Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: "I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to rethink my views." These folks very rarely post here - they are afraid of social and perhaps professional approbrium (ala Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin).

Those folks are engaging preference falsification.

Off HN there is a similar manufactured consensus, similar social penalties for expressing the wrong ideas, and similar levels of preference falsification. When pollsters call the preference falsification continues.

Apparently in the privacy of a voting booth, people are willing to express their true beliefs.

Note: I don't support Trump - search my posting history for "open borders" - but I do understand why folks like him. I don't agree with him on basically any policy, but my visceral emotional reaction to his victory is positive: I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media sneering at him, calling him racist based on "dog whistles" and then writing hit pieces against Ken Bone (let alone the bullying of folks like Tim Hunt, Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin).

See also Scott Aaronson who explains this in more detail: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777

Looking at the reactions on my Facebook feed, the large majority of people seem to be taking from this experience the learning that Trump voters are all disgusting misogynistic racist pigs, and America deserves to be damned for its sins against the pro-Clinton media orthodoxy.

It's tiring, because in terms of concrete policies, I line up fairly closely with what I imagine Clinton's "true" beliefs to be. But anyone who mentions anything against the progressive catechism is evil. If you even misprioritize items on the agenda, you become evil. And everyone with actual power seems to be in on this train out to condemn the bad think--academia, the media, corporate management, you name it. Even now I worry about this comment being tracked to my real identity and facing professional repercussions because of implying that the bad think can sometimes be reasonable.

My hope is that this loss forces left activists to re-evaluate how they treat dissent.

Edit: LITERALLY

Liberalism has had a smug aspect as long as I've been alive, but at this point that aspect has metastasized to something worse. The norms that have developed are toxic to progressive movements. They certainly alienate people, but beyond that they make it so you don't even have the institutional capacity to understand or formulate policies relevant to those people.

It's a perverse version of the situation people thought Republicans were in in 2012, where they seemed to have driven out most non-white people and thereby lacked the capacity for effective outreach to them. Except in this case, if you're a poor white male in Wisconsin who's done everything right but is still struggling like hell, you're an evil oppressor who just doesn't recognize your privilege. People who can understand where the poor white male perspective is coming from are literally shouted out of discussions for diverting attention from the people uniquely experiencing True Suffering and blessed with progressive sainthood.

It's beyond Obama. Who, for what it's worth, has always struck me as the thoughtful type who wouldn't buy into those kinds of fake dichotomies. It's a broader issue with progressive movements where people earn cred by honing their sensitivities enough to maximize the level of offense they can experience.

Ironically, some of that might have been his own doing, though. The healthcare reform was passed essentially without republican support; I think that's a very rare example of major [healthcare] legislation that was not passed with bi-partisan support. Not doing more to bring R's on board likely burned lots of political capital and hardened opposition to him in Congress. I'm not saying Obama didn't try at all to bring R's on board, just that a bit more effort might have result in a more cooperative Congress.

You’re right that the ACA ended up being a political disaster for the Democrats though.

The ACA was basically the same as “RomneyCare” in MA, and was a style of healthcare reform supported by mainstream center-right Republicans and some center-left Democrats (most Democrats wanted a single payer plan, or at least a public option, but took what they could get because the healthcare system was/is at a breaking point), but once Obama’s name was on it they all decided to throw everything they could against it.

The GOP campaigned hard against the ACA after it passed, and won massively in the midterm elections in 2010 on the back of wall-to-wall anti-ACA messaging on right-leaning media and a huge amount of organizing and spending (the first post-Citizens United election). They took control of the House, Senate, and many state legislatures, following which they redrew all the district boundaries to cut Democrats permanently out of competition in the House and many state legislatures.

After the crushing defeat in 2010, there weren’t enough Senate seats up for grabs in 2012 for the Democrats to regain control. Thus Obama had to deal with 6 years of GOP control, which has been the most obstructionist Congress in US history. As soon as McConnell won in 2010 he publicly declared that his #1 goal was to make Obama a 1-term president. We had multiple government shutdown threats, unprecedented obstruction of executive appointments including judges at every level of the federal court system, bogus investigation after bogus investigation into e.g. Benghazi, and dozens of purely symbolic votes to repeal the ACA.

Romneycare never really had widespread support of Republicans at the national level. Or, really, the support of Republicans in general. It was passed by a governor in a state where almost every single elected state legislator is a Democrat, so it's hardly a measure of what to expect Republicans to support when the population they represent is more moderate, conservative, or Republican-affiliated.

Using Romney's actions as governor of MA as a yardstick is a really skewed perspective to try and apply to national politics. Massachusetts has a history of electing Republican governors as a way of placing a "check" on the legislature. Currently, Massachusetts has a Republican governor - but Baker would likely have run under the Democratic party if we were talking about Montana or Kansas instead of Massachusetts.

> and some center-left Democrats (most Democrats wanted a single payer plan, or at least a public option, but took what they could get because the healthcare system was/is at a breaking point)

It was never the case that "most" Democrats wanted a single-payer plan. The public option was more popular within the Democratic party, but even then was very controversial, and didn't have strong enough support from the Democrats.

There was, incidentally, a proposal that did have bipartisan support (the Wyden-Bennett bill), but it fell short of 60 votes.

He didn't have to bring any Republicans on board. What he had to have was the integrity to push for what he had the mandate to deliver, instead of all of this pre-compromising, losing anyway, then eventually quarter-assing something through presidential fiat or lack of enforcement. If President Obama had chosen to pursue the policies that Candidate Obama had been elected on, the voters would have punished congressmen who got in his way. Instead he had one of the least transparent administrations imaginable, passed a bunch of complex garbage with a million special interest carveouts, and tried to create social change through undemocratic executive action.

After his first year in office, Obama started getting shit from people on the left because a lot of them thought he was trying too hard to reach across the isle and unify the nation instead of ignoring the obstructionists and getting stuff done.

http://www.politico.com/story/2010/01/obama-rumbles-with-hou... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/ja...

> Consider that Obama's $787bn stimulus bill of last spring was heavily weighted toward tax cuts, against the advice of many economists, in an effort to win some Republican support. In the end, the bill received not a single Republican vote.

> Consider that he nominated a moderate, pro-prosecution Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, only to see her tagged as a racist over some rather innocuous remarks she made about being a "wise Latina".

> Consider, too, that healthcare reform became bogged down in such a compromise-ridden mess because Obama ruled out a single-payer system ahead of time and never strongly backed a government-owned insurance alternative (the "public option") to compete with private insurance companies.

> As with the stimulus bill, the idea was to bring along a few Republican senators thought to hold reasonable views on the subject, such as Charles Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine. And again, no Republican support was forthcoming, forcing Senate leaders to cut outrageous deals with recalcitrant Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

> Obama's attempts to find compromise solutions did not stop Republicans from labelling him as a radical – or their nutty tea-party allies from calling him a "socialist" and worse. And, in retrospect, that was going to happen no matter what he did. His real problem has been that, to his supporters, he looked as though he'd been sucked into the very system he was elected to reform. Thus an Obama ally like Martha Coakley, a loyal Democratic apparatchik who'd long been criticised for her reluctance to take on political corruption in Massachusetts, became the perfect foil. (Coakley is best known for prosecuting Louise Woodward, a British nanny accused of killing a baby in her care.)

uh, WOW. you must have a short memory because reagan, bush sr, and clinton were all superior in almost every way, and none will eat a terrible policy failure like the aca.

So, in your perspective, what was something that made Bush Sr a superior president to Obama? Or any of the others you listed? Help me understand your perspective.

Illegal immigration is down, unemployment is down, crime is down.

There are definitely things Obama hasn't done, but he absolutely delivered change, and he did it while facing a completely obstructionist Congress and Senate for most of his tenure. People just get complacent, even when things are going great. No matter how much any president does, or how good things are, people will get antsy just because our human nature forces us to constantly avoid what we perceive as stagnation.

Not really. It's not at the point of collapse, but it sure wasn't a normal recovery. It's better than 2008, but it's still broken in some very real ways.

> ... ending the war in Iraq (done)...

Sort of. The battle for Mosul was in the news just last week, with US involvement.

> ... restoring our relationship with the rest of the world (done)...

Russia is fighting against our goals in Syria, and illegally occupied the eastern Ukraine. Iran has a nuclear deal with us, but immediately started thumbing its nose at us. China is trying to see how much influence they can gain at our expense in Asia. North Korea's nuclear and missile programs are, according to their rhetoric, aimed explicitly at us.

> ... universal health care (done)...

Seen the premium changes for 2017? The law was passed, but "bending the cost curve" sure didn't happen.

I'm amused by the Republican concern for rising premiums this year. My health insurance rates have gone up every year by 5-10% for the last 10 years after my work switched to high deductible plans. Between my employer and I the total cost of insurance is $14,400/year. That's more than the total income tax for a median income back in my country of birth. Just for insurance!

