Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Searches Show That America Is Full of Racist and Selfish People (vox.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the national-psyche dept.

gollum123 shares a report by Sean Illing via Vox: "Google is a digital truth serum," Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Everybody Lies , told me in a recent interview. "People tell Google things that they don't tell to possibly anybody else, things they might not tell to family members, friends, anonymous surveys, or doctors." Stephens-Davidowitz was working on a PhD in economics at Harvard when he became obsessed with Google Trends, a tool that tracks how frequently searches are made in a given area over a given time period. As a barometer of our national consciousness, Google is as accurate (and predictive) as it gets. In 2016, when the Republican primaries were just beginning, most pundits and pollsters did not believe Trump could win. After all, he had insulted veterans, women, minorities, and countless other constituencies. But Stephens-Davidowitz saw clues in his Google research that suggested Trump was far more serious than many supposed. Searches containing racist epithets and jokes were spiking across the country during Trump's primary run, and not merely in the South but in upstate New York, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, rural Illinois, West Virginia, and industrial Michigan.

52 of 709 comments (clear)

  1. No kidding... by irving47 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Partisan politics brings out the worst in people? Who'd have thought?

    --
    I had a sucky sig.
    1. Re:No kidding... by wickerprints · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the point is not that politics brings out the worst in people, but rather, that people exhibit a much greater degree of bigotry and tribalism than they would rather admit. The results of this election, and the fact that the more Trump's lies are exposed, the more his supporters angrily make excuses for his behavior. In fact, this is precisely the kind of tactic that racists, xenophobes, bigots, and hypocrites are particularly adept at, since it is the only way they can rationalize the destructiveness of their distorted and regressive worldview: that is to say, they blame everyone else for their own inadequacies by projecting onto others the very transgressions they are guilty of. That's why they complain about their freedom of speech being curtailed; why they attack LGBT people and legal protections as an affront to what they perceive is their right to discriminate; why they still yell and kick and scream about the election months after the fact. For these people, it isn't enough to impose their bigoted will upon the rest of civilized society. It is only enough when they achieve their end goal of killing or converting those who disagree. In other words, it is no different than the radical terrorism espoused by the likes of the so-called "Islamic State." This is the very definition of primitive tribalism taken to the ideological extreme.

      For all the lessons that our own human history should have taught us, we have made remarkably little progress in addressing such diseased thinking.

    2. Re:No kidding... by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How do they count people as "racist" exactly? If I say "he is Japanese" is that counted? Now change Japanese to any Race/Ethnicity/Religion that you like. Is that counted as a "racist"? How about if you search for "Japanese fighter"?

      Google may give some information, but how did his study account for the Streisand effect? How many people would have searched for various groups if not for the media playing the guilt by association game with people they want to smear? An easy example would be Milo Yiannopoulos. (Not defending everything he says or does, but the associations with being a homophobe and racist were used as part of the smear campaign.)

      Recognizing we are different is not in and of itself racist, but a recognition of fact. It is how we treat each other based on our differences that makes a person racist. Today compared to when I was younger, racism is not worse. I'd say in some demographics it's much better, and in others much worse, but overall the same.

      Well known tyrannical strategy at play: Keep the masses pitted against each other and you can do whatever you wish.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    3. Re:No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "why they still yell and kick and scream about the election months after the fact"
      This description perfectly describes all those opposed to Trump.

      "right to discriminate"
      There is no law against individual discrimination. The laws against discrimination apply to the government, educational institutions, places of employment,areas and other places where racism can be challenged by individuals in court.

      "LGBT people and legal protections"
      The LGBT issue effects a tiny percentage of the population. Blowing up this issue into an extinction level event shows how warped the proles are becoming. The majority including myself do not give a shit about this LGBT issue. I am not against anything the LGBT movement is doing but frankly there are more important issues playing out today.

      All of your complaints describe the Democrats and the sore losers of the last election. They have went after the Electoral College but only because they lost the election. If Clinton had one this would have never been mentioned. And take a trip to Berkley and take a good look at those who support free speech but only if it supports their particular cause. If you don't agree with them the riots in the street breakout while blocking someone from exercising their Freedom of Speech. The people ruining everything today are the hardline leftist and hardline right. These two groups are tiny but the Internet amplifies their political screeds and will most likely be the first ones shot in the approaching civil war. These hardline ass hats bleat and moan about this or that while acting like a bunch of morons. You know why Hillary lost? Take a good look at the far left and ask yourself would you want any of these fuckers to succeed in their efforts? They can take full credit of electing Trump because their antics are so bad that even Trump looked like the better choice.

    4. Re:No kidding... by lucm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For all the lessons that our own human history should have taught us, we have made remarkably little progress in addressing such diseased thinking.

