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What I Heard from Trump Supporters

blog.samaltman.com

471–480 of 906 posts

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#471
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We are unwelcoming to people who are factually wrong. This comes up from time to time here on HN. I don't buy the whole CO2->Global Warming->Catastrophe thing, and I regularly get down votes here if I try to make arguments to the contrary - even science based arguments. I think a lot of people on the left try to hide behind some kind of false consensus as to what is "better", "morally superior", or "factually corr…

Your "belief" is not based on evidence. Full stop. Name any dead, famous scientist. They upended the scientific conventional wisdom and accepted truth. If you could do that, you'd be in the history books. You can't. It's like arguing with he time cube guy, but not about what he is gonna publish next Tuesday, but the future of the human race in the balance. Do you get now why it is infuriating?

>> Your "belief" is not based on evidence.

Mine is actually, it's people like you that are infuriating.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One can no longer openly discuss certain extremely important topics (is there something inherently wrong with Islam as a belief system? Is Black Lives Matter doing good or bad things? Are women really paid less than men for performing the same work?) Some very prominent and (mostly) beloved liberals talk about these things _constantly_. Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and Salman Rushdie for example, are very…

It's great that those prominent figures are discussing difficult questions openly. That can only result in good things for our society. However, not all of us have such luxury. For most of us, merely asking the initial questions to start a difficult/challenging conversation can have very bad consequences in the current climate. If you've got a job as a coder at a SV company, you'd better be extremely careful about st…

I live/work in NYC—a fellow bastion of liberalism. Anecdotally, I've never had any problems talking about these things with friends or coworkers.

This is a delicate conversation, as there is a LOT of bigoted rhetoric around Muslims (our President is guilty of this type of talk), and it should be condemned. But if done with a tiny bit of care, you should have no problem criticizing extremism. I've never met a liberal that would defend the Charlie Hebdo attacks or honor killings.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#474
post #419
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone uses heuristic filters to decide what's worth consideration and what isn't. If a lay person's opinion of a scientific theory is outside the scientific mainstream, it's probably bunk. What is the goal in trying to understand their perspective on this issue? I don't get offended when people refuse to listen to my alternative views on the late Roman Empire.

There's probably no downside... until there are twenty sacred cows, the aggregate heuristics are filtering out half of the country, and Trump is commander-in-chief...

I keep seeing people who are staunchly on the left ask "what's the downside?", and it baffles me. As someone generally non-conservative, I spend a bizarre amount of time going "The downside is everything you're seeing right now! You can't say that America is in crisis and then say that there's no problem with these techniques!"

Even if the sacred cows are all 100% correct, losing is a downside. There's no point in celebrating how correct we are about something while completely failing to act on that knowledge.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#475

We are unwelcoming to people who are factually wrong. If you deny science, basic human rights, if you lack compassion for people who come from less fortunate countries, if you feel you're entitled to things others are not, then yes, I can proudly say silicon valley as well as other liberal enclaves are very unwelcoming to such people. Lastly, we do not, and will not welcome anyone who elects a man like trump just to…

> if you lack compassion for people who come from less fortunate countries What I'm hearing people saying is that they want a candidate who will talk about compassion for the economic futures of Americans. If you are barely making ends meet, you don't want a candidate talking about compassion for people from less fortunate countries, when out in the countryside of America you see a lot of people who could hardly be l…

> If you are barely making ends meet, you don't want a candidate talking about compassion for people from less fortunate countries, when out in the countryside of America you see a lot of people who could hardly be less fortunate.

I can understand this statement as my paternal family is indeed in this state and has been for almost a century. They are too proud to take my "handouts" which I offer of around $50 a month. They would be greatly offended if I actually offered what I could afford.

I am not a liberal, I am actually a centrist on the upper left hand corner of left wing and libertarian. I have different, but equally heated debates between my liberal and conservative friends.

With all of that said I can tell you the following based on my world travels. If you have running water, a flushable toilet, electricity and a foundation in your house you may be US poor, but are most definitely not globally poor. There are more globally poor people in the world then all of the people in the entire US.

If you have not lost a house due to tragedy such as tornado, hurricane, fire or bombing then you are not likely to understand the refugee issue. You may think you get it and if you are a liberal I would say you are less likely to get it, based on what my liberal friends say. This kind of loss is not a "set back" and can take years if not a decade to recover from. If you are lucky you have insurance that works and rebuild. If you are in a war zone there is no rebuild. I actually have more Christian conservatives that support refugees as a calling of their faith then liberals that would actually host a refugee. This could vary but it is the case in the area, no SV. At the same time I have more "Christian" evangelicals that want nothing to do with refugees.

