parties because we have clearly demonstrated that there is no organized independent party. Like workers without a union.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#214

Post by mdoms »

jafoi wrote: post #194
CountSessine wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was one of the ideas behind Google+ - "circles". You could put other people in different broadcast "circles" and then you wouldn't end up announcing your weird fetish preferences or drug use to your grandma or your coworkers - at least not intentionally.

Wouldn't work in practice - no one is going to pass an opportunity to broadcast their political views to as many people as possible.

I disagree. I think the types of people this article is about - the silent majority of non-tweeters - are happy to compartmentalise different aspects of their lives within different circles. It's the tweeting minority who feel like they need to broadcast their every righteous thought to as many people as possible.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#215

Post by cgrealy »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #61

I disagree with the wording of the article or its title's wording. Not being on Twitter is being called "silent"? Is that the yardstick for not being silent? I'd rather communicate outside of giant echo chambers and text length limitations and engagement optimized (a)social spying media, with real people and speak out there. With family, friends, the neighbors or the neighborhood, for example. Outrage about whatever…

The "silent majority" is a specific reference. It was popularised by Nixon during the Vietnam war. It doesn't literally mean they are silent, just that they are not the focus of the media.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#217

Post by javajosh »

shireboy wrote: post #123

I'm in that group. I've consciously cut out Facebook and Twitter in part because of the toxic echo chambers they've become. HN is about the only place I'll wade in sometimes because the level of discourse seems higher. A little rabbit trail though: Looking at the graph in the article, I'm wondering if US isn't ripe for a party system change. It's not _always_ been Republican vs Democrat in our history. Both sides are…

I suspect that there are a LOT of disaffected Republicans who are conservative but not Trumpian authoritarians. In the same way, there are a LOT of disaffected Democrats who are liberals but not woke/cancel culture social justice warriors. So, yeah, I agree - there's room for a new party.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#218

Post by vlunkr »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #204

So, this article states that 42% of Americans identify as politically independent. This beats the next largest political identity (Democrats, 29%) by 13%. Yet, the political system has been rigged - obviously so, for anyone who cares to look - so that an independent party fails to get the 5% necessary to get onto the ballot and future funding for the next election cycle for presidential running. How is it that there…

Ranked choice voting has been implemented for presidential elections in 2 states. Which isn't much, but it's a start, and it seems like there's popular demand for it. That would help to fight the annoying "A vote for [third-party] is a vote for [party-i-dont-like]" argument.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#220

Post by blowski »

cpach wrote: post #90
blowski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, this seems to me a very healthy way to live. Until the last 15 years, very few people had their views expressed beyond a narrow circle. Standing on a public stage and shouting your every thought would have seemed crazy.

Without hesitation I dare say there is prior art in this question. I’m thinking of the Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-32703071

I don't think Speakers' Corner is remotely comparable to how social media works today.

Very few people spoke there, and very little of what they said was distributed beyond Hyde Park or recorded for posterity. I'm lucky enough to have seen a couple of people speak there, and they were both rather... eccentric. And even they didn't stand there all day, every day giving their opinions on everything that happened.

Post reply on HN