There are a lot of things wrong with the ACA/Obamacare but let's not pretend that the giant mess known as the American medical system is solely the responsibility of the Democrats. Every other OECD nation seems to have figured it out....

The first time I remember him talking about reform of Washington.

Edit: to clarify this is not my personal position but more a reflection on how I see the electorate behaving.

The media really couldn't help it, however. Every president from here on out will be a reality show star. Look for Chris Christie to get a show as soon as he gets booted out of the cabinet for another ethical lapse. Chelsea and Ivanka will both start new shows (perhaps together?) in about a decade.

I am sure they aren't (well actually I don't know, and as you rightly convey, I obviously CAN'T know just from their pro-Trump vote) but would you agree that people that voted for Trump have to be at least OK with being represented by one "disgusting misogynistic racist pig(s)" without themselves being one? … I really don't want to imply that all or even the majority of Trump voters are bad people (because I don't know any due to not being from the US) but they sure seem OK with having a repulsive person as their prime representative?

The statements themselves may well be racist, but racist speech is a different thing than racist action. People who don't mind appearing to the weak-minded as racists may well actually be racists. However they are different sorts of racists than politicians like Richard Nixon and the Clintons who have destroyed minority lives and communities for political gain.

Children may be excused for only thinking about surface meanings, but after one has voted in several elections, it's time to put away childish things.

Would you be OK with being represented by a crook, without yourself being one?

And no, I would not be OK with being represented by a crook. If you are asking for my personal opinion in case of HRC/DT I'd still would have preferred her downsides over his though. Good thing I didn't have to chose I guess.

That says a lot more about you than it does about me.

you: I've yet to meet a Trump voter who didn't meet that criteria.

Are you confused by the English language? Is threaded conversation a new concept for you?

Can you elaborate a bit on this? Obviously you can't get to know EVERYTHING a person is just from what they vote for every 4 years but I always felt like you can't vote for Trump and not at least be OK with his sexism, misogyny and yes, racism. What am I missing (not being snarky here, not even from the US)

People have different priorities. It can be really hard to care about various isms when your life has been borderline misery for a half decade or more.

Thanks for your input.

Wait... you can't. Nevermind.

And yes, I CAN divine what a person is like by who they vote for when the person they voted for is a ridiculous caricature with zero understanding about how any of this works. If you wouldn't go to a faith healer to get treated for a serious medical condition that required surgery, then why in the hell would you go to a completely unqualified, inexperienced buffoon to run the country?

As a woman who has been spoken to in previous workplaces the way Trump has spoken poorly of women, it's too much for me to overlook. It may seem like a one off issue for intelligent men who are (and you should) looking at all the contributing components, not just focusing on the pieces targeted media ads bring to light, but to me its a fundamental component for economic and technology depressions that women are not making money and contributing to technological advances and product creation geared for the masses.

It's fundamentally hypocritical to be a proponent for economic growth and treat 3.5 billion people in the population as potential girlfriends instead of opportunity for economic growth beyond buying diamonds on TV (the business his ex supermodel wife has).

There is no justifiable reason for a 50/50 split in any industry. Some industries are dominated by women and some by men. That's OK. It just reflects the differences between men and women, and yes, they do exist.

The same applies to the workforce at large. If a larger percentage of women than men choose not to participate in a traditional manner, that's OK. Just because we don't put a dollar figure on rearing kids or community engagement, doesn't mean those activities don't bring substantial value to the table.

> As a woman who has been spoken to in previous workplaces the way Trump has spoken poorly of women

There is a fundamental difference between guys "shooting the shit" and actually behaving that way. He's far too much of a pussy to be grabbing anyone by the pussy. That said, there are certainly scumbags out there who would behave that way and neither you (nor anyone present) should tolerate that kind of behavior, regardless of repercussions.

Well, the last part is easy to say and hard to do. One of the reasons I'm not in a traditional employment setting is that I have a very low tolerance for shitty behavior.

There's also a fundamental difference between killing someone and threatening to kill someone, but that doesn't make either ok.

In any case, there is abundant evidence that Trump does in fact grope women.

When Obama ran, did he repeatedly suggest people should vote for him because he was black? I don't recall so. I remember him talking about his policies and beliefs.

Hillary's campaign rapidly devolved after the primaries to "vote for me because I'm not Trump and I'm a (in my view) super competent woman". Her supporters slogan became "I'm with her".

The bigger problem though is how the Dems cleared the way for her to run almost unopposed except for Bernie, an independent who didn't give a crap what the Democrats thought. Trump defeated many primary challengers. Where were the D alternatives to Hillary? Apparently the idea spread that it was Hillary's "turn", that after a black man there should be a woman, and wouldn't that be a nice historical motif.

So the Dems tipped the playing field towards one of the weakest, most easily attacked candidates in US history. She can't give speeches. She has few policy ideas beyond starting a war with Russia (NFZ in Syria). She exudes corruption. She epitomises the widely disliked status quo. She has more skeletons in her closet than a medical student. She would have been the continuation of a dynasty. Yet somewhere, the groupthink-saturated world that decides these things decided it was time for a female President and after that her qualifications became irrelevant. Feminists, both male and female, became so transfixed with breaking "the last glass ceiling" that they grabbed the first female to come along and demanded she be made top dog.

Disagree? Give me a better explanation for how the Democrats mysteriously found themselves with an almost empty stable of primary challengers to Clinton.

People and especially women need to stop talking about gender imbalances or the "injustice" of them or how to fix them - it's yesterday's conversation. Trying to "fix" these non-problems by tipping the playing field towards women gives you Trump, a man who is the walking embodiment of not giving a shit about feminists. If the Dems had simply treated HRC as anyone else, they might be in power now.

She absolutely embodies the outdated and old school corrupt version of aggressive angry corrupt feminism and was riding on the idea of being a female but outside of that was not a compelling candidate, and was a bad choice for females in the first place.

I would love to see a Female President in my lifetime, but a qualified one who sets a good example for women not validating an outdated extremist feminist gone awry version.

However, that is unrelated in my opinion about the degrading and vulgar comments Trump has made about his female employees, and Hillary is unrelated to the men that have personally spoken to me that way, who are only going to feel further validated by this election.

I absolutely agree with you about this, and I think this happening to Hillary is a good thing, because it is an impetus for women to actually change and not just cry "I'm a woman".

I don't get respect from the men I work with because I am a woman and play the gender card, I get respect from the men I work with because my work is up to par and I DONT play that card.

With that being said, every guy I work with for the past few days has gone out of their way to make it clear to me they do not support men who talk to women the way Trump has spoken of woman, because they view me as a real person who is capable of being hurt by comments like this, not a freebie that comes in a party launch goodie bag, and NONE of them want to be associated with it.

But yes, I agree with you regarding Hillary's campaign.

I've never ever seen any negative bias or behavior discussed towards women neither in engineering school, nor in any of the numerous job in my 12 year career. In uni, out of 120 students graduating in IT, there was exactly 1 woman. She was in the center of attention, the teachers were more tolerant to her during exams (not giving free passes though!) and overall she was cherished and very welcomed.

While working, women were/are a bit more common now, and again there is more positive bias towards them rather than equality. Not complaining, far from it, it's refreshing to see slightly different attitude at some times, and more often than not, there is no difference.

To me it seems the whole time tech jobs are just not that interesting to women, too abstract, work too nerdy and who knows what. This seems to be changing, hopefully the trend will continue. Nothing to lose, just gain for all of us.

With that being said, I'd love to work in Europe, maybe I should check that out aha.

I agree. In fact, the point at which I started to think that Trump could win was Hillary's "Basket of Deplorables" blunder. It was a blunder because the way she phrased it, she put far too many in that basket.

Paradoxically, because people believed what she said —that there are many Deplorables— she might have initiated the very preference cascade that cost her the election.

It was a blunder because she called people deplorable. Had she talked about deplorable attitudes, she would have been on firm ground. I hope it doesn't sound like a fine distinction, because it isn't.

I voted for her; I am terrified of Trump -- rightly or wrongly, we'll now find out; but I knew this was a bad, bad mistake when she made it, right up there with Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" comment.

And yes, in my opinion, Trump made a lot more serious mistakes. But I am not totally surprised that a majority of Americans don't seem to agree with me.

I should qualify that. Trump, for all his negatives, had people who genuinely agreed with him. He also had a bunch of "not really for Trump, but I am sick to death of Hillary and her scandals and her Machiavellian machinations" voters. Hillary had a bunch of "good heavens, not Trump" voters, some "female in office, therefore has to be good voters", and not all that many "really love her positions" voters.

The reason Trump won is, presumably, to a large extent that he managed to make his message more relevant. If this election would have been about schools, even in the same context, he most likely wouldn't have won and the deplorables comment wouldn't have mattered or even happened in the first place.