With all of that said I still don't understand the desire to stay in an economic desert. My paternal side long lost their farm after letting the slaves go yet still have a desire to stay in the same area. I just don't get that. Maybe I am strange but if there are no jobs or economic opportunity why stay? As the libertarian in me why should I care about you choice to stay? If you, or for that fact my family, decide to stay in a place that does not warrant growth why should I sacrifice my liberty for your choice? Why should I not be allowed to support those from forgien lands that I think will increase my community? Why should those that would give up everything to get a change to be here be placed below those that would not even bother to move to a place of greater opportunity less then a 1000 miles away? What is so Holy about the "countryside" that necessitates cities of great wealth from providing to others? Why should my tax dollars grant those whom want comfort to stay in a situation that cannot be pulled out of yet prevent it from providing to those that wish to better themselves?

This is not even compassion this is just good business sense and ROI.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#476
post #195

"For months and months, they'd been unfairly denigrating Trump supporters" If you support a candidate who espouses racist, sexist, xenophobic, and general bigoted views, a candidate who was caught on tape as bragging about sexual assault, then it is not unfair to paint you as supporting those things. To me, anyone who supports Trump has declared their support for those things. And it is on them to prove that they are…

Show me where Trump is racist. Show me just one example.

Lost federal racial discrimination lawsuit.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/855553

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#477
post #195

"For months and months, they'd been unfairly denigrating Trump supporters" If you support a candidate who espouses racist, sexist, xenophobic, and general bigoted views, a candidate who was caught on tape as bragging about sexual assault, then it is not unfair to paint you as supporting those things. To me, anyone who supports Trump has declared their support for those things. And it is on them to prove that they are…

Show me where Trump is racist. Show me just one example.

Lost federal racial discrimination lawsuit.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/855553

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#478
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration laws were already being enforced vigorously. Obama administration set the record in deportation and was often called the "Deporter in Chief". And all of this was done without raising xenophobia and labeling a group of people as hard criminals and rapists.

Immigration laws were already being enforced vigorously. Obama administration set the record in deportation and was often called the "Deporter in Chief" These statistics are hopelessly confounded by changes to the definition of "deportation" and are not to be viewed as reliable: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/2...

I hope you had a chance to read through the end of the article. Here's the relevant portion:

"CORRECTION: The original post claimed that Obama had de-emphasized removals and concentrated on returns and that the ratio of his removals to returns was skewed toward returns compared to his predecessors. That claim is not correct because based on DHS’s data, (Table 39: Aliens Removed and Returned, FY 1892-2012) his cumulative numbers since taking office show Obama has removed a total of 1,974,688 people and returned 1,609,055 others. There have been more returns than removals only in FY 2009 and 2010. Moreover, comparing across administrations is not wise given the changes in law and counting procedures."

So even if you count removals only, they removed ~2mn people and this article was published in 2014. If you add returned, this swells to nearly 4mn

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#479
post #219
post #52

Trump won largely because of disenfranchised blue collar caucasians resonated with him. Watching the witch hunt over the last 2 months you would think it would be anything but that. Fake news (just call it propaganda), russian hackers, 4chan memes and white supremacists have all received the majority of blame. I'm curious to whether the Democrats will ever come to terms with reality here, or will they just double dow…

I'm only observing from afar but I share the same explanation. The root problem is a widening income disparity in the US that most people can't overcome by "working harder". If you are born into a lower middle class family chances are you will be stuck there forever. The US is not known for high social mobility (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the... ) - the "American Dream" is fict…

Your analysis is suffering from the law of averages. The US has very high upward mobility, as long as you were born in the right part of the country:

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org

But this is also exactly why Trump won -- to be President you must appeal to a broad coalition of voters, and the people with the lower mobility formed a stronger coalition.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to San Francisco from a rural town, and I would feel 10x more comfortable sharing my liberal viewpoints in a small, deeply-red town than I would insinuating something anything less than 100% left-leaning at work here. People disagree in small town Utah, and it would be uncomfortable. In San Francisco you're ostracized. It even makes me nervous to leave my name attached to a comment like this, knowing that my…

I went from Salt Lake City to San Francisco as well. I have always been quite liberal on issues and it had never been a problem, but when discussing issues in SF I felt I had to be very careful with what I supported. I always felt my friendships/employment was threatened if I disagreed. I had a good friend/startup founder once say anyone who supported Trump deserved to be fired and blacklisted.

It's not any different in, say, Oklahoma. Just the reverse.
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