Bob and Van didn't make you aware of their political views within a few minutes of meeting them. They didn't put a sign in their front yard or a bumper sticker on their vehicle. They weren't wearing any particular apparel. You didn't notice them in the town's Facebook group making their opinions crystal clear. It's much different in a world where people make their political views their whole identity.
It's also a bit ironic, since Marco has a pride flag with the trans additions flying from his house. So is this blog post him coming to realize he's a part of the problem or...?
This sounds nice, but what if your neighbor's political views are an existential threat to you personally? What if they don't want you to live in their neighborhood because of the color of your skin, or if they don't think you're a fit parent because you let your kid wear certain clothes? There are some things about which we can have friendly disagreements, like Laffer curves, school vouchers, the death penalty, environmental regulations, or whatever. But there are other disagreements which mean we cannot be friends.
I get this but there’s this thing called the contact hypothesis. Friendly contact with people makes it harder to hate them.
I’ve heard many stories of people who were once racists or some other kind of bigot losing that attitude from living close to people of the other ethnic group. It’s common.
It’s a major hypothesis for why xenophobia is more popular in rural areas: lack of contact with out groups.
But if you instantly call someone out for their views, condemn them, take a self righteous position, that doesn’t happen. It might even have the opposite effect.
So maybe let the bigot next door borrow some eggs. Smile at them. But make sure they know it if you’re one of the people their dogma or emotional conditioning says they’re supposed to hate.
Might change someone’s mind every now and then.
It’s also important to note that people often don’t change their minds quickly. Seeds get planted. Experiences that contradict a dogma or an unexamined conditioned attitude are noted. The brain slowly updates its priors.
What if you were friendly with your neighbor, but on the way to return a shovel you get hit by a bus?
Point being: you're dreaming up edge cases, presumably as a justification for... what? Refusing to engage with people who don't wear their political views like a badge on their chest?
If your stance honestly is "we cannot be friends unless I know your political views", then those who keep their views to themselves in the face of that are wise.
In my experience, yes, the irredeemable bigot is rare. For everyone else, regardless of whether their political views are unknown to you or they are threatening your personal way of life, the world will be a better place for you being good neighbors with them. Not to mention that it will improve your own living situation as well.
Most bigotry doesn't come from an inherent maliciousness or evil. It's often just limited experience and never having had reason to reflect on one's views. If you instinctively go "fuck off bigot", you're not only not helping, you're their mirror image.
To be clear, there's a point at which you have to be intolerant of intolerance, but starting off with that is not only counterproductive by reinforcing echo chambers and increasing division, it also makes you not unlike the thing you're opposed to.
Xenophobia and racial (or religious ) animus are hardly edge cases. On the contrary, they are the default setting for our species, as evidenced by (flips through history book) the last few millennia.
Bigotry is innate and one has to fight it. And that's exactly chmod775's point - stop being a bigot towards other people's reasonable opinions, stop being dramatic, stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
> stop being a bigot towards other people's reasonable opinions
I welcome all reasonable opinions. But not all opinions are reasonable.
In particular, the Maga crowd favors opinions based on hero-worship credulity and irrational vibes, completely divorced from factual reality. Very often, this leads to a place of xenophibia and bigotry, which no one is obligated to tolerate.
Just look at the "conservative" "arguments" in this thread. Just a chain of non-sequiturs and preconceived biases.
Then you live next to them and let them borrow a cup of sugar or ask to borrow one from them and collect their mail while they’re away and thank them when they let you know you left a light on when you left for work the other day. And realize that your hangups, quirks, and beliefs are just as offensive to them as theirs are to yours but that doesn’t mean either one of you is. Or a good neighbor that can’t crack a beer and just live next door to one another.
> Then you live next to them and let them borrow a cup of sugar or ask to borrow one from them and collect their mail while they’re away and thank them when they let you know you left a light on when you left for work the other day.
You would have liked my grandmother, who shared your opinion that kindness between neighbors can heal political rifts.
Unfortunately it didn't work out so well for her, as despite her kindness, the neighbors sent her to Dachau anyway.
Was it really her neighbors that sent her there or a police/military? I very much doubt that.
But let's play the hypothetical.
- Would your grandmother's fate be better if instead of kindness she would be spewing vitriol? Don't think so, the situation would have been even worse, much faster.
- What about the other side of the coin - about all of those people, who survived, because they were nice and friendly?
- In general, always having the same strategy, no matter what is happening around you, is dumb. When the environment changes, so should the behavior. Kindness often helps, but not against wild animals like bears, nature forces like tornadoes, and the faceless state bureucracy.
Once again with the implication that conservatives are equivalent to Nazis and therefore should be treated with vitriol. The hyperbole isn’t unwarranted and the whole point.
That's not the implication. Read it again, stop playing the victim. The point is simply that hate is not rational, and that your proposal of kindness does nothing to assuage the rampant ignorance and xenophobia that animates evil ideology.
Would you prefer a Communist rather than Nazi parable? Either way works.
Your grandmother sounds incredible, and her story tragic. I read your earlier comment a slight towards her. Perhaps that’s not what you meant.
Since OP was adding a counter argument to the article that some people shouldn’t be trusted, your comment seemed to reinforce the point that differing ideologies inferring that current preferences could result in similar outcomes. In another comment you equated that same group with Jim Crow.