We've seen this in Europe repeatedly with new candidates offering easy solutions and a straight forward message, leaving the established parties on their heels trying to defend themselves. In Europe this normally results in 5-15% of the seats in parliament, while in the US (once you're in the running) this can win you the election because of the political system.

The reasons for Trump's win probably varies wildly from region to region and person to person. Anecdotally, I know several who voted only because he was _not_ Hilary, not due to any message resonance. Hell, I mean, personally, despite being politically closest to Hilary on paper, I had no intention of voting for her, and none of those reasons had anything to do with Trump.

"Well, she said I was deplorable, but couldn't be more wrong, because I'm a good person... she must be wrong about him too"

I don't buy this. Sam Wang had projected Clinton winning the popular vote by 4.0% (+/- .6%). She's currently projected to win the popular vote by about 1% (the Electoral College margin is an artifact of the electoral system and unrelated to voting preferences). That means that maybe 1 in 60 Americans voted differently from what the polls predicted. So, while the margin of error relative to the margin of victory [1] was pretty big, the margin of error relative to the electorate was fairly small. It doesn't seem that a whole lot of people were hiding their actual preferences prior to the election.

[1] "Victory" only in the narrow mathematical sense of winning the national popular vote, obviously.

But was it fairly small in statistical significance? A polling error of 3% is likely big enough to confirm a consistent and very significant bias.

It's like throwing a coin and getting 52000 heads and 48000 tails. "Only" a 4% error, but sure as hell evidence your coin is biased.

What's perplexing to me is that the 3% error occurred in a polling average of dozens, perhaps hundreds of polls. If it were just one poll, a 3% miss is quite within the realm of possibility. But in this case it was a range of polls that centered on Clinton +4% and itself had a roughly Gaussian distribution between Trump +2% and Clinton +10%. This makes me wonder if the polling samples were themselves not independent, or some other form of systematic bias amongst mainstream pollsters.

https://twitter.com/samwangphd/status/788544053059153924

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/11/05/poll-expert-i-wi...

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/10/10/some-secrets-are-no...

Specifically the last link exhibits the smugness this article is talking about. Here's a quote from it:

> This seems like a good time to reveal one of the Princeton Election Consortium’s own secrets. Thankfully, it does not involve an Access Hollywood video. Here it is: poll-based Presidential prediction is not very hard. I guess that is a pretty boring secret. Sorry.

Sam Wang was predicting a 95% chance of winning for Hillary. I guess we're in the 5%. I'd further like to point out that Hillary is right now winning the popular vote by 0.1%, and the NYTimes has adjusted their prediction down to 0.5% when all the votes are tallied.

Obama's win over Romney was slightly less than 4.0%, and he won 332-206 in the electoral college. Here's how Sam Wang describes it:

> President Obama’s re-election in 2012 carried even less suspense: he never lost the lead to Romney. The closest he came was right after the first debate, though even then he was slightly ahead.

The pressure to express a Trump sentiment is not high in a non-swing state; If you are in an entrenched blue state, people do not care about you(guaranteed democrat win anyway). If you are in an entrenched red state, then you have plenty of support around you. The voters in swing states are a much smaller percentage of the total, and preference falsification would have affected those states the most.

In my last paragraph, I tried to put forth a theory that leaves the preference interpretation valid. What do you think about it?

Also the west seem to have lost its debate culture. These days most debates of conservatives and progressives in shouting 'commie' and 'racist' at each other. In a good debate you wanna help your opponent to give the best possible argument for his position and then try to disprove it. Everything else is lazy and not beneficial for anyone.

That, more than anything.

There's a RadioLab episode about that at http://www.radiolab.org/story/debatable/ An example they use is that if a debater A has six points in his speech that need to be addressed, and the opponent B only addresses four, A wins by default, since there were two points that were unaddressed.

It reminds me a lot about this election, where there's so much polluting the discourse that there's no time to address the substance (and it plays better to the audience, as Moonves stated).

I hate downvote buttons. Programmers seem to put them there only because we demand symmetry. If there's a plus there must also be a minus. I rarely, if ever, see negative votes used to suppress actual spam or obvious trolling ... the only place I've ever seen that actually happen is on Slashdot where the system actually does suppress auto-generated garbage, page-widening posts, etc. Everywhere else people use +/- buttons to indicate disagreement.

Unfortunately, the further left you go, the more you become convinced that people who disagree with you are dumb and easily manipulated. Thus suppressing opinions you disagree with becomes more and more acceptable. Thus downvoting any right-wing thinking into invisibility becomes not just acceptable but important. This trend of course culminates in far-left communist countries where political censorship is an official state policy.

So people with those opinions then rapidly learn that they aren't welcome, that people aren't interested in real debate ... and leave. Forums that could have been debating centers for mutual understanding turn into echo chambers.

The solution is to eliminate downvoting and do what Slashdot does: require you to pick a reason when upvoting, use randomly chosen moderators, and meta-moderate the moderators.

It never occurs to them that that would just make everything even worse in the long run, that now is the time to understand and compromise. They still seek absolute victory.

The article could just as well have been written about the UK.

Anyone that disagrees with my take on this issue is a moron.

I disagree fundamentally - if you stop regarding the 'other side' as 'other', as stupid, as meritless, and start to consider their opinions when making policy, well we might make progress.

It's wrong to think that everyone who disagrees with you on anything is a moron. It's also wrong to deny the existence of morons who occasionally do moronic things.

I mean, we are talking about a group of people who held a referendum, knowing that the vote would be close, and then didn't even have a plan for what to do afterwards. The country is in chaos and the leaders of the Brexit brigade have all sodded off, having absolutely no idea what to do next.

We did consider the opinions of Brexit supporters. Their concerns were taken seriously. The Conservative government went overboard in its attempts to reduce migration and negotiate a more favorable deal with Europe. They really couldn't have done any more without doing something outright ridiculous. But that wasn't enough. So the public insisted that they do something ridiculous.

All this after AFAICT two decades of ignoring or belittling people for their deeply held views.

That doesn't really cut it and so we get the result we got.

Personally I neither think the country is in chaos nor do I believe that a vote for Brexit is a mark of idiocy. And even if I did I would try to recognise that I share a country with such folk and have a duty to take their views into account. The catastophising and continued moralistic judgements are another symptom of this poisonous thought pattern.

Brexit was the breakpoint, but the preceding decades of smug politics are what got us there.

No plan was made by long-term Brexit supporters either. Where is Nigel Farage's plan? What useful suggestions has Boris Johnson made?

>And even if I did I would try to recognise that I share a country with such folk and have a duty to take their views into account.

We did take their views into account, as I said. The Conservative government bent over backwards to accommodate them.

The strategy you're proposing (engagement) was tried and has failed. It only had the effect of making Brexit seem more reasonable than it really was. Now we are in a position where the electorate have done something insane, and yet are in a position to demand that we take their insane views seriously.

The attitude that anyone disagreeing with you is insane is the problem. The fact you call leaving a political union 'insane' is part of the problem.

And if the views on restricting migration hadn't been dismissed as insane for years, we might not be here.

To my mind, the view that migration should be severely restricted never was dismissed. The present Conservative government agreed, and imposed all kinds of overly draconian restrictions. (I ended up paying several thousand pounds to get my Canadian husband a visa to live here.)

Now the idea that immigration should be even further restricted is mainstream, even though it is mad.

I'm interested in any plans that Farage might have made because it would be evidence that someone on the Leave side of the issue perhaps has a clue.

I also don't see how you can call the idea of restricting that "mad". Genuinely I don't. I understand you can disagree, I understand you can disagree with the premises it's based on. But how is it "mad"?

Your insistence on only dealing with the conservative government is also puzzling when we're talking about something that goes far further back.

Which, consulting Wikipedia’s list of countries by net migration, puts us below (amongst many others) Norway, Spain, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland and Portugal. So it’s not exactly an unreasonably large number of immigrants we’re talking about here. (Especially when you consider that our net migration figures are bogus, since international students are wrongly included in them. Around 135,000 non-EU students entered the UK in 2014, for example.)

>I also don't see how you can call the idea of restricting that "mad". Genuinely I don't. I understand you can disagree, I understand you can disagree with the premises it's based on. But how is it "mad"?

We have an aging population and an economy that was just coming out of a recession. It’s not difficult to see why we need more immigrants. They’re young and net contributors to the economy. The idea that we could make things any better by shutting everyone out is, simply, mad. Perhaps in the short term some unemployed British people could switch from being unemployed to doing very badly paid, very menial jobs that are currently being done by Polish people. The net cost to the economy would most likely be far greater than the cost of simply increasing their benefits, though.

>Your insistence on only dealing with the conservative government is also puzzling when we're talking about something that goes far further back.

