[komali2]

People keep saying I live "in a bubble" yet I find myself having debates and arguments with people at all levels of my social circle that span vastly different ideas. The only time I encounter homogeneous ideology is when I'm in a conversation with an old friend from south Carolina or texas that identifies as conservative. It seems that people that used to have a cornucopia of various ideas have kinda melded into a singular ideology.

15 years ago I might have agreed with you... Not so much anymore.

[aty268]

Everyone in a bubble thinks that they're being exposed to new contrarian ideas. You absolutely are, but not contrarian ideas being seriously discussed outside your bubble. The valley is the obvious example, contrarian ideas are tossed around like hotcakes, and yet it's so contrarian to support trump nobody does it.

How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week? Or would you feel comfortable telling your coworkers you plan to vote for Trump? He very well may win this election.

[dleslie]

> How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week?

If the bubble is just Democrats and Republicans and other Americans, then it's still a fairly small bubble with a narrow view on the world.

It's a huge world, and there's a lot more perspectives on it than is likely to be _easily_ encountered during water cooler conversations at the office.

[komali2]

Exactly. Show me a democrat and republican and I'll line up twenty leftists I know that will begrudgingly be voting for the conservative "democrat" this year because there's simply no other choice here.

[e_dv2]

Honestly, everyone is in a bubble of some sort. I have literally no clue about the fine details of what it is like to live in most of the thousands of world cultures out there. Even countries that I have visited briefly, there's no way I could claim to be an expert, let alone places and people I have never been to or seen. Your viewpoint is largely limited to your direct experience. Some nuggets of wisdom of course may come from the experiences of others being communicated to you, but nothing beats direct experience.

What's the point of claiming that a tech bubble is a "cancer" and a "drain on the progression of ideas"? There's definitely a "valley paradigm" of sorts, but there are multiple technology centers around the world. I do think it is important to be aware of paradigms and try to reach out from them, mind you, but this seems more like a generalized accusation.

And I'm not sure where Trump comes into this. I do have Trump supporters within my extended family; I have plenty of non-Trump supporters in my circle too. While the information is still incomplete, it is still more information than I have about, say, (random example) National vs. Labour voters of New Zealand (or one of the many other smaller political parties in that country), since I have no one who I directly talk to from there.

The one nugget that I know from the limited experience I have is that generalizations of cultural blocs must be taken as the simplification that it is. It is an unfortunate necessity to generalize complexity, of course, so while they tend to be "incorrect" in the details, I tend to have no problems with non-malicious generalizations, as long as the generalization tries to be as accurate as one can and tries to be thoughtful instead of relying on tired tropes. However, I do tend to look heavily down on any malicious, inflammatory generalization of a culture -- I mean, even the ordinary generalizations often are wrong at some level, right? People who use wrong information to inflame and anger receive poor marks from me, and if they are doing this in spite of knowing better, even more so.

[komali2]

> How many open Trump supporters do you interact with a week?

As I said, about 5-8 depending on how active my group chats are.

Why would I tell my coworkers I'm voting for Trump? I'm not going to. So yes I would feel uncomfortable lying.

I don't think this is the same as bush era politics. How can I exist with coworkers while we do anti racist book clubs, and then announce support for the man who calls black protesters thugs? We don't have room for racism at my company. That's only a political issue because the republican party nominated a racist - I don't see how that's our problem.

[aty268]

It's interesting how you think you've solely 'escaped' the bubble, and yet I bet I can guess your beliefs on almost every major point after this comment, as well as your race, age, and income.

Want some help?

How can I exist with co-workers who think every point of inequality is systemic racism and white supremacy, Trump supporter's are all trailer park hicks, 97% of the protests are peaceful, believe that just because of your skin color you shouldn't be called a thug for looting, believe Trump colluded with the Russians despite 0 evidence, think Flynn deserves to be in prison, think Trump isn't helping the black community...

[komali2]

Systemic racism is real but I don't even know what "every point of inequality" means.

Uhhh isn't palmer luckey a Trump supporter? And Kanye west? Plus a bunch of rich old folks back home. Lol obviously not all Trump supporters are trailer park (do you mean poor?), My experience at protests in LA alone would make it absurd to believe that.

Thug is a racist dog whistle. Is property damage an improper response to murder? Yet conservatives defend a kid that committed murder after traveling to protests to "protect property," so I guess murder is an appropriate response to property damage.

Are you not reading reports from yesterday wherein intelligence community members are warning congress about russian influence in the upcoming election? You make me suspect the only "evidence" you'll accept is Putin being caught with his fingers literally in the guts of a voting machine.

Trump passed a couple democrat written prison reform bills that vaguely helped the black community, but his DOJ is specifically targeting those early release people for reconviction, so it's moot.

I don't really care about Flynn.

I guess I don't fit into the clean little Other that Rupert murdoch defined for you?

[logicchains]

>Is property damage an improper response to murder?

Maybe property damage might be a proper response to murder, _if it was the property of the murderer_ (the police), as opposed to random small business nearby, many owned by minorities.

[komali2]

I know. It's a shame the police keep responding to peaceful protests with extraordinary state-sponsored violence, forcing people to go to the extremes to make their voice heard.

[logicchains]

>How can I exist with coworkers while we do anti racist book clubs, and then announce support for the man who calls black protesters thugs?

Have you not seen the videos of "peaceful protestors" literally smashing and burning down buildings? Committing indiscriminate property destruction and arson makes people thugs, regardless of the colour of their skin.

[komali2]

Thug is historically a racist dog whistle. Ignorance of this, pretended or otherwise, isn't a valid defense.

I saw a couple videos of burning buildings, sure. I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters. The onus is on the state to back down, not the people.

Did you see video of out of state proud boys driving in armed caravans to protest areas, paintballing and pepper spraying indiscriminately?

[logicchains]

>Thug is historically a racist dog whistle

Really? I'm a native English speaker, albeit not American, and I've never heard thug implied to have racist connotations. The original word comes from a Hindi word for criminal, which was also used for a violent cult: "Devotees of the goddess Kali, the Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travellers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s."

>I had trouble caring though, because the only places that happened in are the ones where soldier cops got insanely abusive with peaceful protesters.

How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?

[edmundsauto]

> How does the police being abusive make it okay for the rioters to burn down random buildings?

It doesn't absolve any responsibility, but if you take a step back - the police behavior was the indirect and sometimes direct cause of the other symptom.

[osobear]

Well said.

[mensetmanusman]

Dog whistle is a useful term, because it gives someone the power to redefine what has been said to mean anything that you would like.

E.g. on NPR you hear talking heads speak about “staunch conservatives” like Bill Barr. This term is now a dog whistle on the left that means ‘white nationalist’

[osobear]

Hard to care about cops being aggressive when "protesters" burn down buildings. If US cops actually got proper riot training like French police then citizens wouldn't need to take self-defense into their own hands(e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse).

[komali2]

You believe that arming yourself, driving across state lines, and then putting yourself into the middle of a protest, is "self-defense?"

Great! Then, the protesters are acting in self defense as well, as the bar is apparently quite low for self defense.