I find the hyperbole counterproductive, immature, and annoying. It seems like you don’t know any conservatives very well, the ones you do know are the scum of the earth.
Either way, way, I find your Grandmother’s story noble, inspiring. It represents the best of humanity when faced with the worst. I’d want to be known for that a million times before being known for being the angry neighbor that knew he was more virtuous than everyone else.
> I find the hyperbole counterproductive, immature, and annoying.
I'm sorry you find it annoying, but I don't find the comparison hyperbolic at all, and perhaps if you understand the historical context and the facts on the ground, you wouldn't either. You are letting your feelings (in this case, being annoyed, combined with a cult of personality) get in the way of a sober analysis of the situation, which is unambiguously the decay of the rule of the law and the persecution of innocent people.
> It seems like you don’t know any conservatives very well, the ones you do know are the scum of the earth.
I agree with the second part. I live in a red state. I see these people every day. People just as bigoted and short-sighted as you. People who are utterly convinced of their correctness, even as they reveal their complete ignorance of and indifference to what is actually happening. Instead, what I hear again and again is blind trust for the billionaire in power based solely on his rhetorical style.
> Either way, way, I find your Grandmother’s story noble, inspiring.
It's not noble to be a victim. I hope that those persecuted in today's America won't be as naive as my grandmother.
> being the angry neighbor that knew he was more virtuous than everyone else.
This perfectly describes my actual neighbor, who regularly blames poor immigrants for all his self-inflicted ills and demands violent retribution against the gays, the liberals, the trans, the foreigners, and brown people, all while claiming to speak in the virtuous name of Jesus Christ.
I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but what if you were a jew, and you applied that reasoning to your hitler-loving neighbors back in nazi germany?
Modern politics is fundamentally different from the way things used to be. The right-wing political parties in america today have almost nothing at their core besides hatred for marginalized communities. Demonizing trans people, immigrants, muslims, "communists"- that's it. Everything else is just the whims of an impulsive imbecile - the tariffs, the war with Iran, kidnapping the president of Venezuela, the belligerence towards _greenland_ (?!?!?), etc...
And the purpose behind demonizing them it to energize a shrinking demographic base to compensate for how many reasonable people they've driven away. So at this point, the ones who remain under the maga umbrella have been exposed to so much vitriolic propaganda that they are just at a fever pitch of hatred at all times. I've seen it countless times in my own life- People who used to say that Obama was naive and inexperienced and that his policies were misguided, but who now say he's a muslim jihadi who wanted to destroy america. And so on with many other political issues.
I have several close relatives who used to be like bob, or van- but MAGA has changed them. They are just completely dripping with hate, now. And if I was a member of one of the communities they've been frothed up against, I don't know if I'd feel safe trying to engage with them like the person on the OP.
> what if your neighbor's political views are an existential threat to you personally?
Then you are uniquely placed to show them you're not the baddie they thought you were. Say hello, introduce yourself, smile and wave, bring cookies or stuff from your backyard garden once in a while, be personable.
Firearms lobby, institutionalized prejudice in law enforcement, Justice system, etc all have made this additional labor of the marginalized minority extraordinarily dangerous.
> Then you are uniquely placed to show them you're not the baddie they thought you were.
Great idea! If only we had thought of this sooner. We could have avoided Jim Crow and segregation if only black people had thought to be friendly to racist whites!
If you're in physical danger, then flee. I'm not talking about that. There's a bigger reality than your street - pay attention and be wise.
But at the same time, it is true than many white kids had racist parents but chose not to be racist themselves, largely because they rubbed shoulders with black kids and learned they had a lot in common with them. Don't underestimate the power of patience, kindness, generosity, and general personability to win, eventually. It took a generation of integration before racism disappeared from most US neighborhoods.
> I haven't talked personally with a racist in probably 25-30 years.
How do you know that you haven't talked with a racist? Are you in the habit of asking new acquaintances if they are racist, and then believing their answer? Or do you just assume that all racists wear the same uniform?
> I haven't talked personally with a racist in probably 25-30 years.
Let me guess, you mostly mingle with white people? It's a different story among Latinos, Asians (toward blacks and other Asians), but especially among African-Americans.
The essay makes a token gesture toward this ("privilege and power dynamics play a complex and unavoidable role"), but ultimately Marco, who is a rich straight white male unaffected by any meaningful or existential prejudice, is willing to overlook those views (which do not impact him) as things that do not matter.
I think the key differentiator today is the silent mental health crisis that’s gripped this country. Until you know them well, it’s hard to know if your neighbor is secretly part of a weird Discord server where obsessive people lord over random strangers for internet clout. You really don’t want to inadvertently become the day’s “main character” somehow by giving the wrong “vibes” or being unaware of the latest taboo.
It used to be easier to tell when someone was a nutjob based on their appearance, but these days not so much.
It’s still good to get to know your neighbors, but some caution is warranted.
This is a post that only a straight middle-aged white guy could make. I’m also a white middle-aged guy, but being in a same-sex interracial marriage really opens your eyes to the reality of living in America.
Also, there was a time when your neighbors’ politics probably didn’t want to strip you and your family of their rights and citizenship; times have changed a bit.
I intentionally try to foster friendships with all sort of different people with obviously different political positions. Many of them are very far left and very far right and very far in a third direction i have trouble articulating, in ways that would shock most normal people.
What I have found is that, accepting the inevitable human flaws that we are all prone to, they are all pretty good folks.