      The real diseased thinking is what you just posted. Bundle all the shit you can think of under "Trump" and associate the conservatives with that whole bag of vomit. The sad part is that you probably are convinced of at least some of this bullshit.

      You are the true face of hate.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    5. Re:No kidding... by wickerprints · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mistakenly presume that there is any sort of government censorship of Republicans by "left-wing thugs" to begin with. This claim does not stand up to even the most basic form of scrutiny, considering that the GOP holds power in both the executive and legislative branches of government, not to mention the judicial which now leans conservative; so if we are to talk realistically about what you perceive to be an infringement of your right to call those who disagree with you "left-wing thugs," your own post is clear proof to the contrary. But perhaps, like many of your ilk, you are too ignorant to understand the difference between someone who disagrees with the kind of ill-informed, uneducated, right-wing vitriol that you spew, and someone who actually imposes a legal order against your ability to speak out in this "marketplace of ideas" that you vaguely refer to.

      Your post quintessentially exemplifies the original point I made. As your political class has never historically had their actual constitutional freedoms curtailed by law, perhaps a more charitable observer would forgive you for such a spectacularly persistent inability to recognize whether the government is actually oppressing you. But I am not so inclined given the extensive and demonstrably odious historical record of actual abuses that you racists and bigots have been guilty of committing, all while proclaiming to be the victims of "political correctness" and "left-wing thugs."

    6. Re:No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The goal is to make everybody feel "racist" and guilty about it, then use that to manipulate you to their will.

      Most people I know see through this bullshit already, having seen the racism card overplayed so many times. Congrats, losers, you've made the term impotent and nobody cares anymore. Throw the racism accusations out all you want, we'll just laugh at you.

    7. Re:No kidding... by rholtzjr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Soooo, ranting, raving, screaming, and name calling is going to solve everything. Calling everybody who disagrees with you an ignorant savage it going to compel them to see your way? Really? Oh please enlighten us o' wise one for we are just too stupid to see the light. SERIOUSLY?

      Get used to it, there are people who do not believe in the same ideals as you. How you deal with it defines the person you are. And right now, you seem like another progressive that has succumbed to the Trump Derangement Syndrome.

      Prove everyone wrong by providing rational discourse and not just using every buzzword that has been used to describe him for the last year.

    8. Re:No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have not heard about too many right-wing riots where they were trying to silence a left-wing speaker.. There does seem to be more violent left-wing thugs than there are right-wing thugs... And you sound like one of those.

      But overall, there are too many idiots on both sides that refuse to listen to the other sides ideas just because they are the "enemy" even if that specific idea might actually be something they could agree to. I would like to have politics revolve around facts, based on real unbiased studies, instead of what currently is the most popular view-point.

    9. Re: No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nowhere in the second amendment states that you personally have the right to own an automatic rifle. It only specifies militia, and only specifies bearing arms. The level of armament is not specified. An automatic rifle isn't going to protect you from a drone strike anyway, the purpose of the amendment is no longer applicable against the current capabilities of the military.

    10. Re: No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The majority including myself do not give a shit about this LGBT issue. [...]"

      This is self-evidently false. If nobody cares, why is so much effort put into fighting LGBT equality? If nobody cared, when we asked for marriage equality, the response would have been, "yeah sure, whatever, we don't care".

    11. Re:No kidding... by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Telling racial jokes or using racial epitaphs don't necessarily make someone a racist (as the article seems to presume). It could just mean you have a dark sense of humor, or just use humor to make a social statement.

      Were Chris Rock and Richard Pryor racists because they told black jokes and used the evil "N word"? Is someone a racist when they make a racial joke ironically? Are all of Mel Brooks movies racist and hateful because they included holocaust, racial, and Jewish jokes?

      I do know one thing for sure, though. If you go looking for racism and bigotry, you'll always find it--whether it's actually there or not.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    12. Re: No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I disagree pretty strongly with this. I don't agree with your interpretation of the second amendment.

      The second amendment states the following: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Effectively, the second amendment is saying that because a well regulated militia is needed to maintain the security of a free state, the government cannot infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The second amendment isn't restricting the right to well regulated militias, but rather citing the need for militia as a reason to allow people to keep and bear arms. That is not a limit upon who can keep and bear arms.

      Your second claim is that the second amendment is not an individual right, but a collective right. I presume you either mean the collective right of a militia or society in general. However, let's look at other amendments that specifically refer to "the people."

      Let's start with the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It is clear that any individual has the right to participate in a peaceful assembly. That part of the first amendment is giving you the right to engage in peaceful demonstrations. This is an individual right to protest peacefully.

      Then there's the fourth amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This only makes sense if there is an individual right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Each person has that right. No other interpretation makes sense.

