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This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

bloomberg.com

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Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#71

Post by bmelton »

amelius wrote: post #22

The gun laws are missing from these graphs. How fast would America change its mind about them?

There's an animated gif somewhere that I'm having trouble finding at the moment, but for the most part, it's reflected in this article here:

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/0...

Long story short, acceptance of gun rights has been generally winning over gun control, though the patterns are almost the polar opposite of those reflected in the Bloomberg article.

Edit: It's worth pointing out that, true to form (for America at least), a lot of those states flipped colors as a result of a lawsuit, in which conformant legislation came after the fact.

Edit edit: I don't know how much editorial influence Michael Bloomberg has on Bloomberg News, but as Bloomberg News appears to be anti-gun, and Michael Bloomberg is quite obviously so, might there be a connection?

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#72

Post by irtheman »

serve_yay wrote: post #44
M8 wrote: post #41

I wonder how quickly will this one get recognized, at the moment it's just an underground movement on Reddit and "Manosphere" etc.: http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.h...

I don't recommend the link above. It's garbage

Kill All Men! Am I right? That's the thing now. See and hear it daily.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#73

Post by mikeash »

M8 wrote: post #56
serve_yay wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recommend the link above. It's garbage

I am sure every civil rights movement faces similar kind of backlash in the beginning.

Probably, but that doesn't imply that every movement that faces a similar kind of backlash is a civil rights movement.

They laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#74

Post by isaacremuant »

classicsnoot wrote: post #7
amyjess wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see them every time you scroll. Want to go back and look at something again? You now have to wait for the animation. This is objectively bad design. I want static PNGs or SVGs, not JavaScript. Also, that site got in my shitlist for taking control of my keyboard. I prefer to use the arrow keys to scroll one line at a time, and the stupid JavaScript on that site made that impossible. Actually, I'd be happiest if th…

Every point you have made here is subjective.

Ease of use in this case is not subjective.

If you're going to present a graph, the point of that graph is to be understood so it needs to be read easily and promptly.

Animating the graph every time you move up or down the page gets in the way of that analysis. It erases the data you were about to look and forces you to wait needlessly for it to appear again.

Try to look at one graph and quickly go back to a previous one to check it out in comparison or anything. It's absolutely uncomfortable.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#75

Post by kelukelugames »

wanderingstan wrote: post #67
joshuaheard wrote: post #27

Abortion and gay marriage were changed in the courts, so I don't know if that counts as America changing its mind. That being said, I would posit that any increase in the rate of America changing its mind is due to the increase in the rate of information exchange due to advances in communication technology.

Gay marriage has been steadily gaining in public approval, as seen here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/169640/sex-marriage-support-reach... This is indeed America changing its mind. You're right that there is not a direct connection between America's laws and America's minds, but the article was clear in what it was reporting. It would have been interesting to also include information on public polling of these issues,…

There is a chart with "age" on the y axis and "year for the poll" on the x axis. The delta is also shown for each group from 1996 to 2014.

http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Prod...

I wish there thy y axis was birth year. That way we can see if older people are actually changing their minds instead of just aging into the next bracket.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#76

Post by dragonwriter »

jkestner wrote: post #45
anthony_romeo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, after these courts have started legalizing gay marriage, public support for gay marriage has followed. I always suspect it's a chicken-or-egg type of situation. Sometimes there is genuine public support for a given issue. Other times, change must occur first, and then people can see that society hasn't collapsed. Once polls began to demonstrate that more people supported gay marriage than were again…

It would be nice to see these charts mapped against public opinion polls, to help show which rights have been led by the government vs the people.

Well, here's one pollsters poll series

http://www.gallup.com/poll/117328/marriage.aspx

Note that the first court decision in the US (in Massachussetts) which led to legalized same-sex marriage was in 2003 with marriage becoming legal in 2004 (national public support at about 42%). Note that this was a state court decision, and public support in Massachussetts may have led what it was in national polls. Most of the final (not lower court decisions that were stayed pending appeal to a higher court which issued the final decision) court decisions -- and the acts by state legislatures not mandated by court decisions -- on the issue have happened in the last few years, with national public support at 50% or above.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#77

Post by hga »

bmelton wrote: post #71
amelius wrote: post #22

The gun laws are missing from these graphs. How fast would America change its mind about them?

There's an animated gif somewhere that I'm having trouble finding at the moment, but for the most part, it's reflected in this article here: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/0... Long story short, acceptance of gun rights has been generally winning over gun control, though the patterns are almost the polar opposite of those reflected in the Bloomberg article. Edit: It's worth pointing out th…

At the Federal level, only Illinois flipped as the result of a lawsuit, and I can remember only West Virginia flipping due to a state level one. Do you know of any more, not counting the in-process California, Hawaii (both probably doomed) and D.C. lawsuits?

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#78

Post by mitchty »

anthony_romeo wrote: post #18
twoodfin wrote: post #9

The case comes amid a wave of gay marriage legalization... This phrase, and the title, mask the fact that in the majority of states same-sex marriage legalization came from court cases, not through legislation or referenda[1]. "America", broadly construed, is quickly changing its mind, too, but this "wave" is more a product of judicial thought than public opinion. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in…

At the same time, after these courts have started legalizing gay marriage, public support for gay marriage has followed. I always suspect it's a chicken-or-egg type of situation. Sometimes there is genuine public support for a given issue. Other times, change must occur first, and then people can see that society hasn't collapsed. Once polls began to demonstrate that more people supported gay marriage than were again…

In my own state of Minnesota the courts had nothing to do with legalization. Nothing likely would have changed either unless it wasn't for a bunch of anti gay bigots really pissing a lot of people off by trying to pass an amendment to the state constitution banning it. That misfire caused everyone that gave a shit about not being jerks to humans to fix that crap pronto by getting that amendment killed, then 6 months later fly a middle finger to the same people by getting an amendment passed to allow gay marriage. No courts were needed in this case. Though I recognize that is not the norm so far in the US.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#79

Post by dragonwriter »

fizbin wrote: post #20
mikeash wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is misleading. "America Changes Its Mind" sounds like it's talking about people's opinions, but the data presented is about legal status at the state level. This is misleading because there's a strong discontinuity there, and the speed at which states legalize something doesn't have to be related to the speed at which opinions change. For an extreme case, consider some issue where opinions are evenly spread…

And looking at something already settled by the courts, it's also interesting to compare the article's chart on the legal status of interracial marriage with public opinion data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_Uni... Note that the "Approve" line doesn't cross the "Disapprove" line until the mid-1980s, long after the USSC had spoken. With same-sex marriage on the other hand, the "Approve"/"Di…

> One could argue that in invalidating most of DOMA, the USSC has already spoken strongly - if not definitively - in favor of same-sex marriage, and therefore that we should use that decision when making analogies to Loving

Not very convincingly, because it did not hold that States cannot deny equal marriage, which would be the equivalent of the holding in Loving.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#80

Post by unics »

sanderjd wrote: post #40
intopieces wrote: post #36

The problem with the analysis re: Marijuana is that it appears to leave out the anti-drug treaties we've signed with other UN members. As I understand it, federal legalization is a nonstarter w/r/t that agreement.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding has always been that the US has been the one pushing for those treaties. If that is the case, it seems possible that if anti-Marijuana policy loses support here, its support in the UN won't be so strong.

The US has been behind it and putting mountains of cash along with it to enact the treaties.
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