For context, this post seems to be a reaction to MacStories deciding to return to X [0], which has been quite controversial in the Apple developer community.
There has been the predictable blowback, then the blowback to the blowback, which he alludes to in the post: "should I be condemned for not publicly condemning them myself?" [1]
Ultimately, everyone needs to do what's workable. If you find X's owner repugnant but you feel you need to be on the platform, that's a choice you have to make. If your audience revolts, that's a consequence of the choice. Each audience member also has to do what's workable for them. There is no "right" or "wrong" response.
This is still the case today, if you let it be. I am friends with many neighbors with differing views from my own and literally do have them over for dinner, invite them to my toddlers' birthday parties, etc.
I don't recognize the things the author describes here - awareness of hot takes, opinions about coffee shop owners... they strike me as features of the online world, but not the offline one I inhabit.
I struggle with this. Where I live, it's harder nowadays to compartmentalize how someone votes from their core values. What we used to call "politics" now encompasses some fundamental aspects of how we observe and process our daily lives.
It might help to realize that this is a uniquely American affliction. People almost anywhere else simply don't consider politics (or race or gender for that matter) to be nearly as important.
This would then let you see your neighbors as people. What you claim are core values are nothing of the sort. They are misconceptions invented by your in-group to dehumanize the out-group. In reality people's core values are: their kids, their health, love, belonging, a sense of purpose. The rest is just a puppet master hijacking these core values for organizing a crowd.
Counterpoint: what you want to claim are core values are actually window dressing to hide how people see the out-group. Who doesn't "love their kids" or fall in love, or want a sense of belonging (ok, a few), or a sense of purpose (ok, a few more). These are not statements about anyone's core values, they're statements about what it is to be human.
Core values are about how you treat people who are NOT close to you, how you believe limited resources should be allocated, how and by whom you think decisions should be made, what the relationship between individuals and society ought to be, and specifically between individuals and government.
It always did, we just had the norm that in a liberal democracy, we put that to the side for our dealings with people. Same thing as religion -- a huge deal that shapes people's values and attitudes about the most core aspects of life -- and there was a norm of "no politics or religion" in polite conversation.
> What we used to call "politics" now encompasses some fundamental aspects
That's less true IRL if you just talk to people and be personable. There's something about seeing someone face to face and chatting that helps you intuitively understand you have a lot in common with them (or not) - and regardless of their political opinions either way.
I find that the sorts of life choices people make and the character they have as a result is a far better discriminator of what they actually have in common (or don't) with others.
I do talk to people. A lot. I live in a politically mixed area, a lean-red town in a solid-blue US state. Most people keep their "political" leanings to themselves but it doesn't take very long to get a clue. I'm thinking of one friend-of-a-friend with whom I interact fairly frequently. I know their views on current events not because they've said anything directly to me but they're active on Facebook and other friends have shown me some posts. What do I do? Pretend it doesn't bother me that they have chosen to advance causes that I believe are actively undermining our society? Right now I'm polite to them. But I feel like it's dishonest on some level.
Speaking from my own moral compass - I don't think there's a moral obligation to bring up politics with people I know with whom I disagree. They have their opinion, I have mine.
I think that's even true when a horrible ideology is gripping a nation. The Bolsheviks and Red Guards were not to be reasoned with by neighbors in their heyday. "The wise man sees trouble coming and hides himself."
Maybe the healthier past wasn’t one where nobody talked about politics. Maybe it was one where disagreeing about politics didn’t automatically make someone your enemy.
As someone from the Netherlands, I find this especially strange. You can call the leader of the party your neighbour voted for every name under the sun, preferably involving some kind of disease, because that’s our style, and still have a beer together afterwards.
In all likelihood, that leader of the party your neighbor voted for does not hold views that you consider an existential threat to yourself, or those you love. I say this because you live in (or are from) NL, and while there is certainly a range of political views there, compared to the US you may as well all be in the same party.
Try having a beer with someone who thinks your daughter in law should have her drivers license revoked because she "lied about being a woman", in a society where a drivers license is a critical part of life.
I think that the gap between the MAGA crowd and, say, Santa Fe progressives, is much deeper than the one between Wilders and some progressive NL equivalent. It might be as wide, but depth matters too.
The USA contains a lot of people who simply don't agree that the government has much of a role to play in anything. Wilders might sound quite MAGA in a number of areas, but he's still a Nederlander.
I'm a pretty left wing person. Most of my friends are a lot more conservative. We can talk anything including politics and disagree without breaking apart our relationship. Last night out it was abortion and Lindsay Clancy, before that colonialism, race/IQ and labor rights. I guess it helps that we all think the people in power right now are corrupt.
If your friendships can't handle a debate that's a skill issue.
In my experience it’s not the conservatives who end relationships over disagreements. In fact, I’ve never heard of a conservative kid disowning their parents, family, or friends because of their liberal views.
Nope. I haven’t seen any of those things personally. Have you?
I have personally seen family members disown their parents. Siblings not speak for decades. A friend call another racist and cut off communication not for any racist behavior, but because the friend (who has a multiracial family) didn’t support the same cause.
And likewise, maybe you should experience the real world instead of believing sensationalized things you read.
Jim Crow is slightly different than yelling slurs. I’ve also never lived during a time where it was the law of the land, but that was also not what you were originally referring to.