      The ninth amendment says: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This clearly must include the rights of individuals not explicitly stated in the Constitution, not just collective rights or those of militias.

      The use of the words "the people" does not make sense as only a collective right. In the context of the rest of the Bill of Rights, it's an individual right. There is an individual right to keep and bear arms.

      As for the use of guns against modern military forces, the second amendment doesn't specify what types of arms are permitted. It is not restricted to guns, though that's certainly what most of the debate revolves around today. It's likely that even when the second amendment was written, it wasn't intended specifically to refer to guns.

      The reason for the second amendment was that many of the founding fathers believed that standing armies were contrary to freedom and opposed their existence. However, they recognized the need to rapidly organize and defend the United States from attack. That's why they use maintaining the security of a free state as the justification for the right to keep and bear arms. Specifically, militia were expected to defend the United States from attack until an army could be organized to repel the attack. The militia would need to be well-armed in order to be effective. In that era, that would also include weapons like cannons.

      There's no reason to limit the second amendment to guns. The Constitution doesn't restrict the people to keeping and bearing guns. There can be reasonable restrictions on arms, because the Bill of Rights isn't intended to promote anarchy. However, any restrictions need to be based on a compelling state interest and, generally when involving the Bill of Rights, should be the least restrictive way to accomplish the compelling stat

    13. Re:No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >abuses that you racists and bigots have been guilty of committing

      I'm gonna stop you right there. Actual racism (discriminitory practices, unequal pay, violence, etc) has been going down steadily since as long as I can remember. The world was way more racist just a couple decades ago. I remember. I think it's funny how voices from the leadership suddenly began reminding us how bad this group and that group and every other group have things. They began reminding us how "White Males" (now a derogatory term) keep everyone else down. How they're racist and misogynist and the lowest scum to walk the Earth. How they don't deserve to even have an opinion, much less state one. I think it was a plan to divide and conquer the country. The newly-reminded-to-be-oppressed groups would buy in, and lots of white males would to, to attempt to appease others and in so doing, buck the label from themselves. When they want to push votes around, they can release more propaganda and swing votes with whatever special "community" they want. The scariest part of is, part of me knows that as I question the labels and hypocrisy, the fact that everyone who will weigh in will confirm my suspicions by labeling me a racist misogynist. Those who agree with me will not weigh in for fear of earning the label themselves.

    14. Re:No kidding... by aevan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because they are hypocrites that only read headlines and internet tabloids? (Not that he wasn't a sensationalist either that was loose with opinion).

      But a gay jew man that has an extreme preference for black partners, talking about his childhood situation... is hardly a 'homophobic racist promoting pedophilia' like he's portrayed - but that's okay because he's 'Literally a Nazi'. Meanwhile a certain lesbian 'heroine of the year' is lauded, though in her book she talks about grooming and effectively raping her sister, and supported blissfully unironically by those that have on record said the exact thing Milo is being damned by them.

      Cognitive Dissonance should be the word of the year.

      ----

      Aside: there are some of us who type pure random shit into google just because we know they love to overanalyse everything to try and figure out the user. Between that, random searches on (mis)heard song lyrics, movie quotes, crap from news and so forth? Not sure the validity of any data you could mine based on searches.

    15. Re:No kidding... by ilguido · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The results of this election, and the fact that the more Trump's lies are exposed, the more his supporters angrily make excuses for his behavior.

      Funnily enough, H Clinton's supporters get blamed for the same reason. In a better world the presidential race would have been Sanders vs Kasich, but it seems "That America Is Full of Racist and Selfish People".

    16. Re:No kidding... by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm no fan of Trump but as to TFA - why is it assumed that people who search for racist memes must be racists? There's a guy here in Australia who boasts about being the most popular political commentator in the country and offers up the number of visitors to his blog as proof. My personal observation is that at least half the people who comment on his site do so to criticize his overt racism. It's well known that a strongly polarised audience/electorate/workforce is the hallmark of a sociopath in a position of power, both sides of the divide are going to be busy searching for jokes/insults that support their views.

      There are a number of skeptic sites on FB and elsewhere that regularly post all manner of nonsense for their audience to debunk. It's a moral conundrum for them since posting/sharing the article inevitably funnels advertising dollars to the people who least deserve it based on the number of "hits", which totally ignores the intent of those hits. Giving advertisers the ability to fine tune programmatic advertising is the one place where social media companies could theoretically make a huge difference. However the Facebooks and Googles of this world constantly deflect away from their failings and point towards some kind of half arsed censorship or trust ranking to avoid losing revenue from the type of people that most advertisers wouldn't piss on if they were on fire. .