I don’t think I am insisting on that (?) I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Again I'm not here to argue merits. What you have there is more justifications for ignoring the views of large sections of the electorate.

The rest of your argument is purely economic, as if that is or should be everything to everyone. And some of those points are arguable. I don't think that warrants calling people who disagree "mad".

>> I don’t think I am insisting on that (?) I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Oh just that I've been trying to make the point that politicians have been at this for decades and you bring up the conservatives as having tried to engage.

I don't think they really did, and by the time they did it was too late. Engagement should have been there from Blair onward.

For no good reason. That's why I said that it's mad.

The economic argument is the only respectable argument against immigration, which is why I focused on it. The only other arguments against immigration that people put forward are racist and/or xenophobic.

You don't think it's important so it's mad.

You don't agree with other arguments so they're racist.

We could start a massive programme of building houses and infrastructure, but that would further change the face of the country. Limiting immigration would alleviate some of the pressure.

That's just one off the top of my head.

Remember, the point made in this article is not that you have to agree. The point is that calling people mad and shouting them down as racist is toxic to politics and drives people away.

--edit--

I also find it strange when people bring up racism in the context of limiting migration from the EU - a region primarily peopled by white Europeans.

> Limiting immigration would alleviate some of the pressure.

First of all, housing is an economic issue.

Second, London voted overwhelmingly for remain. I live in London. No-one here seriously thinks that London’s housing crisis can be solved by stopping immigration. Nor did the country vote Leave because people in the North were particularly interested in solving London’s housing crisis.

Third, London out of all areas of the UK would be harmed the most by greater restrictions on immigration, and the vast majority of the people who live here know that.

>I also find it strange when people bring up racism in the context of limiting migration from the EU - a region primarily peopled by white Europeans.

Actually I was careful to say “racist and/or xenophobic” in anticipation of this kind of pedantry, but I guess I needn’t have bothered. The current climate is such that even Polish people aren’t considered sufficiently Anglo-Saxon to be entitled to live here!

None are so blind as those who will not see.

I wasn't only talking about housing provision, I was talking about housing in terms of changing the face of the country and increasing urbanisation.

I said London and the South East, not just London, and there were Brexit voters in London, approximately 3.5 million of them.

But at least we're engaging now, rather than using terms like "mad"

"Changing the face of the country" just means "there are too many brown people and foreigners here".

But if you're determined to see racism everywhere I guess that's up to you.

What was tried wasn't engagement, it was an attempt to suppress the issue by holding what they expected to be a doomed referendum, so they could use the result as an excuse to ignore the issue.

True engagement would mean acknowledging people's concerns, and explaining their true causes and how you're going to address them.

Unfortunately it's rather hard to make plans about leaving the EU because the EU itself is in a catatonic state of denial. Their glorious leader banned even writing things down about the possibility of exit before the referendum, and afterwards announced they would still refuse to discuss it until Article 50 is invoked.

This total denial of reality and absolute refusal to discuss it, is then used by people like Martin Schulz and yourself to claim Leave had no plan!

Yes, Leave has a plan! It's called "get the hell out of this madhouse as quickly as possible". That's it!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the US is now run by a guy who thinks the EU sucks, that Brexit was great, and whose best buddy in Europe is Nigel Farage.

And is it not the case that the most popular politicians in other core countries are all anti-EU?

Let's see how this plays out.

Regardless, sometimes you have to leave a social group if that group is becoming self-destructive, even if it hurts in the short run.

So my view is that they have no incentive to give the UK a good deal. This does not imply the UK should have remained. They have no incentive because they aren't accountable to the people, except via very indirect and essentially broken ways, and besides lots of Europeans buy the argument that they must suffer to preserve the union.

Right.

>This does not imply the UK should have remained

It probably implies that we shouldn't have thrown a temper tantrum without having a strategy.

Boris? Who knows.

I'm not really defending Brexit here. My argument is that something along these lines was inevitable due to decades of ignoring people.

The conservative government wanted to put a lid back on this and make it go away, their strategy was to show it up for what they assumed was the obviously stupid, minority viewpoint it was. They failed, but they were just the latest in a line of governments suffering from the smugness identified in the article.

The public aren't the ones who decided to have a referendum, the government are. If you're arguing that it was moronic to hold a referendum with no clear plan for one of the possible outcomes, I totally agree, but that's not the public's fault.

That is true of any election, no?

>If they'd voted remain, the government wouldn't have said "Oh I guess that was a poorly defined referendum, let's work out a proper plan and have another." they'd have used it as an excuse to ignore the issue.

Quite possibly, but I don't see how that is relevant. We seem to be in agreement?

I thought you were blaming the public, but if you're primarily blaming the politicians then I agree.

The British Polling Council postmortem is a very interesting read. They considered 'shy Tory' but once again ended up ruling it out.

It's pretty clear if you're a Trump supporter.

* Tories to be unwilling to admit to voting Tory (plausible);

* Tories to claim to be voting for someone else, instead of refusing to answer, as if they refuse to answer then the demographic weighting will increase the impact of similar respondents who will tend to also be Tories (somewhat less plausible);

* The source of errors from the above to outweigh other known problems such as turnout modelling, non-response bias, demographic variations in telephone/Internet access, late changing of minds, anti-Tories in Tory areas doing the same things for the same social desirability reasons (I suspect it wasn't any more fun being a Hillary supporter in Trumpland than a Trump fan in Hillaryland this cycle), and so on.

Polling is not easy. Its statistical guarantees are only valid under circumstances that basically don't hold, and there is a great deal of variation due to design decisions which cannot be empirically grounded. You don't need a "shy Tory" effect to produce the misses seen recently, and the evidence doesn't support it happening on a scale big enough to have any impact at all.

This is known to have happened in Britain, because there was a very thorough postmortem by the pollsters' professional body after the 2015 miss.

It appears that Trump won because of working-class people in the Rust Belt, who repeatedly got the short end of the stick by the neoliberal policy of both parties. Democrats should have had their backs, but they'd abandoned them, instead, serving the "professional meritocracy". He did not win because of spoiled, well-off contrarians on the coasts. I'd like to believe that this election was decided by people who have really suffered the devastating consequences of being economically marginalized (also, relatively old), not by tech dudes who were offended they'd been called sexist on Twitter.

Presenting this election as a contest between anti-PC gamergaters and safe-space college girls is not only wrong, but suffers from the same blindness of the elites that Clinton suffers from. If it were the true story, then it would be far too depressing to think that the elites are so obsessed with themselves that they are unable to take anything seriously. Fortunately, this is not what happened because Trump's voters are too old to belong to either group. But if it were the true story, then Trump is exactly what both groups deserve.

> I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media

You know something? Me too. This is the same media that shot down Sanders. But I feel sorry for those contrarians who voted for him just for this "fuck you". He's going to be their president, too. But I'm not sorry for them for that; fortunately for them, they're probably well-cushioned enough to not suffer any direct consequences that are too severe. I'm sorry for them because their empathy is so lacking that they don't mind the real harm done to real people by their lol-spite decision (even though that's probably not what directly handed Trump the victory). The ray of hope I see in this outcome is that maybe the American "liberals" Clinton represented would realize how much their empathy towards the victims of neoliberal capitalism was lacking, too.

> sneering at him, calling him racist

That's because he is racist and/or certainly doesn't mind the association, although I don't see what this has to do with anything. Xenophobia was his overt battle-cry, no dog-whistles needed, and he enjoyed endorsements by people who would have been offended not to be called racist. It is clear that Trump believed that being labelled a racist would only help his chances. He certainly enjoyed and invited the sneers. If there is one thing Trump has shown himself to be good at, it is manipulating the media to a sort of symbiotic relationship. But if anything, he is a product of the media, not its victim.

> called racist

Wait, what? I thought you liked to present yourself as a male- and white-supremacist of the long, proud scientific racism tradition. You have repeatedly expressed a belief that men and whites are innately superior to women and people of other races in many qualities that you value (oh, sorry, you believe Asians and Ashkenazi Jewish men are naturally superior to whites). I always figured that you enjoyed bathing in the air of "unorthodoxy" and contrarianism by pretending to hold those views. You can't both identify as racist to appear unorthodox and at the same time present yourself as a victim of your own show. Pick one.

I agree with this assessment of voter outrage due to economic issues in the rust belt and elsewhere, but now what? Walmart isn't buying smartphones made domestically that cost 8x what the ones in China cost because Walmart can't sell them. I can see the complaint, but its a bit like voting against hurricanes and tornadoes. They're bad and we don't like them, but we can't legislate them away.