> Never heard a "conservative" call a protester a "libtard" right before rolling coal at them?
Then you said:
> Do you think the Jim Crow era was "sensationalized"?
Then you said:
> Your comment is utterly non sequitur.
While I like a good non sequitur, I don't like equating heckling protestors with racism, and think it's part of the problem of talking past one another. You jumped from several hypothetical social issues and one broad, non-specific racial issue in one comment to Jim Crow in the next.
I'm not denying the existence of profoundly racist people. I am saying I have personally been harmed by people who have jumped to the conclusion that people who don't believe exactly as they do are inherently evil.
> In fact, I’ve never heard of a conservative kid disowning their parents, family, or friends because of their liberal views.
Then when I confronted you with historical examples of conservatives behaving abominably (which you certainly had heard of) you pivoted to your own irrelevant personal experience, and you've been dwelling there since.
I never equated slurs to Jim Crow. I simply provided several examples, at different scales and degree, of conservative harming people who don't believe (or look) exactly as they do.
I’m dense, apparently, and have no idea how disowning parents relates to Jim Crow.
Back up to OP: he has conservative friends. They’re all cool with each other.
I mentioned, in _that_ context, that I have not experienced conservatives causing issues. Then I got hit with, yeah, but Jim Crow. I think my point stands.
Be cool with each other. Don’t equate people for things they aren’t involved with.
True. Conservatives are more tolerant of people with differing views than progressives are. Women are the worst at that.
The research was done to measure the level of intolerance students had towards people of different views. Women were 3 times more intolerant toward people with the opposite views to their, than men. Heck, women were MORE intolerant towards people holding THE SAME exact political view as them, than men were towards people with the radically opposite views.
I mostly roll my eyes but it seems like there's so much fretting over echo chambers... when we are online. Only online. But this post is anecdotal example of IRL being a wicked echo chamber, a place where we stay within our bubbles and avoid finding out and avoid sharing our world or regional views.
I think it's good to exchange views on the world. That's a stronger better species, society. People receive different information, and talking about the world and what events we see and what they mean to us helps broaden that base and provide context. A lot of it is bad wrong and annoying. I want to hope though that socialization and seeing that oh we are humans together is a great relief for many of the narrownesses that afflict our hearts and souls and which cause strife, which is terrible for our welfare economically, socially, spiritually, politically.
The crux of this post is that even publicly stated political views like DHH's shouldn't matter.
"If I learn today that my neighbors have political views that my “side” considers unacceptable and unforgivable, [...] Should I be condemned for not publicly condemning them myself? [...] I don’t want to associate with any community that would insist on either of those. [...]
"The town coffee shop was just a coffee shop. We weren’t publicly shamed for going there because one of the owners was an ass."
> And I can’t help but feel that maybe we were better off before we knew everyone’s hot takes on everything
He says this, while implying his conservative neighbors, who did nothing but be wonderful neighbors to him and his family except have different political opinions, should, in fact be publicly shamed by people he agrees with. But now they’re not shoveling his snow anymore, so maybe it’s time for a mea culpa.
Did he feel this way when he shamed Y Combinator? When saying alternative political stances are reprehensible, regressive, and aggressive.
The world he helped create is uglier. Now he’s not happy that he crapped in the sandbox and no one wants to play with him.
I think you misread the post. He's saying that his ignorance was great, and maybe we should go back towards that.
I don't think Tumblr was particularly influential on the neighbors aspect. It never reached that kind of broad base. Twitter did though. Unless you just mean social media broadly?
It was a case relevant to this audience where he attacked a group due to their perceived political affiliation or views. I could have less about YC except it provides one do the last social news sites that I find consistently high signal.
Bob and Van didn't make you aware of their political views within a few minutes of meeting them. They didn't put a sign in their front yard or a bumper sticker on their vehicle. They weren't wearing any particular apparel. You didn't notice them in the town's Facebook group making their opinions crystal clear. It's much different in a world where people make their political views their whole identity.
Exactly. Bob and Van weren't hyper-political.
Sure, there was the John Birch Society, but as a society we also kind of understood that they were nut-birds.
It's also a bit ironic, since Marco has a pride flag with the trans additions flying from his house. So is this blog post him coming to realize he's a part of the problem or...?
He lives on Fire Island, that's about as political as flying the American flag in Orange County.
The problem is not showing what you stand for. The problem is that your political system only offers two options.
And then all that’s left is game theory.
It is still like this in most neighborhoods in the US, but it does require being outside and actually talking to them... which does seem rarer today.
This sounds nice, but what if your neighbor's political views are an existential threat to you personally? What if they don't want you to live in their neighborhood because of the color of your skin, or if they don't think you're a fit parent because you let your kid wear certain clothes? There are some things about which we can have friendly disagreements, like Laffer curves, school vouchers, the death penalty, environmental regulations, or whatever. But there are other disagreements which mean we cannot be friends.
I get this but there’s this thing called the contact hypothesis. Friendly contact with people makes it harder to hate them.
I’ve heard many stories of people who were once racists or some other kind of bigot losing that attitude from living close to people of the other ethnic group. It’s common.
It’s a major hypothesis for why xenophobia is more popular in rural areas: lack of contact with out groups.
But if you instantly call someone out for their views, condemn them, take a self righteous position, that doesn’t happen. It might even have the opposite effect.