      Having said that there are some recent signs of hope, a well organised campaign to inform advertisers their programmatic ads were appearing on Breitbart has seen a 90% reduction in advertising revenue for Breitbart in the past six months.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    17. Re:No kidding... by Powercntrl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      the silent majority

      ...is a misnomer.

      63 million votes were cast for Trump
      73.5 million people voted against Trump
      approximately 90 million eligible Americans - did not vote at all.

      The real "silent majority" didn't bother to vote.

      source

      --

      ---
      DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
    18. Re: No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "The majority including myself do not give a shit about this LGBT issue. [...]"

      This is self-evidently false. If nobody cares, why is so much effort put into fighting LGBT equality? If nobody cared, when we asked for marriage equality, the response would have been, "yeah sure, whatever, we don't care".

      The thing that has always creeped me out about people who are very conservatives and really religious is their obsession with what gay people and even straight people do in their bedrooms and the uncontrollable urge they have to regulate other peoples sex lives. I am a 'librul', probably what you Americans would call a communist, although where I come from I'm a pretty moderate social democrat and I quite frankly do not waste much time on thinking about what evangelical christian conservatives do in their bedrooms and whether it happens (as urban legend would have it) only on church approved days in a church approved position through a hole in a sheet because its it's CREEPY!, creepy creepy creepy ...

    19. Re:No kidding... by Z80a · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's no surprise, given the candidates that were given as a choice.

    20. Re: No kidding... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even just language changes sufficiently fast for such documents to approach the threshold of comprehension for non-linguists.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    21. Re:No kidding... by the+phantom · · Score: 3, Informative

      To the contrary, in a recent interview (maybe on the Jist or Marketplace? I can't recall exactly where I heard this...) the author mentioned that the distinction between "nigga" (a common lyric) and "ni**er" (not a common lyric) made it easier to distinguish potentially racist searches from others. On the flip side, the author ran into trouble when trying to study sexist/misogynistic searches, as many of those are people looking for porn.

      It should also be noted that the punchline is not "people who search offensive phrases are racist." The punchline is that seemingly racist searches correlate (i.e. the effect is statistical, rather than individual) with other variables (such as regions where Obama underperformed when compared to other Democrat candidates and/or polling) that seem to indicate some underlying racism.

      The actual book appears to be pretty nuanced. The Vox interview linked above is also appears to be relatively nuanced. The Slashdot summary and the paragraphs preceding the interview on Vox are sensationalist, click-baity claptrap.

      --
      Rhapsody in Numbers
    22. Re:No kidding... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, maybe that is exactly an illustration of how the second amendment is kind of out-of-date: the militia would need nukes but it can't have them, and probably not even the drones, and such castration of the miliia is apparently non-controversial. So clearly the reasoning for the second amendment is irrelevant today. Now if there were a reason of personal defense mentioned, that would still make sense today, for example.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    23. Re:No kidding... by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Racism writ large right there.

      Not necessarily. Could be simply hatred, unrelated to race. Trump isn't treated better.

    24. Re:No kidding... by Bongo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A model is that human groups have a certain size they can maintain. A tribe is 200, a kingdom is 200,000, a nation is 2,000,000, and a planet is in the billions.

      What makes a tribe and a kingdom different is how the group organises and what it organises on. So for a tribe, bloodlines and kinship are key, and knowing people around you. Contrast that with a city where everyone you see all day is a complete stranger. So how you relate to others, how you feel about others, how you organise your relationships, and what they are based on, is different.

      Beyond 200, the tribe is unsustainable, as it is hard to feel close to 1000 people, as our brains just can't manage that. But we can, say in a kingdom, feel a shared group notion by all being allied and following the authority of the one king. And that works up until nation state levels of size, where you have many groups and it becomes impossible for an authoritarian to control their whole hierarchy. So then you get principles like democracy and personal freedom emerging, and 200 million can organise on that basis, and pay taxes into a shared pool, go to war if needed, as part of their "contracts" with society.

      But here's the kicker, and goes straight to your point: when a level is unsustainable for whatever reason, when it is failing, people easily revert to an earlier level. That is why the Middle East keeps reverting to the tribal stage, because it worked, it worked for 50,000 years, and if the new "modernity" ain't working, then go back to something which is known to work.

      Meanwhile, some people may discover or invent newer stages, newer ways of organising around new rules. That is after all the whole point, if I may say, about the climate change movement, in that they want to convince everyone that the existing nation states and industries have created problems and externalities which they can't solve, they are external, and so they will demand we move to a new higher way of organising, one that works for humans and the planet and all other species (see we are now into a "group" the size of trillions).

      So yes, when industrial headlands are decimated (or whatever the roman is for 50 or 90) then people feel that the system is not working, and so many people easily go down to an earlier stage, which happens to be the stage of "kings" ie. authoritarian, protectionist, which is part or all of the various signs and signals that Trump has been giving to the electorate.