I think Trump's playing up global trade as a conspiracy against "good hardworking people" is fairly disingenuous. Instead of accepting a long changed global economy and re-training these people into the service level sector, they seem to think a little protectionism will suddenly bring back the booming factory work of the 1960s and 70s. Trump has badly misled these people for his own gain. Worse, Trump's own companies are managed in a way against the interests of these people (anti-union tactics, buying Chinese steel, lack of investment in poor rural communities, etc). Trump just follows the laws of economics everyone else does. How does he propose something that even he and his companies would never do?

Re-training and investment in the service sector is exactly what Xi Jinping in China is attempting because he knows other Asian nations will continue to successfully poach his manufacturing due to their lowered cost of labor. Meanwhile in the more advanced economy here in the US, we're somehow going to try to compete with factory work in places like Vietnam which has a monthly wage of $145? What did these people vote for other than another empty suit who had made promises he simply cannot deliver?

You guys want to compete with the Vietnamese? Fine, but be prepared to have the lifestyle $150 a month in wages brings. I suspect Trump voters aren't going to find that acceptable.

That's not the policy I was suggesting, but pretending that current neoliberal policies (that aren't shared by all successful countries) are the only option is both false, and the main reason that gave us Trump in the first place.

You missed the point I was making - I was speculating why electoral predictions were wrong, not speculating why Trump won.

I rather hope liberals don't develop empathy for the wealthy Americans who handed the election to Trump. Empathy is truly a destructive force in the world. We feel far more empathy for those close to us, those who look like us, those who are blessed with attractiveness. If we follow our empathy Indians and Chinese will remain poor just to help wealthy white Americans maintain their social status.

Wait, what? I thought you liked to present yourself as a male- and white-supremacist of the long, proud scientific racism tradition.

No, your (and those of other likeminded folks) attacks on me are not representative of how I present myself. They simply represent what you believe to be the easiest attack mode.

I have also expressed a belief that black women are innately "better" than others in certain qualities that I value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8300225

That particular belief has explicitly motivated more action on my part than any of the beliefs you criticize me for. Does that make me a black female supremacist?

Somehow I suspect you will be unwilling to apply your original logic to this case, and in fact you'll apply some weird reverse logic to support the same conclusion.

I can't tell if you're joking in the rest of your comment or not, but as to qualities you value, the test is simple: are those the qualities that you'd attribute to those you consider your social equals or superiors, or, in other words, are those the qualities you truly believe give people most social power (status and influence) in your own society? One of the distinguishing characteristics of scientific racism, from its modern rise in the late 19th century has always been to attribute "good" qualities to the races considered inferior as an attempt to paint itself not as a hate group but as simply the objective understanding of the natural order: every species has its good and bad qualities, and so does every race; every species has its place, and so does every race. Of course, scientific racism has always attributed to its believers those very qualities that happen to coincide with most power, because it's not about "better" or "worse", but naturally deserving of power or not. In other words, I smiled when I saw your "black female supremacist" comment, because I've read the exact same thing by writers in late 19th century many years ago in school, that I can't tell if you're ironically referencing classic scientific racism tropes or not. In any event, the view you're presenting here is actually called scientific racism. It is not an "attack on you" by any means, just as calling me socialist isn't an attack on me. I believe that if you read some of the vast scientific racism literature, you'll gladly identify yourself as a member (unless realizing how familiar and old your opinions are would make you understand how far they are from true heterodoxy).

BTW, attributing Jews with qualities that actually do coincide with social power is also a trademark feature of antisemitism, scientific or otherwise. It is crucial for (or at least, the habit of) nativist/racist movements to paint themselves as both deserving of power as well as victims, at once weak and powerful. So if you want to follow up with a question of whether or not you're a Jewish supremacist, you can spare it. I've read it all in 100+-year-old books.

I don't know if empathy is primarily destructive or not, but I still pity those who lack it.

(In fact, I consider beauty to be one of the most underappreciated virtues in the modern world. As a weird tangent, one of the major things I prefer about NYC to Bombay is how NYC weights beauty over wealth.)

I'm beginning to think that what you call "scientific racism" is what I'd simply call "science" applied to humans. Do you believe it differs? If so, how?

I suspect that question will be dodged. I suspect you are using the term "scientific racism" rather than "science" in order to create equivalence between scientists and "hate groups", and imply I feel hatred towards some group. That's definitely an implication I object to.

So if you want to follow up with a question of whether or not you're a Jewish supremacist, you can spare it. I've read it all in 100+-year-old books.

As I suspected, all possible viewpoints I might hold result in you believing I'm a white supremacist.

Have fun with the highbrow dismissal and vague hints that some uncited authority supports your views.

I have no idea whether you consider the women you date to be your social equal or not -- it is none of my business -- but I don't think it is necessarily the case that every man (or woman) considers their romantic partners their social equal. As to the other claim, I wholeheartedly disagree. There is no question that beauty is a source of power. But you'd need to be blind to think that it is a greater source of power in our society than other qualities. Note, also, how beautiful women are often brought down (just a pretty face etc.), whereas powerful men are not discussed in the same way (nah, he's just an ugly billionaire).

> I'm beginning to think that what you call "scientific racism" is what I'd simply call "science" applied to humans. Do you believe it differs? If so, how?

What "I call" scientific racism is what is known by historians as scientific racism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism. The difference (aside from question of whether actual science is involved or not) is the following:

Just to be sure, first of all let me say that I do not believe (based on the evidence at hand) that scientific-racist claims have any merit whatsoever, and based on the history I studied, I am quite certain that even if there were some truth to them, the effect size is negligible compared to social effects. But, for the sake of argument (although it makes me sick to my stomach), let’s suppose that scientific-racism’s claims are absolutely true. There is a crucial distinction to be made between the veracity of a claim and the importance of discussing it.

There’s a parable (by Kierkegaard, I think) about a man who escapes from an insane asylum and, determined not to be sent back, decides to appear sane by only saying true statements. To everyone he meets, he says, "The earth is round. The earth is round," which, naturally, gets him sent back. Or consider Trump’s statement about Carly Fiorina’s looks. I think most people would agree that the important question about the event is not whether Fiorina is actually ugly or not, but why Trump saw the need to make that statement, regardless of its empirical truth. Often, finding the need to say something tells more about the speaker than about the object of the statement. In Trump’s case, it was an expression of how he thinks women should be valued.

Given the treatment of, say, blacks in the US, the question of whether and by how much blacks are innately stupider than whites is completely uninteresting to me. What is interesting to me is why some people think the question of their innate abilities is so important to merit discussion and/or investigation at this point in time. After all, there is much to be done to treat people more fairly and with more dignity even before getting to the question of their innate worth. Once all people are treated with the dignity they deserve, we can try addressing every person's individual abilities. We've invented technological solutions to short-sightedness; maybe we can find technological solutions to stupidity, too.

So to answer your question: scientific racism often has motivations that are completely different from those behind most science.

Expecting your next question, let me say that the reason racism and sexism are studied collectively yet innate abilities should be studied at the individual level -- putting aside the obvious answer of respective effect size and variability -- is this: it has been found as conclusively as anything in social science, that many social forces are best studied collectively, just as gas molecules are; that's just how they work.

> in you believing I'm a white supremacist.

I honestly don't understand this. I don't believe you're a white supremacist; I don't know you personally at all! You just keep claiming to be a white supremacist, maybe not using those exact words, but by repeating textbook scientific racism claims. I could insist not to be a billionaire, only to have a billion dollars in my bank account, and to talk about "your definition of billionaire". Scientific racism has a pretty well accepted definition, and your well publicized views coincide with it well.

> highbrow dismissal and vague hints that some uncited authority supports your views.

What views? That you're repeating classic scientific racism claims? The Wikipedia page has dozens of relevant references.

Also, I don't understand your point about "highbrow dismissal". If I were to tell you "just use logic! Quantum mechanics can't possibly be true!" would your educated response be considered highbrow dismissal?

Given this strong emotional motivation, do you really think you can objectively evaluate the truth of these claims without bias? I certainly don't.

So to answer your question: scientific racism often has motivations that are completely different from those behind most science.

Juxtaposing this with your term "hate group", I assume you mean the motivation is some sort of collectivist hatred or other negative feelings?

In that case, it's pretty clear that you intend this to be a mere ad-hominem attack. You simply refuse to acknowledge the possibility that a person might hold certain positive beliefs without also holding certain normative beliefs. Essentially: "Anyone who believes in evolution must therefore worship the devil. The church opposes both of these things!"

Have fun with that. If you ever want to understand the world better, consider the possibility that atheists are not necessarily satanists.

Yes, more or less, just as many kinds of professionals are required to do the same. But regardless, my entire point is that the truth of these claims is the least important thing about them, just as the interesting question about a wager between two college students of whether a vagrant would shit his pants or not when they set him on fire is not which of them was right.

> I assume you mean the motivation is some sort of collectivist hatred or other negative feeling

I did not study psychology but history, and I'm not interested in feelings but in the distribution of power. Yes, the motivation is to justify and perpetuate a distribution of power that's favorable to the groups where those ideas are found.