So maybe let the bigot next door borrow some eggs. Smile at them. But make sure they know it if you’re one of the people their dogma or emotional conditioning says they’re supposed to hate.
Might change someone’s mind every now and then.
It’s also important to note that people often don’t change their minds quickly. Seeds get planted. Experiences that contradict a dogma or an unexamined conditioned attitude are noted. The brain slowly updates its priors.
What if you were friendly with your neighbor, but on the way to return a shovel you get hit by a bus?
Point being: you're dreaming up edge cases, presumably as a justification for... what? Refusing to engage with people who don't wear their political views like a badge on their chest?
If your stance honestly is "we cannot be friends unless I know your political views", then those who keep their views to themselves in the face of that are wise.
>you're dreaming up edge cases
Are you saying that bigots are edge cases?
From above: "…your neighbor's political views are an existential threat to you personally…"
Feels like an edge case to me.
In my experience, yes, the irredeemable bigot is rare. For everyone else, regardless of whether their political views are unknown to you or they are threatening your personal way of life, the world will be a better place for you being good neighbors with them. Not to mention that it will improve your own living situation as well.
Most bigotry doesn't come from an inherent maliciousness or evil. It's often just limited experience and never having had reason to reflect on one's views. If you instinctively go "fuck off bigot", you're not only not helping, you're their mirror image.
To be clear, there's a point at which you have to be intolerant of intolerance, but starting off with that is not only counterproductive by reinforcing echo chambers and increasing division, it also makes you not unlike the thing you're opposed to.
> you're dreaming up edge cases
Xenophobia and racial (or religious ) animus are hardly edge cases. On the contrary, they are the default setting for our species, as evidenced by (flips through history book) the last few millennia.
Bigotry is innate and one has to fight it. And that's exactly chmod775's point - stop being a bigot towards other people's reasonable opinions, stop being dramatic, stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
> stop being a bigot towards other people's reasonable opinions
I welcome all reasonable opinions. But not all opinions are reasonable.
In particular, the Maga crowd favors opinions based on hero-worship credulity and irrational vibes, completely divorced from factual reality. Very often, this leads to a place of xenophibia and bigotry, which no one is obligated to tolerate.
Just look at the "conservative" "arguments" in this thread. Just a chain of non-sequiturs and preconceived biases.
Then you live next to them and let them borrow a cup of sugar or ask to borrow one from them and collect their mail while they’re away and thank them when they let you know you left a light on when you left for work the other day. And realize that your hangups, quirks, and beliefs are just as offensive to them as theirs are to yours but that doesn’t mean either one of you is. Or a good neighbor that can’t crack a beer and just live next door to one another.
> Then you live next to them and let them borrow a cup of sugar or ask to borrow one from them and collect their mail while they’re away and thank them when they let you know you left a light on when you left for work the other day.
You would have liked my grandmother, who shared your opinion that kindness between neighbors can heal political rifts.
Unfortunately it didn't work out so well for her, as despite her kindness, the neighbors sent her to Dachau anyway.
Was it really her neighbors that sent her there or a police/military? I very much doubt that.
But let's play the hypothetical.
- Would your grandmother's fate be better if instead of kindness she would be spewing vitriol? Don't think so, the situation would have been even worse, much faster.
- What about the other side of the coin - about all of those people, who survived, because they were nice and friendly?
- In general, always having the same strategy, no matter what is happening around you, is dumb. When the environment changes, so should the behavior. Kindness often helps, but not against wild animals like bears, nature forces like tornadoes, and the faceless state bureucracy.
Once again with the implication that conservatives are equivalent to Nazis and therefore should be treated with vitriol. The hyperbole isn’t unwarranted and the whole point.
That's not the implication. Read it again, stop playing the victim. The point is simply that hate is not rational, and that your proposal of kindness does nothing to assuage the rampant ignorance and xenophobia that animates evil ideology.
Would you prefer a Communist rather than Nazi parable? Either way works.
> evil ideology
Does exist and should be labeled as such. But it's also always been a term that evil political movements use to label those who oppose their ideas.
Let the wise be discerning. Not all is as it appears on the surface or is reported to be.
Your grandmother sounds incredible, and her story tragic. I read your earlier comment a slight towards her. Perhaps that’s not what you meant.
Since OP was adding a counter argument to the article that some people shouldn’t be trusted, your comment seemed to reinforce the point that differing ideologies inferring that current preferences could result in similar outcomes. In another comment you equated that same group with Jim Crow.
I find the hyperbole counterproductive, immature, and annoying. It seems like you don’t know any conservatives very well, the ones you do know are the scum of the earth.
Either way, way, I find your Grandmother’s story noble, inspiring. It represents the best of humanity when faced with the worst. I’d want to be known for that a million times before being known for being the angry neighbor that knew he was more virtuous than everyone else.
> I find the hyperbole counterproductive, immature, and annoying.
I'm sorry you find it annoying, but I don't find the comparison hyperbolic at all, and perhaps if you understand the historical context and the facts on the ground, you wouldn't either. You are letting your feelings (in this case, being annoyed, combined with a cult of personality) get in the way of a sober analysis of the situation, which is unambiguously the decay of the rule of the law and the persecution of innocent people.
> It seems like you don’t know any conservatives very well, the ones you do know are the scum of the earth.
