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What I Heard from Trump Supporters

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#681

Post by the_gastropod »

camdenlock wrote: post #288
mikeash wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this idea that we can't talk about these things. Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. Not only can you openly discuss them, but you can successfully get elected President while doing so. You can't say, "We can't even discuss this stuff. That's why Trump won." The very idea contradicts itself.

> Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. You seem to be implying that such questions are inherently immoral, and that's exactly the kind of sentiment that I challenged in my original comment. You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions. There are difficult questions and there are ba…

I understand your point. We're in a very polarized political environment, and I think it's important to recognize the context buried in questions like "Is the Black Lives Matter movement doing good?" It's suspicious sounding on its face, without any specifics or nuance given. There's a LOT of hatred toward the BLM movement that is completely indefensible (e.g., applauding running over BLM protesters in the street, or accusing them of inciting violence). BLM is not beyond criticism. If you have a something to critique, critique it. On its face, "Is Black Lives Matter doing good?" smells a lot like "I think BLM is bad". And that is likely to be met with an unpleasant response.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#682

Post by RangerScience »

Pent wrote: post #458
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, both yes and no. The word has become near profanity now and is often used as an insult rather than a statement. The reaction of, "How is it racist?" can be taken as a defense even if it is an honest question. Luckily, words are amazing and there are ways to diffuse this stuff. "I think some folks might find that insensitive, you know" might be better wording than "That was rather racist" - even though…

Is sensitivity a universal value and priority for everyone? Even in the rust belt? Is dismissing sensitivity as a value, allowed?

I think in some cases, definitely.

I'm not sure how to complete this thought right now, but it comes down to: "Do you feel safe expressing yourself?"

Your "safety" might not be important for the situation, may not be relevant for the situation; safety shouldn't be confused with agreement / support, etc, etc.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#683

Post by RangerScience »

ar15saveslives wrote: post #426
RangerScience wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll bite. I don't actually know what you're talking about. I haven't experienced either a gender or a racial war, or the promotion of it. But I want to take this "personal". When have you, personally , been the victim of a gender / race war? (My hunch is that you haven't, but that you see the promotion of one, because it sells.) (Towards my points - the #1 difference is not the only difference, and there are d…

I like your logic. "You know, I have never been a victim of a murder, therefore murders don't happen". When a company publicly announces "we're affirmative action company", I understand it as they openly exercise racism and/or sexism against me. And trust me, as a divorced guy, I've experienced institutionalized sexism A LOT.

So, why do you attribute the institutionalized sexism of divorce proceedings to what the "radical left promotes"?

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#684

Post by evilduck »

ameister14 wrote: post #516
mildbow wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Why do they hate her? 2. Do they consider him not racist/sexist because they are a little bit too? (Not trying to be inflammatory) 3. I hate it too. 4b. Why are they hurting? Why is median household income so low?

4b.Why are they hurting? Why is median household income so low? Well, in the small town I grew up in, cheap imports and exported labor coupled with automation killed the main sources of jobs. Retraining is incredibly hard and requires a willingness to uproot everything and risk it all as well as the ability to not get paid for a while to move forward.

Uprooting is harder than it seems too. House and property valuations plummet shortly after the company propping up a "company town" departs. Finding a potential home buyer in a dying town becomes quite difficult, for adults, leaving becomes equivalent to walking away from everything, including a mortgage.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#685

Post by [deleted] »

gizmo wrote: post #626
true_religion wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are so fucking tired of identity politics. Oversensitivity, calling everything "-ist" to win an argument, trying to tie racism into everything. I've thought of this and wondered is it actually possible that racism and sexism is rampant? In Eastern Europe, racism is utterly rampant (dismissal of achievements of people based on their ethnicity, wide spread belief that people of a certain ethnic type are 'bad for…

Organizations like Black Lives Matter also draw inspiration from the 60s Civil Rights movement, but they have concluded (correctly, in my view) that relentlessly opposing and calling out racism is enormously effective. Black Lives Matter is so successful that their message has reached almost every single American.

