Live data from Hacker News

Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

science.org

91–100 of 445 posts

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#91
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One side believes that woke transgender illegals are stealing their jobs, homes, and children. It only takes one side to start a civil war.

Isn’t one side significantly larger than the other? It seems to me that while there’s clearly two “sides” in the US, one is vastly overrepresented, due to how the US democracy is structured. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be dangerous, both to the US and the stability to the rest of the world. So please wait until Germany have rebuilt it’s army, otherwise the UK is going to get very busy, covering for an absent US.

Yes I think it's pretty obvious that the 99% are on the side of "no civil war" but there are accelerationist groups who are trying to start one.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#92

Source is apparently a preprint (that is, not peer-reviewed) uploaded here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v... > Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for. Given how weird some of the interne…

10% also score too low on IQ tests to be accepted into the Army

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#93
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large fraction of people will shoot if someone they deem an authority figure says they have to and gives them a good reason to justify it.

Reference please?

I'm assuming they are referencing the somewhat contentious Milgram Experiment.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#94
post #9
post #3

Is there any data to suggest whether public belief that a civil war is imminent is indicative of a civil war actually being imminent?

It probably doesn't help? That said, in the '70s it was probably 80%+ I don't see an ACTUAL (declared) civil war happening. None of the participants actually could I think, nor would they benefit from taking anything. Would Texas try to actually take Washington DC? Nah. Could they? No chance. Would the Feds do anything but setup sanctions/blockades and wait for Texas to beg to come back if they tried to leave? Nah. T…

I wonder if this perspective is colored by the American Civil War experience. Run-of-the-mill civil war has nothing to do with traditional military objectives. Rather, it is a messy business where various factions viciously fight over turf, often times eliminating populations with (perceived) allegiances to other faction(s) from the territory they control. See Lebanon, Yugoslavia, ISIS, etc.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#96

more than half of americans are unfit for a bar fight let alone a war. I hate to say it but these kinds of surveys are pretty weak. I recall a friend who's a history buff telling me something along the lines of non-professional soldiers often refuse to shoot their firearms, or intentionally miss, because people often don't truly want to kill. A quick google suggests some credibility to this claim[1]. I always try to…

Bar fight? They can't even put mask on. Good luck following orders and combat readiness.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#97

more than half of americans are unfit for a bar fight let alone a war. I hate to say it but these kinds of surveys are pretty weak. I recall a friend who's a history buff telling me something along the lines of non-professional soldiers often refuse to shoot their firearms, or intentionally miss, because people often don't truly want to kill. A quick google suggests some credibility to this claim[1]. I always try to…

I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I've heard it said only 3% of Americans actually fired a weapon in the American Revolution (and likely the Civil War as well). Still those unfit to fight did often fulfill a role by supporting the economic engines supplying those who did fight.

Subtract all women and children, and all men over about age 30 or unfit for some reason. That doesn't get you to 3%, but that's the maximum number who would be involved.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#98

Civil war, for what? Every time I see this mentioned, I think, "for what?"

Quoted post unavailable.

There are christian fascists out there that would like to. Whether they'd play a big role in any civil war is a different question.

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#99
post #66

Civil war, for what? Every time I see this mentioned, I think, "for what?"

You don't want to fix/improve the society to suit your preferences through existing democratic and legal mechanisms, so you decide destroying the opposition via violence/intimidation is easier.

I would argue that today, the median partisan of both political colors is of the belief that Democracy is at risk, today, because their opposition color is ignoring the rules, not playing fairly, and generally wants bad things to happen to people of their political color.

I've seen an awful lot of posts by both flavors of political partisans that "we're already in a war, we're just losing because we refuse to fight back"

Re: Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon

#100

Remind me also how many believe in astrology and young earth creationism? Also, to even entertain this idea, where would the battle lines be drawn? Political differences aren't even blue state/red state anymore, let alone North vs. South: it's more like urban vs. a spectrum of less urban.

Something like the rural Taliban blitzkrieg into Kabul?
Post reply on HN