I agree with the second part. I live in a red state. I see these people every day. People just as bigoted and short-sighted as you. People who are utterly convinced of their correctness, even as they reveal their complete ignorance of and indifference to what is actually happening. Instead, what I hear again and again is blind trust for the billionaire in power based solely on his rhetorical style.
> Either way, way, I find your Grandmother’s story noble, inspiring.
It's not noble to be a victim. I hope that those persecuted in today's America won't be as naive as my grandmother.
> being the angry neighbor that knew he was more virtuous than everyone else.
This perfectly describes my actual neighbor, who regularly blames poor immigrants for all his self-inflicted ills and demands violent retribution against the gays, the liberals, the trans, the foreigners, and brown people, all while claiming to speak in the virtuous name of Jesus Christ.
I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but what if you were a jew, and you applied that reasoning to your hitler-loving neighbors back in nazi germany?
Modern politics is fundamentally different from the way things used to be. The right-wing political parties in america today have almost nothing at their core besides hatred for marginalized communities. Demonizing trans people, immigrants, muslims, "communists"- that's it. Everything else is just the whims of an impulsive imbecile - the tariffs, the war with Iran, kidnapping the president of Venezuela, the belligerence towards _greenland_ (?!?!?), etc...
And the purpose behind demonizing them it to energize a shrinking demographic base to compensate for how many reasonable people they've driven away. So at this point, the ones who remain under the maga umbrella have been exposed to so much vitriolic propaganda that they are just at a fever pitch of hatred at all times. I've seen it countless times in my own life- People who used to say that Obama was naive and inexperienced and that his policies were misguided, but who now say he's a muslim jihadi who wanted to destroy america. And so on with many other political issues.
I have several close relatives who used to be like bob, or van- but MAGA has changed them. They are just completely dripping with hate, now. And if I was a member of one of the communities they've been frothed up against, I don't know if I'd feel safe trying to engage with them like the person on the OP.
This is just sentimental nonsense. You are not obligated to patronize or be friendly to evil people.
> evil people
Your conservative neighbor is no more evil than someone who thinks their conservative neighbor is evil because they are conservative.
You said:
> Your conservative neighbor is no more evil than someone who thinks their conservative neighbor is evil because they are conservative.
In response this:
> This is just sentimental nonsense. You are not obligated to patronize or be friendly to evil people.
Why do you assume that "evil" == "conservative" here?
Inferred based on OP and other comments from parent. Works the same way reverse.
Incorrect inference. You're so eager to achieve victim status that you've totally missed the point.
> what if your neighbor's political views are an existential threat to you personally?
Then you are uniquely placed to show them you're not the baddie they thought you were. Say hello, introduce yourself, smile and wave, bring cookies or stuff from your backyard garden once in a while, be personable.
Firearms lobby, institutionalized prejudice in law enforcement, Justice system, etc all have made this additional labor of the marginalized minority extraordinarily dangerous.
> Then you are uniquely placed to show them you're not the baddie they thought you were.
Great idea! If only we had thought of this sooner. We could have avoided Jim Crow and segregation if only black people had thought to be friendly to racist whites!
/s
If you're in physical danger, then flee. I'm not talking about that. There's a bigger reality than your street - pay attention and be wise.
But at the same time, it is true than many white kids had racist parents but chose not to be racist themselves, largely because they rubbed shoulders with black kids and learned they had a lot in common with them. Don't underestimate the power of patience, kindness, generosity, and general personability to win, eventually. It took a generation of integration before racism disappeared from most US neighborhoods.
> It took a generation of integration before racism disappeared from most US neighborhoods.
I'm still waiting
Do you have racist neighbors? If so, I'm curious which county you live in.
Two of my grandparents were racist, but I haven't talked personally with a racist in probably 25-30 years.
> I haven't talked personally with a racist in probably 25-30 years.
How do you know that you haven't talked with a racist? Are you in the habit of asking new acquaintances if they are racist, and then believing their answer? Or do you just assume that all racists wear the same uniform?
> I haven't talked personally with a racist in probably 25-30 years.
Let me guess, you mostly mingle with white people? It's a different story among Latinos, Asians (toward blacks and other Asians), but especially among African-Americans.
Remember: the onus is always on you to prove that you're one of the "good ones" by coddling them.
it means someone tricked you into thinking that
The essay makes a token gesture toward this ("privilege and power dynamics play a complex and unavoidable role"), but ultimately Marco, who is a rich straight white male unaffected by any meaningful or existential prejudice, is willing to overlook those views (which do not impact him) as things that do not matter.
I think the key differentiator today is the silent mental health crisis that’s gripped this country. Until you know them well, it’s hard to know if your neighbor is secretly part of a weird Discord server where obsessive people lord over random strangers for internet clout. You really don’t want to inadvertently become the day’s “main character” somehow by giving the wrong “vibes” or being unaware of the latest taboo.
It used to be easier to tell when someone was a nutjob based on their appearance, but these days not so much.
It’s still good to get to know your neighbors, but some caution is warranted.
This is a post that only a straight middle-aged white guy could make. I’m also a white middle-aged guy, but being in a same-sex interracial marriage really opens your eyes to the reality of living in America.
Also, there was a time when your neighbors’ politics probably didn’t want to strip you and your family of their rights and citizenship; times have changed a bit.
I intentionally try to foster friendships with all sort of different people with obviously different political positions. Many of them are very far left and very far right and very far in a third direction i have trouble articulating, in ways that would shock most normal people.
