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

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

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 445 posts

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

#331

Post by snapetom »

dragonwriter wrote: post #310
snapetom wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the South, presumably Texas sympathizers, are way over represented in the military. The next largest region of over-representation are your flyover states, which political lean red. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/costs/soc... You assumption that Texas would have to go toe to toe with the US Marines is a big assumption when many Marines are from Texas or would be politically sympathetic. If…

> Except the South, presumably Texas sympathizers, are way over represented in the military. The next largest region of over-representation are your flyover states, which political lean red. That's not true. The overrepresented regions are basically the South and the West. The Midwest “flyover states” and Northeast are the most underrepresented areas. And while the South is overrepresented, (Also, military recruitmen…

Not true according to my citation and others in the past. Looking at the Western states that over-represent, the Idaho, Arizona, and even Oregon have more in common with Texas than California/D.C. The PNW themselves deal with a vocal secession movement.

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

#332

Post by School-Cotton »

giardini wrote: post #314
mywittyname wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest issue, IMHO, is the fact the senate holds all this power, yet Vermont and Texas have the same level of representation in it. The House, for all it's flaws in being capped so low, at least has the advantage of being more representative of the population, having a clearer majority, and being large enough to support factions within the parties.

How would Vermont have any say in political affairs if their political power was limited purely by their population?! Its clear why there is a Senate and a House: it was a good idea then and it remains a good idea for the USA. And here's a big "Howdy!" from Texas to all of you in the great state of Vermont!

Why is it intrinsically a good idea that "Vermont" be an entity that has some say in political affairs? "Vermont" isn't a person, nor is it even a collection of people with a similar culture or ideology (by far the biggest divide is rural vs. suburban vs. urban; the second biggest is race/ethnicity; any state-by-state divide is much less significant than those two).

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

#334

Post by lazide »

fatherzine wrote: post #94
lazide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My perspective is more based on what faction would fight over someone else’s turf here?

No one seems interested, in a physical space way, at least so far.

Would the feds fight Texas over texas? Doesn’t seem like it.

Would texas go to the Feds, or New York, or whatever, to fight to take it? Doesn’t seem like it.

Seems more like everyone wants to lob angry messages at each other from over the border.

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

#335

Post by systemvoltage »

t_mann wrote: post #248
dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote: post #197

Whenever I read this trash I wonder who is pushing the narrative. Is this writer even an American? What does he have to gain by fomenting a narrative that Americans want to go to war? Who's in his back pocket? Americans need to wisen the fuck up that so much of this "America divisive, we disagree so much, civil war coming" is manufactured. Especially in the age of GPT-3 where it can be as simple as telling an AI bot…

Take off your tinfoil hat, Science is one of the most respected academic journals in the world, and it is a US-based publication (its twin is the British journal Nature , together they form the pinnacle of academic achievement). This specific article is about a preprint, not a Science publication yet, but do be aware that the organization behind that website has a lot of reputation to lose if they were to engage in t…

Is there any point where you think we can question Science, Nature, etc? If so, what point would that be? I think trying to reproduce studies or questioning logical fallacies, inaccuracies; quite easily justify criticism of established journals. Especially important when criticism comes from similar experts with high academic achievements.

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

#336

Post by lazide »

krapp wrote: post #186
lazide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Would the Feds do anything but setup sanctions/blockades and wait for Texas to beg to come back if they tried to leave? Nah. Texas represents two trillion dollars in revenue, billions of dollars in taxes, a big chunk of American agricultural, manufacturing and tech infrastructure, miles of coastline and ports and military assets like Fort Hood. The premise that the US would just let that go is laughable.

And Texas depends on the rest of the US even more.

I’m not saying they’d let it go. I’d saying, they wouldn’t need to cross the border to make the impact felt of trying to leave.

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

#337

Post by teh64 »

bsagdiyev wrote: post #147
tjstankus wrote: post #67

A full-blown civil war, circa 1800s? Probably not, although a growing number of fascist types are fantasizing about it and planning for it. More frequent and extreme episodes of violent civil unrest? Yes. I think it's going to get worse. https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-...

I hate to "be that guy" but this ends up being a both sides issue. There was a notice sent around to some churches after the RvW appeal to be vigilant since they had received some info on people possibly acting violently towards churches since they blamed them for it. (Edit to add: Please see https://janesrevenge.noblogs.org/2022/06/26/janes-revenge-ni... -- these are pointedly anti-fascists, the opposite of the righ…

So on the one hand, you have vandalism and arson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%27s_Revenge), and on the other multiple mass shootings with deaths (just one of the many, from this year which is from a right winger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting). I do not excuse this "Jane's Revenge" group, but that is some really weak both sides stuff. Especially because a lot of right wing church groups act violently towards abortion clinics! Which is a real glass houses moment.

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

#338

Post by tmaly »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

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…

I would have to think some of this is just availability bias cause by the focus of news outlets on if it bleeds it leads

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

#339

Post by lazide »

stale2002 wrote: post #33
lazide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, the incorrect part of you analysis is implying that right leaning states would start the war here. Given the current state of upcoming election polls, local politics, and the supreme court, the right leaning states are going to get most of what they want. They have no reason to secede, when they are winning the current politics battles, and are likely to win future elections in the next few years.

I never said they would start the war, I’d say neither “side” seems to have any actual need or desire to start an actual shooting civil war, since there is no ground in dispute (or that it would help to dispute), or major economic/resource dispute. If someone ‘captures’ Washington DC, for instance, it would not help them one bit. No one seems to be in any position to try to leave either, usefully.

There is a lot of complaining and grumbling, and ideological disagreements. Maybe there could be a ‘crusade’, but doesn’t seem likely right now.

If we’re talking elections, that’s the opposite of civil war.

Right now it just seems like an old bitter married couple bitching about each other and talking about how they want to split. Far cry from actually doing it, let alone paying the legal bills.

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

#340

Post by tmaly »

threatofrain wrote: post #275
chasd00 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even if they were politically sympathetic they would have to abandon their oath to the constitution and turn and fight the rest of the Marines. Also, there's a lot more to the party than just Marines. I doubt there would be as much hesitation by drone operators sitting in office buildings firing on any armed citizen in any city in Texas. Let alone AI feeding targets of opportunity to a queue where operators just clic…

The Constitution is strong because of the robustness of the structure it specifies via checks and balances, not because people pledge an oath. I also don't think it's obvious that the US would go to war to preserve the union.

Google US Civil War
Post reply on HN