      But note that is still a stage higher than pure tribal warlordism which is even more confined than kings. Tribal warlordism is just one tribe thrashing the shit out of all the other tribes. And that's ISIL. But you know, tribes worked for 50,000 years and it is just in our psychology. The camaraderie, the brotherhood, the romantic glory of conquest, and the raging blood lust.

      It is like watching The One Hundred, and Earth devolved to tribes. It is just like that.

      In Pygmalion the father is willing to sell his daughter, and the posh people ask him, "have you no morals?" and he replies, "can't afford them"
      (words to that effect).

      It is just like that, in that, if life conditions deteriorate, people often revert to earlier stages, as they can no longer afford the more "civilised" order. And that's human social systems. It is how they work.

      The point is, the earlier systems are there, kinda dormant in us, ready to be activated if needed.
      So this is observational and interpretation -- how the mechanism actually works is going to be something in our wired brains and capacities, I would guess.

      In a liberal sense, you want life to be nourishing and fair with education and good opportunities, so that in a conservative sense, everyone can work on their own character and develop themselves into becoming a better person, more attuned to society and the planet.

    25. Re:No kidding... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      it is also not racist to call black people 'Sambo' or to refer to Jews as 'Yids'?

      I live in the Deep South (theoretically, at least, the Heart of Racism in America). And I haven't EVER heard someone refer to a black man as "Sambo" or Jews as "Yids".

      Not once, ever.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    26. Re:No kidding... by cryptizard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There does seem to be more violent left-wing thugs than there are right-wing thugs

      I don't know about that, since it is hard to quantify, but there are definitely a lot more right-wing thugs murdering people e.g. Portland, Quebec City, Charleston, etc.

    27. Re:No kidding... by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Deciding who can say what based on what race or ethnic group they are a member of is the height of racism IMHO. If we are all the same we should be free to playfully mock one another. When you claim otherwise you are headed down the path of victim hierarchy BS.

      Blacks comedians make fun of whites all the time Chris Rock has called white people "cracker" and its not a problem for anyone who does not have their SJW baton shoved so far up their ass its coming out their nose. On the other hand if you did it the other way round you'd be branded a racist by many. Clearly Chris Rock is not a racist who hates white people, how to do I know? At no point listening to any of his bits (which I enjoy) or interviews with him or reading reports of anything he has done have I felt his intention was to case me pain or belittle me for being white. He is just having fun.

      The test for racism really needs to include intent, when the intent of an action is to oppress, belittle, cause pain, or exclude; an act may be racist if it is otherwise racially motivated as well. Where that intent does not exists, it might be insensitive and maybe the affected person has a right ask someone not to do that but its unfair to brand that person a racist. What we have today is just a recipe for keeping everyone upset with each other all the time, and thus preserving racism.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    28. Re:No kidding... by Subm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > Have not heard about too many right-wing riots where they were trying to silence a left-wing speaker.

      Looking up Martin Luther King Junior and watching videos of Selma, or Nelson Mandela and Apartheid, might give you a good start.

      They are blatant historical examples. The trend continues today.

    29. Re:No kidding... by poity · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The 2nd Amendment dramatically raises the cost of oppression. No longer can they ask you firmly to get in the truck and whisk you away. The political calculus changes if they know they must make loud noises and scatter some corpses in order to do certain things.

      --
      your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
    30. Re:No kidding... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For these people, it isn't enough to impose their bigoted will upon the rest of civilized society. It is only enough when they achieve their end goal of killing or converting those who disagree.

      Err....this actually describes to a "T" the leftists and SJW's in the US at this time, not the conservatives or right.....

      Who is it was see using riots and violence in most recent years? It certainly isn't the republicans or the tea party folks...it is the SJW's....the left leaning citizens.

      The right isn't using violence, riots or intimidation to suppress expression by the other side...it is the LEFT that is doing this and has been for years now. It is a left wing fascism that is the violent problem in the US these days...trying to suppress any ideology that even remotely disagrees with them and their groupthink.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    31. Re: No kidding... by e3m4n · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you are in fact, part of the militia, armed or otherwise. You are expected to come to the aid of your fellow citizen in their hour of need. Whether that means fighting off attackers, muggers, gangs, helping someone after a car accident, its all part and parcel.

    32. Re:No kidding... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Racism used to be heavily institutionalized, to the point where it was the normal, default position in society. For example, back when black people had to use a different bathroom, you couldn't really say that the white folks using the white bathroom were racists - they might be, but because that was the system at the time merely using the white-only bathroom wasn't an indication of racist intent or views.