What I have found is that, accepting the inevitable human flaws that we are all prone to, they are all pretty good folks.
For context, this post seems to be a reaction to MacStories deciding to return to X [0], which has been quite controversial in the Apple developer community.
There has been the predictable blowback, then the blowback to the blowback, which he alludes to in the post: "should I be condemned for not publicly condemning them myself?" [1]
Ultimately, everyone needs to do what's workable. If you find X's owner repugnant but you feel you need to be on the platform, that's a choice you have to make. If your audience revolts, that's a consequence of the choice. Each audience member also has to do what's workable for them. There is no "right" or "wrong" response.
[0]: https://ticci.craft.me/explanation
[1]: TFA
This is still the case today, if you let it be. I am friends with many neighbors with differing views from my own and literally do have them over for dinner, invite them to my toddlers' birthday parties, etc.
I don't recognize the things the author describes here - awareness of hot takes, opinions about coffee shop owners... they strike me as features of the online world, but not the offline one I inhabit.
Too bad Marco quit Twitter, I enjoyed following him.
You can follow him other places. I believe he is active on mastodon.
I struggle with this. Where I live, it's harder nowadays to compartmentalize how someone votes from their core values. What we used to call "politics" now encompasses some fundamental aspects of how we observe and process our daily lives.
It might help to realize that this is a uniquely American affliction. People almost anywhere else simply don't consider politics (or race or gender for that matter) to be nearly as important.
This would then let you see your neighbors as people. What you claim are core values are nothing of the sort. They are misconceptions invented by your in-group to dehumanize the out-group. In reality people's core values are: their kids, their health, love, belonging, a sense of purpose. The rest is just a puppet master hijacking these core values for organizing a crowd.
Counterpoint: what you want to claim are core values are actually window dressing to hide how people see the out-group. Who doesn't "love their kids" or fall in love, or want a sense of belonging (ok, a few), or a sense of purpose (ok, a few more). These are not statements about anyone's core values, they're statements about what it is to be human.
Core values are about how you treat people who are NOT close to you, how you believe limited resources should be allocated, how and by whom you think decisions should be made, what the relationship between individuals and society ought to be, and specifically between individuals and government.
It always did, we just had the norm that in a liberal democracy, we put that to the side for our dealings with people. Same thing as religion -- a huge deal that shapes people's values and attitudes about the most core aspects of life -- and there was a norm of "no politics or religion" in polite conversation.
> What we used to call "politics" now encompasses some fundamental aspects
That's less true IRL if you just talk to people and be personable. There's something about seeing someone face to face and chatting that helps you intuitively understand you have a lot in common with them (or not) - and regardless of their political opinions either way.
I find that the sorts of life choices people make and the character they have as a result is a far better discriminator of what they actually have in common (or don't) with others.
I do talk to people. A lot. I live in a politically mixed area, a lean-red town in a solid-blue US state. Most people keep their "political" leanings to themselves but it doesn't take very long to get a clue. I'm thinking of one friend-of-a-friend with whom I interact fairly frequently. I know their views on current events not because they've said anything directly to me but they're active on Facebook and other friends have shown me some posts. What do I do? Pretend it doesn't bother me that they have chosen to advance causes that I believe are actively undermining our society? Right now I'm polite to them. But I feel like it's dishonest on some level.
Speaking from my own moral compass - I don't think there's a moral obligation to bring up politics with people I know with whom I disagree. They have their opinion, I have mine.
I think that's even true when a horrible ideology is gripping a nation. The Bolsheviks and Red Guards were not to be reasoned with by neighbors in their heyday. "The wise man sees trouble coming and hides himself."
This is such a uniquely US thing.
Maybe the healthier past wasn’t one where nobody talked about politics. Maybe it was one where disagreeing about politics didn’t automatically make someone your enemy.
As someone from the Netherlands, I find this especially strange. You can call the leader of the party your neighbour voted for every name under the sun, preferably involving some kind of disease, because that’s our style, and still have a beer together afterwards.
In all likelihood, that leader of the party your neighbor voted for does not hold views that you consider an existential threat to yourself, or those you love. I say this because you live in (or are from) NL, and while there is certainly a range of political views there, compared to the US you may as well all be in the same party.
Try having a beer with someone who thinks your daughter in law should have her drivers license revoked because she "lied about being a woman", in a society where a drivers license is a critical part of life.
Have you ever heard of Geert Wilders?
I have indeed.
I think that the gap between the MAGA crowd and, say, Santa Fe progressives, is much deeper than the one between Wilders and some progressive NL equivalent. It might be as wide, but depth matters too.
The USA contains a lot of people who simply don't agree that the government has much of a role to play in anything. Wilders might sound quite MAGA in a number of areas, but he's still a Nederlander.
I'm a pretty left wing person. Most of my friends are a lot more conservative. We can talk anything including politics and disagree without breaking apart our relationship. Last night out it was abortion and Lindsay Clancy, before that colonialism, race/IQ and labor rights. I guess it helps that we all think the people in power right now are corrupt.
If your friendships can't handle a debate that's a skill issue.
In my experience it’s not the conservatives who end relationships over disagreements. In fact, I’ve never heard of a conservative kid disowning their parents, family, or friends because of their liberal views.
Never heard of a "Christian" parent kicking out their gay son?
Never heard a "conservative" call a protester a "libtard" right before rolling coal at them?