> In that case, it's pretty clear that you intend this to be a mere ad-hominem attack. You simply refuse to acknowledge the possibility that a person might hold certain positive beliefs without also holding certain normative beliefs.

Not at all. When discussing the history of ideas we do not attempt to track every single person's motivations, just as I don't suppose you "refuse to acknowledge the possibility" of some black woman being smarter than some Asian man. Your beliefs -- as I hope you know -- are not only not unique at this point in time, they echo almost precisely very old and well studied ones, and thus can be and indeed have been discussed in general without attributing anything to you personally. Even in proper science (leaving aside the question of whether a certain strain of scientific racism qualifies as such or not), researchers often discuss why they're interested in a specific question (and need to justify the importance of their research in order receive grants). So the question of what motivates certain people to be interested in studying and publicly writing about any scientific topic is not only reasonable and pertinent, but a fairly common one. Even on a personal level, a scientist often needs to answer it to herself and to others.

Also, I am absolutely not attacking you, but merely pointing out that the name of the school of thought your beliefs (in this context) belong to is scientific racism. Perhaps now that you know what your philosophy is called, you can more easily find academic discussions about it if you are interested in learning more. But just as I wouldn't be able to fairly say, "people here are call me names like billionaire", after telling them I have billions in the bank regardless of my personal feelings towards the name, I don't think you get to say that people "call you racist" when it is you who present yourself as such (and not in any subtle way, or one that's open to interpretation), even though it turns out that you don't like the title.

That much is clear, and the source of our differences. I do care about reality and I don't mind if bad people have learned true facts.

Yes, the motivation is to justify and perpetuate a distribution of power that's favorable to the groups where those ideas are found.

And the motivation for studying evolution is to reduce people's faith in the one true god, and prevent them from getting to heaven. Therefore I can refer to an individual evolutionist as a satanist.

When discussing the history of ideas we do not attempt to track every single person's motivations

You aren't discussing the history of ideas. You are discussing specifically whether I am a "scientific racist" and "white supremacist". And you've defined these terms as people having specific motivations which I don't share.

That cannot possibly be our difference because I also care about reality and I don't mind if bad people have learned true facts. I have no reason to believe that I care about reality any less than you do. There are only two differences between our views : 1. I do not think there is currently any evidence whatsoever that innate differences between human races are a significant causal factor in the observed power difference, and 2. I think that in the whole of science there are few questions that are less interesting. In fact, while I have occasionally found myself pondering scientific questions that can be said to be utterly ridiculous and pointless, the thought of whether blacks are less intelligent than whites has never even crossed my mind. When a question does cross my mind, I always -- always -- ask myself why is it important to me that I should spend time pondering it, let alone writing about it. I think that in all of science, pretty much the only time uninteresting questions (i.e., those not given explicit justification for study by scientists) become interesting is when there is incontrovertible evidence for something totally surprising (even if uninteresting). I don't think that this is the case with scientific racism, either.

I wonder why it is that this question is so important to you, that you'd rather spend your time writing about it, than say, how cats purr or why we yawn.

> You are discussing specifically whether I am a "scientific racist" and "white supremacist". And you've defined these terms as people having specific motivations which I don't share.

I'm afraid I don't think it is possible to believe whites are innately more intelligent than blacks and not be a white supremacist (at least not without some clearly spelled out motivation), or to believe that differences in traits such as intelligence between races are either supported by science or should be studied by science without being a scientific racist, sorry. I sort-of understand your desire to both have a billion dollars and yet not be considered a billionaire, but I'm just not sure how this can be done.

You may claims that scientific racism is an interesting and valid scientific discipline or that your motivations are pure etc., but you cannot argue that you are not a scientific racist if those are your views.

Also, I did not define scientific racism as having specific motivations. I restated the well accepted -- and, AFAIK, the only definition of scientific racism, as the belief that some races are innately superior or inferior to others (usually in qualities that coincide with social power) and that this can and/or should be proven with science. I added, in response to your question, that it has been well established (although that is not the definition) that scientific racism is an all-too-familiar tool being used in the same ways, making the same assertions, time and again by people with similar motivations. Your personal motivations are your own business, but I wonder if you've asked yourself why you are personally so drawn to such questions, especially as most people (even those who care a lot about reality) aren't.

This is what religion looks like.

First, a casual perusal of any human biodiversity blog will tell you that they do in fact care about differences between Germans and Irish as well. Or Tamils and Gujuratis, or a variety of other groups that exhibit interesting differences.

Intelligence is particularly interesting relative to other traits since it explains so many social outcomes, but many other traits are interesting. For example, clannishness: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/how-inbred-are-euro... Some people just find human biology intrinsically interesting, and don't have the same negative emotional reactions to it that you do.

If you want a more traditional "give me a grant" motivation, here it is: public policy. Consider racial disparities across fields. One possible cause of such disparities is disparate treatment - e.g., judging white job applicants more harshly than Asian ones. Another possibility is disparate ability - e.g. a greater proportion of Asian people than white people are smart.

Different causes of disparities would significantly change what policy you would choose. For example, if disparate ability is the cause and equal outcomes is your goal, you would choose a quota system to cap the number of Asians.

and to anyone who shouts them down, calls them racist and attempts to get them socially ostracized, they say, "why are you trying to hide the truth?

Fixed that for you.

In that case, I can set your mind at ease. There is a wide scientific consensus -- no less conclusive than the consensus on global warming and based on decades of research -- that social policy itself and other social forces are by far the leading causes for power disparity.

Just to be clear: differences in ability among social groups are real, variance of ability among individuals due to biology is also real, and ability is indeed one factor in power disparity among individuals. What we're debating is the relationship between the three. The debate is whether biological differences are the main explanation for differences in abilities between social groups, and, more importantly, whether biological differences have any significant explanatory power for the vast power disparity between social groups.

Also, it is unclear to me how a positive answer for the biological explanation could possibly affect public policy. Your point that "if ... equal outcomes is your goal, you would choose a quota system to cap the number of Asians" is a non-sequitur. For one, "equal income" in the public policy sense doesn't remotely resemble what you imply you think it does in your suggestion. For another, I don't see why your suggestion would be different if the difference in ability was environmental rather than biological.

> don't have the same negative emotional reactions to it that you do

My emotional reaction stems from the fact that empirical evidence is so much against a biological explanation for the power disparity, and arguments against it are based on findings of such small effect size (which doesn't even suggest causality, but even assuming it does) combined with strong potential self-interest. This is a very similar emotional response to that towards climate-change deniers. Their evidence is weak, and denying human-caused global warming serves their interests. Maybe the reaction is unjustified and we should approach every single time anyone brings up an idea without consideration for the thousands of times similar ideas have been expressed in the past, but the reaction is nonetheless, I think, very reasonable.

> calls them racist

I think you are way too obsessed with labels. Definitions in social science are not the same as definitions in the exact sciences, and they are more used as a shortcut to frame a first guess. The opinions you express are textbook scientific racism, lifted almost verbatim from late-19th or early-20th century texts. I use the name to roughly place them in a tradition of ideas; you think it is an insult. Such rough categorization (which are well recognized by social researchers as such) are an invaluable tool in disciplines with too many variables. Without them, we cannot even begin to discuss models in the history of ideas. Denying that your ideas are part of the traditions is silly and factually wrong, and completely separate from the question of whether they're true or not. So how about instead of saying that you're a scientific racist, I'd simply say that your ideas are part of the scientific racism tradition?

You may counter and say that because scientific racism has bad connotations today (even though it was once the consensus), this is an implied insult. But scientific racism has always made scientific claims, and those claims have turned out to be false, that I think that if you're trying to go against scientific consensus (as you yourself claimed you do) -- which is certainly scientifically valid -- and if you think that unlike previous incarnations, scientific racism in its current incarnation is different the burden of proof is on you. If you want to dispel the negative connotations behind scientific racism, you can't attack their validity, because they are very valid; you should just prove us wrong (I would suggest, however, that you employ better data and better analysis than you did, for example, when writing about women's abilities in STEM, because your assumptions basically dictated the result, and were absolutely not justified, so that's going to do the very opposite of changing scientific consensus).

Reasons I've been told include:

- A "fuck you" to the establishment and orthodoxy.

- A belief that Hillary is corrupt.

- Entertainment value. One Trump voter I know also donated to Hillary in order to get the "Woman Card": https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/the-woman-card

- A support for nationalism and economic populism.

- A belief that Trump can do for the country what he did for Wolman skating rink: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-09-29/a-1980... (I think Peter Thiel falls into this category.)

I know it's tempting to level the worst insult you can think of - raaaciiiissstt - against anyone who disagrees with you. Consider the possibility that this is what allowed Trump to win in the first place.