      Now that a lot of that institutional stuff has gone, there is more focus on individual behaviour. People are more accountable for the things they do and say, because they can't hide behind it being the norm or the majority of other people doing it.

      So yes, racism has decreased, but racism isn't a single measurable value that manifests in only one way.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    33. Re:No kidding... by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

      Umm, Jim Crow laws were for the most part passed by Democrats, not Republicans

      Which makes sense because until the middle of the 20th century Republicans were the progressive party and Democrats the conservative party, particularly with respect to social issues.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    34. Re:No kidding... by BronsCon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While this is correct, it is equally important to call out racism only where it exists. When the person in line in front of me at the market comes up short, did I offer to cover the few dollars difference so that I could get through the line faster? Or because they were darker skinned than I am? Or a woman? Or that I found them attractive? Or even found them ugly and just wanted to get rid of them faster? Or simply because I don't want to see a fellow human being suffer? You don't know, but people like you will automatically accuse me of making some power play if their gender or skin color does not match my own.

      Of course, if they're the same gender and skin color as me, you'll question whether I would have done the same if that were not the case.

      When that shit stops, then we can make some actual progress.

      People like you care a lot more about gender, race, and sexual orientation than people like me. If I choose to help someone in need, it is because I recognized their need during a time when I was capable of helping without setting myself back; if I don't help someone, it is because I can't. That extends to things as simple as holding the door for someone (for which only White Males typically ever thank me, mind you), which is something you will witness me doing to a fault; more often that I'm willing to admit, I have to let the door go in someone's face in order to catch up with my wife, who's already traversed the entire parking lot and started getting in the car. Because people have no fucking respect anymore.

      Most often, it is a White Male who will take the door from me and hold it for his own group. The next most common is for a Black Male to take the door from me, followed by Hispanic and Asian Women, at roughly equal rates. I've never had someone of Middle Eastern descent take the door from me, or even so much as thank me for holding it.

      But, then, I don't hold the door to be thanked, I hold the door because it is the right thing to do when not holding it would have it close in someone's face. I don't expect the thanks, but I do appreciate it. I do, however, expect that you will take the fucking door from me when you see me separating myself from my group to hold it for you, rather than being a dick and expecting me to hold it for your entire group.

      Regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference.

      Because it's the right fucking thing to do.

      Now, apply that everywhere.

      Making broad statements, expressing broad expectations, or treating someone differently based on one's gender is sexism. Doing the same based on one's race is racism. Doing the same based on one's sexual preference is yet another form of bigotry for which I am sure there is also a name.

      If you want it to stop, you must first stop assuming that everything everyone else does is motivated by it the same way everything you do is. That is, you must first recognize that, by accusing someone of being racist because of their race, sexist because of their gender, or whatever you call someone who discriminates against someone based on their sexual preference, because of their sexual preference, that you are doing the very same thing you are accusing them of.

      Stopping it starts with you.

      This isn't me complaining or whining, it's me simply stating my observations as fact. If you don't like the facts as I've observed them, change them instead of whining about what I've observed.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  2. Nice leftist echo chamber you got here by HBI · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Vox is a leftist advocacy site and doesn't even try to sugarcoat it.

    I'd like to see you link to something from say, Mike Cernovich. Never will happen, but if you're going to link to this partisan tripe, might as well go both ways.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:Nice leftist echo chamber you got here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Two thoughts: First, this is just another variant of 'Trump won because people are racist'. Clearly that's true to some degree no doubt, but continuing to act as if that's the rational behind all or even a majority of Trump voters (who were not necessarily Trump supporters, there's a difference) isn't exactly endearing the left to anyone outside the echo chambers, or helping to set up whoever runs in 2020 to do better. If there's on thing the middle/low class white people aren't going to want to hear (again) it is someone from a classist institute like Harvard telling them they are racist.

      Second, when the Clinton campaign said they had the black or Hispanic or women vote, it was in a bragging tone, but when they said Trump had the white male vote, it was an accusation. If you don't like racism, don't fan the flames of it. Identity politics is toxic, and if you play that game and it bites you in the ass, you get what you deserve.

    2. Re: Nice leftist echo chamber you got here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because they got it wrong. Someone who Google Obama and KKK is not racist, but wants to know if Democrats have something to do with KKK.

      It is also a cheap try to manifest "racists" and "Trump voters" in people's heads and this is tried again and again until everyone believes it.

      I am not a US citizen, but I can see how media (also here) has a fixed agenda to use Trump for all bad things in this world. This is very obvious.

      I don't block people who have other opinions on social media. I can see what people read on both sides. And last year, I've seen masses of people pro Trump while media had prognosis of 80-90% pro Hillary. It was weird. Later it turned out that New York Times lied to push people to vote for Hillary. This works of course.