[deleted]

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#686

Post by tdkl »

rdl wrote: post #357
austenallred wrote: post #112

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…

It wasn't always like this. Silicon Valley was a lot more diverse/tolerant in the first dotcom boom and until ~2006 or so than since. It really went off the deep end circa the Brendan Eich incident (2014), and then the most recent Presidential election cycle. The "Ex-communicate Peter Thiel" movement was the point of no return, and when I decided to flee permanently. It doesn't seem to be as bad even in other equally…

It's the PC/SJW lunacy and its ideas becoming mainstream.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#687

Post by spinlock »

st3v3r wrote: post #594
SnowFace wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

His entire spiel about Mexicans being drug dealers and rapists. And you are clearly not interested in any kind of discussion. You are simply trying to justify to yourself that, despite supporting someone who is clearly an abhorrent person, you are not an abhorrent person. And I'm not buying it.

How about stating very publicly that a judge could not be impartial because he's Mexican. That's kinda textbook right there.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#688

Post by splintercell »

gizmo wrote: post #653
splintercell wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bunch of things you talk about show all the symptoms of the bubble effect. People don't believe in things because they personally analyzed everything and came to a conclusion. You don't believe that a fossil in a museum is 5,000 years old, or a painting is truly made by Da Vinci 500 years ago, you trust 'experts', even though your own intuition would be against it. So for instance, if I showed you a painting and as…

I totally agree that my observations are symptomatic of a bubble. That doesn't change that there are a meaningful differences between bubbles. People who blindly trust scientific consensus live in a bubble, but it's the best kind of bubble. The Obamacare scenario you describe doesn't match up with reality. It's not true that they oppose Obamacare on rational grounds (e.g. I don't want my insurance to go up). Obamacar…

> Obamacare is the republican solution to health insurance, it's a federal version of Romneycare. Republicans should love it, because it's their own program, but they hate it.

When I used the word 'bubble', it really was applicable to you.

People who raise the same points you've raised are so out of touch with anyone who doesn't agree with them already.

When was the last time you met someone who could be convinced with the following argument:

"Hey believer-of-X-ideology, you should support idea Y because it is actually a part of X ideology because one of the prominent leaders of the X ideologists supported it".

Romney is a blue state Republican, which is different than a red state Republican. I'm sure Republicans in Massachussetts or California would all be ok with Obamacare, but the states in which Romney would never be a governor, they hate Obamacare for the idea it represents.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#689

Post by PKop »

jimnotgym wrote: post #525
Yhippa wrote: post #40

This one gave me the most pause: > “Silicon Valley is incredibly unwelcoming to alternative points of view. Your curiosity, if it is sincere, is the very rare exception to the rule.” Substitute "Silicon Valley" for any major liberal enclaves, like universities and cities, and I think you see the same thing. I am skeptical by nature and try to take a scientific view of new ideas. However I feel like I get shouted down…

What if the liberals are right? It was proposed to me a couple of weeks ago (by a French guy who had spent a few years stateside) that there was a more simple reason for Trumps success. To him a racist, bigoted, misogynist, misanthrope, with a complete lack of taste, wild delusions about his place in the world, a gaudy tower with his name on it, and the idea that (despite his wife being foreign) that immigrants are n…

I would suggest getting out of your bubble (I'm not trying to insult you). But the way you disparage rural people and assign false motives to so many shows (in my opinion) that you are grossly ill-informed about those of which you speak.

And I think (if you read the original article) this is what frustrates so many across the country. Whether all, or some, or none of what you attribute the motivations of Trump voters to exist.... you're completely unaware of soooo much more that guides them.

For example: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21...

Please take a minute to read it all. From the economic wasteland that much of middle America has become, to the massive addiction to prescription drugs & heroin, and widespread unemployment.... is it any wonder that people would want to try something completely new?

But no... keep throwing around your labels. Keep calling people racist bigot homophobe, sexist. That will surely convince the guy with no job prospects that it's all in his head, and his heart. Not the emptiness in his pocket.

"Maybe the liberals are right to defend their patch from this creeping menace with zero tolerance?" -- And this last election was a line in the sand, for many defending there patch from the "intolerance" of the far left.

I suggest you read the original post at the top, and take some of the comments to heart.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#690

Post by Mithaldu »

austenallred wrote: post #676
Mithaldu wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By supporting trump (and thus pence and gop) one implicitly agrees with people dying due to cuts in health services. (And yes, pence has already done health-related things whose only consequence were deaths.) Do you feel being fired and blacklisted is a worse consequence than suffered by people impacted by support of trump (and his people)?

So by supporting Clinton would you implicitly be agreeing to bombing children in Syria? That's just a silly line of reasoning

There is no subtlety in Pence's actions on the needle program.

PS: Bernie would've been the sane choice for your country. But hey, what can you do in a two party system.

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