This idea keeps coming up again and again that using the word 'racist' in the context of the Trump campaign is essentially name-calling, an insult.

The problem is, racism is a big, big, big issue. And Trump is a racist bigot, you simply cannot deny it. That's why people that are described as 'on the left' feel so strongly about him. It's not 'pulling the race card', it's an actual big problem. America has spent 200 years trying to overcome it, and it's still so far behind. The open racism displayed by Trump is the reason why so many people viscerally hate him. Add to it the sexism (and sexual assault), the bullying, and the xenophobia, and the support for him becomes essentially unfathomable for many who consider his attitudes and behaviors completely incompatible with basic democratic values.

The article posted calls it smug, the commuter above called it 'not tolerating dissent'. I would call it a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, bullying and xenophobia.

At some point the term "racist" came to mean "insufficiently left wing". This happened because left wing types called every Republican "raaacciiiiist" - like a bored shepherd boy yelling "wolf" for amusement and likes on social media.

How's that working out?

Clinton is getting a lot less votes than Obama got.

So there is an alternative explanation there, that rather than one group of people getting sick of shrill accusations of racism, a different group of people just doesn't like Hilary Clinton all that much.

I'm just pushing back against the "unprecedented Trump blowout" narrative. So far he's got less popular votes than the loser of the last presidential election (Romney got 60,933,504 votes. Trumps at 59,088,517 with 98% of precincts reporting. He probably won't pick up another 1.8 million votes).

A different argument is that Trump attracted new people to the polls. I'd be more inclined to believe that many of those people are sick of establishment politics and their tactics. But I don't think they are actually a majority of Trump's support.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-exam...

Or just sit in the wrong place and you get to hear, "all white men are racist." It may guilt some to action, but it makes others disinclined to help.

Look at the #blacklivesmatter. Look at all the people who have been railing against police militarization for decades being called racist by the recent arrivals to the issue just because they say there is a larger problem.

For example there were proposals to not allow Muslims to immigrate to the US. There was calling Mexicans 'criminals' and 'rapists'. Beating of black people at Trump rallies (which he endorsed).

This shows up this night on my twitter feed: "I am at a Trump rally in Manhattan, and thousands are chanting 'We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back'. Disgusting" https://twitter.com/SRowntreeNews/status/796141495573155840

I'm not 100% sure of the context. But it looks like it's fake.

@SRowntreeNews @WALTBACON Dude that's a fake account. Don't RT that garbage.

@aobrien7 good catch, thanks

@SRowntreeNews This is fake, @michaeldweiss. Part of disinfo network spreading false rumors. They were very active during Euro soccer riots.

--

If thats case aren't you just perpetuating a narrative about Trump supporters being a bunch of racist bigots, when in this case its made up BS????

This is exactly what pissed off a lot of regular people and got them to the polls IMO.

Uh, no. I wrote that something 'showed up on my twitter feed', implying it's unverified. Last night there wasn't a way to verify it, it merely seemed plausible. In any case, the Huffpost article sufficiently makes the case.

N.B. The chant you mention was in fact a hoax.

And of course, racism very often comes wrapped up in other prejudices which are thought (rightly or wrongly) to be more respectable. All of the groups Trump has targeted are groups that just so happen to consist mostly of people who aren't white. They're the groups that, in the public imagination, are responsible for the loss of an imagined homogenous White America.

Trump can't say "I want a white America". But the people who do want this haven't had any difficulty picking up on his hints.

And yet, Trump supporters understands that Mexican and Muslims are not a race. Hence, why they think Trump is not racist.

>Trump can't say "I want a white America". But the people who do want this haven't had any difficulty picking up on his hints.

Now you're just making up things in your mind about Trump and Trump supporters, and then accusing them of it.

So they think he's xenophobic and religiously bigoted instead? How is that better?

>Now you're just making up things in your mind about Trump and Trump supporters, and then accusing them of it.

I'm not making up the fact that white supremacists supported Trump.

He is not against all immigrants. He is ONLY against ILLEGAL immigrants. He still supports LEGAL immigrants from all over the world.

Also, he is not against the Islamic religion. He is just against immigration from countries with known ties to terrorism.

>I'm not making up the fact that white supremacists supported Trump.

The KKK also supports Hillary too, so that's just the typical election rhetoric you see every four years.

These are misconceptions by people who have not listened to Trump's rally speeches. They only hear a small part of the quotes without the context and form these misconceptions about him. And now, they're shocked and confused to find that the majority of the country supports him.

He expressly called for all Muslims to be barred from the United States. I'm afraid that claiming he's "not against the Islamic religion" is not a fact-based argument.

He wants to protect everyone from terrorism. Yes, he wants to protect Muslims from terrorism too. He even asked them for their help in the fight against radical terrorism, because he knows that terrorism affects them too.

That's not a clarification, that's just saying something completely different from what he originally said.

Calling that xenophobia and religious bigotry is just a straight out lie.

Not ALL Muslims.

ONLY the Muslims IMMIGRANTS from countries with direct ties to terrorist groups.

So how can he be racist if he's only banning the Muslims from countries with direct ties to terrorism, and not ALL Muslims? He's not banning ALL Muslims immigrants like you claim.

And this has nothing to do with religion. An immigrant don't even have to be Muslim. ANY immigrants (ANY, not just Muslims) that are attempting to enter the United States from a country with direct ties to terrorism will not be allowed into the United States until vetting can be done.

Voters are smarter than this. Voters care more about the real issues that are affecting them (jobs, economy, etc). They don't care who the KKK is voting for. The result of the election have shown that.

They claimed to have donated $20,000 to Hillary. The website claimed the claim is false.

We will never know, but more importantly, the voters didn't really care who the KKK was supporting, as the election results have shown.

Not allowing Muslims in could be seen as racist, but I don't know that was at the core of what he was trying to do. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's a good idea. But 100% of radical Islamic terrorist are Muslim so banning them would have made people less afraid of the radical Islamic threat the media were hyping up as ISIS was taking hold of Iraq. It's dumb and unfairly treats good honest safe people, but racist is a stretch.

That tweet holds little water with me each side has been mud slinging, most of the time it's either BS or an exaggeration.

There you go with the name calling again. How about you listen to Trump supporters for once. Or maybe you just don't want to know the real reason why Trump supporters supported Trump.

Stop talking and start listening.

The other option was so far from what they wanted they had little choice. Please try to understand why people disagree with you, why the majority disagrees with you.

But what happens when you don't discuss a subject that the voters consider (right or not - that's not even the issue!) important and worrying?

It wasn't until the subject was considered debatable by more centrist parties that this rise was halted, or at least coupled with less worrying ideologies.

Here is a campaign sign outside a polling place about 20ish miles away. https://tribwgno.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/white-again.jpg

Beyond that, anyone who attempts to deny the sexism/misogyny of the Trump campaign and its pull with some of his supporters must have entirely missed all the various materials/items made & sold with hateful messaging about Clinton, using sex-based slurs and insults. The evidence is there and overwhelming. Around here, people are proud to wear those shirts and buttons and affix stickers to their cars with the messages. We will continue seeing them for some time in this area.

EDIT: You might be interested in perusing this stream of day 1 after the election:

https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656

Here's a couple particularly notable ones:

- Man walks out to his car, on video, to find "fuck you nigger" written on his windows with "Trump" also written on the front & back glass.

- Assaults on Muslim women by white people making racist comments and mentioning Trump or wearing Trump campaign gear

- A group of whites threatening the life of a black woman at a gas station, with a firearm, while calling her nigger

You're left with one of two conclusions to draw:

- There are hateful racists and sexists/misogynists out there who supported & are emboldened by Trump's victory

- All of these people are making these events up

It's the beginning of fascism.

Btw, I'm German. (I've lived in North America for more than ten years)

I might be wrong but I've not heard him say anything that is racist. No doubt there are some that are supporting him because they're racist, that doesn't mean all are. On that note I would love someone to prove me wrong and show me a clear example of Trump actually being racist.

I'm a conservative Christian. As a conservative, the left look down on me and assume there is only ignorance fueling my world view. There are issue like abortion, that to me are like the holocaust. I know most don't agree with me on that, and I can understand that they don't see a fetus as a life, I get it. But imagine for a second that you were firmly convinced that a fetus was as much a life as a new born. Things like that will drive you to vote Trump despite hating some of his actions.

The left also treats Christians with disdain. You have to get people on side if you want them to vote for you. Not tell them they're idiots.

While I don't agree with them some see gun rights as fundamentals to their freedom. You can't just tell these people were going to restrict guns, you have to get them to believe that it's for the best. Not tell them they're idiots. Then call them racist sexist bigots when they don't vote your way.

Immigration in the states is not in a good way, having so many people living illegally is not good for anyone. Trump might sound harsh but at least he is willing to tackle the problem (even in a way I'd not go for).