      Don't be naive. The media was already criticized some time ago before Trump, not to be able to follow politics properly. They are biased. They add opinions and should report neutral facts.

      From what I can tell the most effective work pro Trump has been done by Wikileaks.

    3. Re:Nice leftist echo chamber you got here by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'd like to see you link to something from say, Mike Cernovich.

      You mean the guy who thinks his cum has magical properties? (No, I'm not joking about that. Well, yeah, I'm joking about it, but it's actually true. Cernovich thinks his pecker-snot is magical.)

      Here, I'll gladly link to something from Mike "Juicebro" Cernovich and his patented "Gorilla Mindset" and patented "nootropics".

      https://wonkette.com/612835/a-...

      And just so you don't think I just picked a left-wing blog in order to show what Mike "Juicebro" Cernovich is about, here's a little something-something about him from the National Review:

      http://www.nationalreview.com/...

      The reason you won't see anything from Mike Cernovich linked here is because he is a goddamned laughing stock.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Nice leftist echo chamber you got here by Powercntrl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Clearly that's true to some degree no doubt, but continuing to act as if that's the rational behind all or even a majority of Trump voters (who were not necessarily Trump supporters, there's a difference) isn't exactly endearing the left to anyone outside the echo chambers, or helping to set up whoever runs in 2020 to do better. If there's on thing the middle/low class white people aren't going to want to hear (again) it is someone from a classist institute like Harvard telling them they are racist.

      For fuck's sake, someone always has to bring up how the "left" would win over Trump supporters, if the left could just stop being so insulting towards them.
      Think about this for a second: These are people who ignored every single repulsive aspect of Trump's policies and the campaign he ran. They willingly voted for a man who said, and I quote "I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters." Here's a hint: That means even Trump realizes his own supporters are drinking the kool aid.

      These are people who are either completely unwilling to listen to a viewpoint which contradicts their world view, or they actually agree with the deplorable things that come out of Trump's mouth. You're just not going to win over those people; you just have to hope they don't bother to vote, and your side has a better turnout.

      --

      ---
      DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
    5. Re:Nice leftist echo chamber you got here by bradley13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Typical Vox article, where "pro-Trump" = "racist". Continuing to deny even the remotest possibility that Hillary! was just too corrupt for many people to swallow, and that she is indicative of the political elite orchestrating the presidential election.

      Bernie was never meant to be a real threat to Hillary! but the D constituents are just as fed up with the 1% as anyone else. Even without those carefully crafted primary rules, Bernie almost got out of control. The R side of the equation didn't have those rules in place, so Jeb did get displaced. That left Trump-the-outsider running against Hillary!-the-corrupt, and that's why he won.

      It seems to me that even progressive publications like Vox would see through what's going on here. It's no longer (only) progressive vs. conservative. This is a different battle, orthogonal to the first one: it's the political elite pulling the levers behind the scenes, vs. actually having control of your own government.

      --
      Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
  3. Fascinating by Jzanu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While this is only partially damning to the US compared to the thousands of other things it is failing at, this method of data collection ignores the need for sampling. Even taking a census of collected data is nothing but a biased sample due to the sheer quantity of data that is never entered into a google search. At best the changes in frequencies may show the behavior of whatever subset of the area targeted participates, but it remains a convenience sample with limited use in larger inference.

  4. All of a sudden? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So after decades and decades of diminishing racism all of a sudden America becomes a nazi state? Puh-leese Boris.

    1. Re:All of a sudden? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Diminishing racism was a problem to those who want to control others, so they started these divide and conquer campaigns that convinced the public that every other race was the cause of all their problems. White people were the cause of all black people's ills, blacks were the problems in white societies, Mexicans were taking all the American jobs, whites had stolen Mexican land which needed to be taken back, and Muslims had to be shoved into vastly differing-in-ideology Western countries en masse without any time for assimilation knowing this would be a powder keg. They'd force extremely rare minority issues like "trans*" to the forefront and give it top priority, demanding people spend money and time to accommodate them, and anyone who said "no" would be branded some sort of -phobic and demonized.

      Identity politics allows those in power to rule over the masses while they fight among themselves. There are some that get paid to promote this attack line, and there are those ideologists (usually young and naive) who were duped into doing it for free, thinking they were supporting some higher cause.

  5. Conclusions by rationale by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While this is only partially damning to the US compared to the thousands of other things it is failing at, this method of data collection ignores the need for sampling. Even taking a census of collected data is nothing but a biased sample due to the sheer quantity of data that is never entered into a google search. At best the changes in frequencies may show the behavior of whatever subset of the area targeted participates, but it remains a convenience sample with limited use in larger inference.