Never heard of a friendly Southern town doing anything they can to keep out people of the wrong skin color, or to encourage them to leave?
Oh.
Maybe you should read some history and not rely on your personal anecdata.
Nope. I haven’t seen any of those things personally. Have you?
I have personally seen family members disown their parents. Siblings not speak for decades. A friend call another racist and cut off communication not for any racist behavior, but because the friend (who has a multiracial family) didn’t support the same cause.
And likewise, maybe you should experience the real world instead of believing sensationalized things you read.
> Nope. I haven’t seen any of those things personally
I didn't ask if you saw those things personally.
> And likewise, maybe you should experience the real world instead of believing sensationalized things you read.
Do you think the Jim Crow era was "sensationalized"?
Do you think that your own personal experience is more representative than documented historical fact?
Jim Crow is slightly different than yelling slurs. I’ve also never lived during a time where it was the law of the land, but that was also not what you were originally referring to.
Your comment is utterly non sequitur. If you want to reply to what I wrote, I'd be happy to engage.
You said:
> Never heard a "conservative" call a protester a "libtard" right before rolling coal at them?
Then you said:
> Do you think the Jim Crow era was "sensationalized"?
Then you said:
> Your comment is utterly non sequitur.
While I like a good non sequitur, I don't like equating heckling protestors with racism, and think it's part of the problem of talking past one another. You jumped from several hypothetical social issues and one broad, non-specific racial issue in one comment to Jim Crow in the next.
I'm not denying the existence of profoundly racist people. I am saying I have personally been harmed by people who have jumped to the conclusion that people who don't believe exactly as they do are inherently evil.
You said:
> In fact, I’ve never heard of a conservative kid disowning their parents, family, or friends because of their liberal views.
Then when I confronted you with historical examples of conservatives behaving abominably (which you certainly had heard of) you pivoted to your own irrelevant personal experience, and you've been dwelling there since.
I never equated slurs to Jim Crow. I simply provided several examples, at different scales and degree, of conservative harming people who don't believe (or look) exactly as they do.
I’m dense, apparently, and have no idea how disowning parents relates to Jim Crow.
Back up to OP: he has conservative friends. They’re all cool with each other.
I mentioned, in _that_ context, that I have not experienced conservatives causing issues. Then I got hit with, yeah, but Jim Crow. I think my point stands.
Be cool with each other. Don’t equate people for things they aren’t involved with.
Of course he does. He is comically ignorant.
True. Conservatives are more tolerant of people with differing views than progressives are. Women are the worst at that.
The research was done to measure the level of intolerance students had towards people of different views. Women were 3 times more intolerant toward people with the opposite views to their, than men. Heck, women were MORE intolerant towards people holding THE SAME exact political view as them, than men were towards people with the radically opposite views.
Thought this would be a cool story about Dylan and Morrison :(
I mostly roll my eyes but it seems like there's so much fretting over echo chambers... when we are online. Only online. But this post is anecdotal example of IRL being a wicked echo chamber, a place where we stay within our bubbles and avoid finding out and avoid sharing our world or regional views.
I think it's good to exchange views on the world. That's a stronger better species, society. People receive different information, and talking about the world and what events we see and what they mean to us helps broaden that base and provide context. A lot of it is bad wrong and annoying. I want to hope though that socialization and seeing that oh we are humans together is a great relief for many of the narrownesses that afflict our hearts and souls and which cause strife, which is terrible for our welfare economically, socially, spiritually, politically.
From the timing, this seems to be a vaguepost in support of Omarchy and DHH.
I would shocked if it was, Accidental Tech Podcast is not a political show but they don't hide the fact that all three hosts are very liberal.
Assume for the moment that he did not have DHH in mind, and the timing of the post is coincidental.
Is there some way of reading the moral of his story such that it is not defending projects and people like Omarchy/DHH against criticism?
Which would be a strange defense. DHH is not someone who keeps his political views to himself.
The crux of this post is that even publicly stated political views like DHH's shouldn't matter.
"If I learn today that my neighbors have political views that my “side” considers unacceptable and unforgivable, [...] Should I be condemned for not publicly condemning them myself? [...] I don’t want to associate with any community that would insist on either of those. [...]
"The town coffee shop was just a coffee shop. We weren’t publicly shamed for going there because one of the owners was an ass."
> And I can’t help but feel that maybe we were better off before we knew everyone’s hot takes on everything
He says this, while implying his conservative neighbors, who did nothing but be wonderful neighbors to him and his family except have different political opinions, should, in fact be publicly shamed by people he agrees with. But now they’re not shoveling his snow anymore, so maybe it’s time for a mea culpa.
Did he feel this way when he shamed Y Combinator? When saying alternative political stances are reprehensible, regressive, and aggressive.
The world he helped create is uglier. Now he’s not happy that he crapped in the sandbox and no one wants to play with him.
I think you misread the post. He's saying that his ignorance was great, and maybe we should go back towards that.
I don't think Tumblr was particularly influential on the neighbors aspect. It never reached that kind of broad base. Twitter did though. Unless you just mean social media broadly?
It wasn’t ignorance, but tolerance.
I wasn’t referring to social media or his role in it at all except as a participant.
Won't somebody think of the Y Combinator!
It was a case relevant to this audience where he attacked a group due to their perceived political affiliation or views. I could have less about YC except it provides one do the last social news sites that I find consistently high signal.