To me racism and xenophobia are the the things that fuelled the actual Holocaust. I tried to outline some of the racism inherent to Trump further up.

To be honest, I don't understand conservative Christians love for republicans. They preach social darwinism, often they preach fear of others. Is it all based on this notion that "The left also treats Christians with disdain"?

My view of Christianity (I come from a more Lutheran view...) is one of 'love thy neighbor' and charity towards the poor as the guiding principles. I consider myself a humanist, but understand that my flavor of Western humanism is essentially the non-secular continuation of Christian values -- which are inherently compatible with leftist values that are also very much based on compassion and empathy. This all seems to be incompatible with the hatefulness I see from republicans, especially somebody like Trump. To me, Trump is a selfish nihilist.

One of my favorite Presidents is Jimmy Carter, and his strong moral center based on religious beliefs is the main reason.

But on the Christian view, there are actually themes in the Bible that talk about a "worker deserving his wage", and "if a man doesn't work he doesn't eat". So I don't know if Christianities version of "Love thy neighbor" is what non Christians think it is. The concept of Love in Christianity doesn't always map to what non Christians see as Love. For example discipline is seen as a form of love. Sometimes doing something that is unpleasant for an individual but helps them in the long run can be seen as love. But to be honest I don't think biblical concepts really align with the left or the right.

If I were convinced as you are that Trump wanted to introduce racist policies as president then I'd agree there is no way in good conscience to vote for him. I'm not yet convinced of that and as I'm not American did not bother researching enough to be fully convinced.

But then I don't know who I'd have voted for. I'm not a fan of Hillary and then there is the Libertarian and Green candidates, neither really align with my moral views either.

It would have been nice if there was a strong moral candidate, but I don't know that either were this election.

wow some fantastic turns of logic you are using.

Christian means Christ-like. did Christ preach social darwinism, or did he spend his time with prostitutes and lepers?

Did Christ preach having the poor fend for themselves, or did he feed the hungry?

Did Christ praise the wealthy, or does he say "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

You can of course interpret your religion as you see fit, but in my eyes, right wing politics is incompatible with being Christ-like.

I'd leave it to the practitioners to exhibit what it means to be one of their followers, and it seems the American practitioners haven't noticed this incompatibility you're concerned about.

something being "in the bible" is meaningless without its context. Theres quite a breadth on the capturing, keeping and treatment of slaves - would you argue that these verses are the same as Christs teachings?

>As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves.

> You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property.

>You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property.

But hey, if you think being a Christian means following any phrase you happen to pick out of the Bible, go for it.

> Christianity, as many hastened to point out, is about love. Christ commands us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. If the Bible took any position on the issue at all, it was that divorce, beloved by Davis, was a sin, and that she was a hypocrite masquerading among the faithful.

> How many of these critiques were issued by atheists?

> This, more than anything I can recall in recent American life, is an example of the smug style.

A cynical and maybe excessively nasty answer is that people that just care about lower taxes have pandered to moral conservatives in order to get tax cutting representatives elected.

The more nuanced answer is probably that there has been a coalition for 30-40 years along those lines. I think over the next several elections, those alignments are going to shift in a big way. Trump doesn't come from the historic coalition, Sanders almost won as an outsider in the Democratic primary. The parties are not well aligned with the electorate.

Just look at how Trump changed his views on abortion to pander to the social conservatives, and as a consequence won huge evangelical support.

So the right has taken the attitude that they don't care about morals, they'll adopt any policy which allows them to win so they can go about pushing the agenda of liberal capitalism for the benefit of themselves. Sure, there are some genuine moralists on the right too - but none of those just won an election.

There is even currently a net migration of Mexicans back to Mexico.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-...

I'm not sure I count as part of the left, but as an atheist, I have no trouble understanding a fetus was as much a life as a new born as an honest and principled position. On the other hand, I'm not sure how you come to a political compromise with people that disagree with it (how do they reach out?).

Personally I think making abortion something that has to be legislated at the state level and leaving moral issues up to public referendum would go a long way to removing it from the normal political divide.

I've often found myself with the same question. What's a satisfactory answer for "THIS IS MURDER!?" vs. "Eh, I don't think so, more like a nasty wart...". I understand both, but I just don't see place for a bridge other than telling one side to get over it.

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him."

Also many societies have concepts where people are required to care for others, parents and close relatives.

I just don't agree, I think if the violinist has only one chance at life and that one chance has been wasted because he was tethered to you without concent then he should have the right to life. But the people who did it should also go to jail for a very long time.

Otherwise, should you be compelled to donate one of your kidneys?

Okay, so here I am - lifelong progressive Democrat. And I'll open up to this discussion.

So, I'm believing that at the moment of conception a full viable life is formed. And that life has the full rights and protections afforded by the State (both federal and all levels beneath).

Let's start with the simple route - the parents are happy to have the child, are financially capable, and medically sound for delivery. In this nothing is different from how it is today. A healthy child is born to a happy family.

Our differences seem to come from all the complications in the process.

Let's start with an understandable one - the life of the mother is in danger if she delivers the child. This is a horrifying decision. Does the state force the delivery of the child and thus condemn the mother to death? Is not one of the roles of modern medicine to protect people from death? This is, after all, why we now give birth in hospitals.

So, before I go further arguing with myself - what's your rationale as a conservative Christian on that scenario? Is it really as simple as "protect the child's life at all costs"?

For what it's worth - I don't think anyone's an idiot for being on the conservative side. I think a lot of the issues we struggle with in this day and age (such as abortion) are just far more complicated and intricate than most give credit for.

How do you handle and account for miscarriages? A sizable number of pregnancies end in miscarriage - especially if we view life as beginning at conception. So in miscarriage the mother has ended the life of the child.

What's the framework with which you believe this should be dealt with? What's to be done with people who have biological disorders leading to problems with gestation? After all, if life starts at conception then it's pretty quickly no longer just a woman's body.

Sometimes babies die naturally it's sad, but there is a huge difference between dying naturally and dying due to intervention or neglect.

Surly you can see there is a big difference between a woman having medically difficulty bringing a child to term and an abortion? In the one case she has done all she can to provide for the child in the other she has actively pursued this child's termination.

If the mother and the child are going to die with out intervention you attempt to save both. That may mean an early birth or c-section giving the child little to no chance at survival, but you still try, you still treat that child as a human.

When an infant dies of natural causes it's usually trivially simple to rule out murder. But in the case of miscarriage/abortion the procedure for early-term abortion simply causes a miscarriage. So in order to adequately protect the life of the child we'd need to be able to determine if the miscarriage was forced or not.

What, in your view, is the ideal role of the state as a protector of life in this situation?

Example 1: Trump never called all mexicans racist, what he said was that a lot of the people crossing the border are criminals while other s are decent. Some of the criminals are racist.

Example 2: His "approval" of sexual assault, was nothing but locker room talk. Two guys "out alphaing" each other in a not so nice way.

As a conservative from Germany that has been accused of racism for showing support for the shut down of the balcan route I find it much easier to sympathize with the falsely accused then with the accuser.

That doesn't mean that I agree with Trump, but I would have voted for Trump over Clinton.

Yeah but one could have observed that shouting/bullying down someone because of their beliefs is counterproductive in getting them to reconsider them. It's not like there wasn't any warning to this.

> Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?

But the § just before that one is the meat of the article:

But even as many have come around to the notion that Trump is the prohibitive favorite for his party's nomination, the smug interpretation has been predictable: We only underestimated how hateful, how stupid, the Republican base can be.

Krugman today:

> We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and the rule of law. It turns out that we were wrong. There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don’t share at all our idea of what America is about.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/elect...

Some people never learn, but they're not the ones we think don't.

Krugman has lived his life in a liberal urban academic bubble and has no idea what the rest of the USA is like.

We would do well to remember that when we have the misfortune to come across his writings in the future.

The perceptual bubbles are very real for both sides, and to someone who has been on both sides of the aisle - they're terrifying; because breaking through the bubble is exceptionally hard and costly, doubly so if that person is already an established adult.

It's because Krugman changes his mind based on who is currently President and/or controlling Congress. A policy under a Democrat President is good and the exact same policy under a Republican President is bad. Krugman is a hack who received his Nobel for being anti-Bush. There are far better voices for the Left.

He did, however, deliberately cultivate the confusion. He understood the smug style.

W's was perhaps a more subtle dominating response to the Smug, but at this point we can't say it was different than Trump's. Both of them went to school with the Smug. They know what it represents both to itself and to the majority of the nation. Neither of them buy into it themselves, unlike e.g. Romney.

Democrats lose when the Republican candidate has an authentic and rhetorically effective response to the Smug. Now that it's happened twice, at least some Republicans will remember it the next time around. Democrats will either do the hard work of excising this from their ideology and communication, or they will lose in the same way again.