    And further, it draws conclusions about the data by "rationale". Explaining a reasonable-sounding rationale for the data is not the same as testing a hypothesis.

    For example, I'm sure "severed head of Donald Trump" was a big search item a couple of weeks ago. Did this mean that a large part of the population wanted to do him harm?

    A lot of people have been searching "Jihad" recently. Can you conclude anything about the people doing the searches, other than they heard something in the news and wanted to find out more?

    Could it be that people google things that appear to be are racist and selfish because... they wanted to find out more about what's going on?

    1. Re:Conclusions by rationale by lucm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      more Americans want to see Trump impeached than support him.

      In other words, "vote for my candidate or we'll impeach yours".

      <- North Korea is this way, you may find that country more suitable to your interpretation of democracy

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  6. Damn, slashdot! by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Slashdot has been bloody awful lately.

    Pointless political articles and click-bait headlines with little or no tech aspect, just what the audience wants to see!

  7. Content of the Article by Kunedog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What does your crying have to do with the content of the article? Or are we just screaming "fake news!" at the sight of anything that challenges our dissonant views?

    Since it sounds like you've read the article, maybe you could answer this question: Did they track all racism, or just the racism they disagreed with? If so, then in what regions of the country was anti-white racism concentrated (or fast-growing)?

    Far be it from me to suggest Vox (and the "researcher") are just partisan hacks who would selectively ignore (and even promote) the racism they agree with, but that info is missing from TFS (and the headline refers to "racist" people in general).

  8. Re:The thing that gets me about electing Trump... by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but your focusing on the persona of a host of a TV show, rather than the guy playing the part

    I haven't seen that much Apprentice, but I'm not seeing a lot of daylight between Trump the tv persona and Trump the politician.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  9. "not merely in the South" by AdamStarks · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As if to say "We all agree to assume that the South is generally racist, but did you also know that the North also has some racism?"

    I'm not going to say the South doesn't have a problem with racism, but a kind of "Our shit stinks less than yours" presumption comes across, whether or not it's intended. It's a specific example of the broader issue of cultural elitism, alongside making fun of rednecks, assuming those with drawls are stupid, and calling Californians ditzes.

    I myself am not a target of any of these kinds of slights. My accent is (mostly) all-American, I work in the tech industry, and I've lived in and/or visited plenty of different cities/states/countries, so I have the privilege to pretend these little jabs aren't aimed at me. But how's about we stop with bigotry, on all ends? Don't assume black people are lazy, don't assume women give a shit about your feelings, don't assume gay men want to fuck you, and don't assume southerners are ignorant. Such a thing is at best a roundabout way of navigating your foot into your mouth.

    None of this really has anything to do with the article itself, but rather some minor phrasing at the end of the summary. Just like CowboyNeal intended.

    1. Re: "not merely in the South" by amiga3D · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember as a child in Georgia I was going to racially integrated schools watching buses burning in Boston. It never occurred to me that the North wasn't integrated already. Then when I joined the US Air Force in 1979 I went to tech school and going to my room and seeing my room mate had a Confederate Flag, the Stars and Bars, on his wall. I asked him where he was from thinking Carolinas or maybe Alabama. Imagine my surprise to find out he was a Yankee from New York. He loved Lynyrd Skynyrd too, he had Gimme 3 Steps blaring on the stereo. I had grown up around black people and found his attitude offensive even compared to what I was used to at home. Some of the people I met in the military from Ohio and such places were even worse.

  10. What the words say by XXongo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The god-damned never-ending gun-control argument always takes over any thread. OK, let's do the legal analysis thing.

    The plain reading of the second amendment says that the government can't take away the right of people to carry arms. It doesn't go into what kinds of arms. The initial clause (something which the writers thought necessary here, but not necessary in any of the rest of the bill of rights) complicates the sentence, but it does not cancel out the second part: the right of the people to bear arms has to be interpreted in the context of "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State", but that statement adds context, it doesn't reverse the plain meaning.

    Got that? OK so far. From that statement, you can say that the government has the right to regulate arms (it makes no sense for a militia to be "well regulated" without the ability to regulate), but not the right to "abridge" the right of citizens to bear arms, (where the plain meaning of "abridge" means "take away.") From other supreme court decisions, we can add that the government does not have the right to make regulations that are so strict as to de facto take away the right to bear arms (the court has already struck down other such attempts to take away rights by the back door.)

    Thus. The government can regulate arms, but can't take them away. So the only issue is, at what point a particular regulation becomes de facto taking away the right to bear arms, and not merely regulating them?

    My personal conclusion-- and I'm now shifting over to opinion, not analysis-- would be that the government is allowed to require a permit for a person to have a machine gun, but can't forbid it utterly.