US elections 2016 - "Go ahead, throw your vote away"

[maarsen]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I do try.  Is it effective?

That's it. Sticky me with the pointy end of the question. I would have to say yes, but it is a slow process. When I became a local union exec,  our local had a rather adversarial relation with our management.  It was suggested that we try to repair the relationship by taking the first step to being nicer across the table when we met.  It did take a few years but we have seen a change for the better. 

[Happy Ent]

9 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

And so bigotry will only be cured when there aren't 100,000,000 or more bigots in the country. 

The number is 144,000:

Quote

Skies are upended, poured as milk into the tar of night. Cities become pits for fire. The last of the wicked stand with the last of the righteous, lamenting the same woe. One Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand, they shall be called, for this is their tally, the very number of doom.

 —ANONYMOUS, THE THIRD REVELATION OF GANUS THE BLIND

[Happy Ent]

36 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I wish I still believed that reason changes minds.

Of course it does. But so does tribalism, and it’s much more powerful. 

What you can do is to become better at changing your mind for the right reasons (instead of fretting over other people not changing their minds). That is hard enough, but worth doing. As you develop acuity about your own biases, you become better at understanding what others would need to change their minds.

[Guy Kilmore]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I don't know if that is directed toward me, but that's not what I'm saying.  I'm wondering what methodolgies are proper in dealing with other's intolerance?

I am hesitant to engage in this debate, because I pop in this board to escape from work, and well, this is work for me.

So, I might just leave my 2 cents and drop out of this conversation, but one of the most powerful motivators for humans is validation through one's relationships.  It is why one of the measures of someone resiliency looks at the amount and variety of significant relationships in one's life.

I work in the mental health field and am in continual contact with marginalized members of our society.  I am also a Caucasian, heterosexual, middle class male of a protestant background.  I'm about as much as the poster child of privilege as one can get.  This can be a barrier at times when attempting to relate to the culture experiences of those I advocate and serve.  With that said, it also provides me a certain set of skills that I can use to help.  I can cross into some of these bigoted groups and advocate for my clients and social change.  I can build rapport through shared social connections and then, craft conversation, in which we have emotional anchors, to facilitate change.

The problem is, it takes a really long time and only works on a small scale and requires everyone to engage.  It also requires one to put themselves in a position where they can be at risk.  (But when one really thinks about it, that is how I benefit from my privilege is I get to chose the time and place of certain risks.)  

There are also times that a public stand is warranted and well, when that happens, someone will get marginalized.  (I remember doing that in an LA fitness when someone was being bodyshamed by two other people.  I said something out loud to them, to well, in part shame them.  That wasn't my goal though, it was really to uplift and provide support to the person "being" shamed.  I could tell she could hear it and it was really affecting her.

The tl;dr version, social change can be effectively accomplished through the use of varied tools from our social interaction utility belt.  Two I identified with can be through fostering relationships or sometimes through public confrontation in which to normalize the person being marginalized behavior.  Confrontation does have the byproduct of marginalizing someone else.

[TrackerNeil]

54 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What other means can be used?

I don't know if there are any means, as such. I think that, since most opinions are formed emotionally, they are changed only when their owners feel emotionally ready to do so. How you get people feeling differently about an issue is another matter entirely, but I think part of it is giving them an emotional stake. It's easy to dislike gay people until your son comes out and you see how shitty the world is to him. Maybe people start sympathizing with Black Lives Matter when they see black people they know and admire getting abused by police--I don't know. 

[mormont]

Look, human beings are complicated.

Changing the mind of one human being generally requires a specific mixture of tactics including a variable mix of reason and appeals to various emotions (sympathy, embarrassment, whatever). There is a specific solution in each individual case but there is no magic formula that'll work with absolutely everyone in a group of tens of millions. The best you can do is try a range of tactics in the hope that you'll find combinations that work for at least some of them, while at the same time standing up and clearly saying what you believe is right - as Guy says, if only to signal to the people who're being discriminated against.

Since there is no magic formula, I'm not sure there's a further purpose to arguing about what it might be.

ETA - how about this: if you want to have a general discussion about 'how do you change people's minds en masse?', start a separate thread. If you want to discuss 'how, in this election, does one of the candidates appeal to a specific group of voters?' then keep it here. Make sense?

[Kalbear]

Empathy in general works better and lasts longer than rationality. 

[Commodore]

give everyone around the target immunity, then don't prosecute and close the case; everyone gets away scot free, no need to find a scapegoat

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

28 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Empathy in general works better and lasts longer than rationality. 

SURVEY SAYS....#1 ANSWER!

I find that when I can manage to put myself in someone else's shoes, and successfully convey that to whomever it is I'm dealing with, the attempts at rationality seem to be received better. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

16 minutes ago, Commodore said:

give everyone around the target immunity, then don't prosecute and close the case; everyone gets away scot free, no need to find a scapegoat

 

Trigger man and email scandal don't really belong in the same sentence, do they?

[Boris the Blade]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Bigoted actions in hiring or providing services are already illegal civily or criminally.

How else can they be convinced of their irrationality?  What other steps can a civil society attempt to get people to set aside bigoted beliefs?

 

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Pardon?  What do you mean by "gang bang" the lewd or violent interpretation?

I mean it in a joking lewd manner. I'm going to quote a friend of mine that has first hand experiences with being on the receiving end of racism and that is apart of BLM. " You can't explain racism to casual racists. These are the ppl who don't know they're racist while using every excuse to prove to you that they aren't racist. They believe they have it all figured out and are beyond the powerful brainwashing of white supremacist rhetoric they've been bombarded with their entire lives."  

[Ormond]

52 minutes ago, mormont said:

Look, human beings are complicated.

Changing the mind of one human being generally requires a specific mixture of tactics including a variable mix of reason and appeals to various emotions (sympathy, embarrassment, whatever). There is a specific solution in each individual case but there is no magic formula that'll work with absolutely everyone in a group of tens of millions. The best you can do is try a range of tactics in the hope that you'll find combinations that work for at least some of them, while at the same time standing up and clearly saying what you believe is right - as Guy says, if only to signal to the people who're being discriminated against.

Since there is no magic formula, I'm not sure there's a further purpose to arguing about what it might be.

ETA - how about this: if you want to have a general discussion about 'how do you change people's minds en masse?', start a separate thread. If you want to discuss 'how, in this election, does one of the candidates appeal to a specific group of voters?' then keep it here. Make sense?

As an academic psychologist, I really agree with the above -- and also agree with it being time to get this discussion out of the Elections thread.

[maarsen]

54 minutes ago, Guy Kilmore said:

I am hesitant to engage in this debate, because I pop in this board to escape from work, and well, this is work for me.

So, I might just leave my 2 cents and drop out of this conversation, but one of the most powerful motivators for humans is validation through one's relationships.  It is why one of the measures of someone resiliency looks at the amount and variety of significant relationships in one's life.

I work in the mental health field and am in continual contact with marginalized members of our society.  I am also a Caucasian, heterosexual, middle class male of a protestant background.  I'm about as much as the poster child of privilege as one can get.  This can be a barrier at times when attempting to relate to the culture experiences of those I advocate and serve.  With that said, it also provides me a certain set of skills that I can use to help.  I can cross into some of these bigoted groups and advocate for my clients and social change.  I can build rapport through shared social connections and then, craft conversation, in which we have emotional anchors, to facilitate change.

The problem is, it takes a really long time and only works on a small scale and requires everyone to engage.  It also requires one to put themselves in a position where they can be at risk.  (But when one really thinks about it, that is how I benefit from my privilege is I get to chose the time and place of certain risks.)  

There are also times that a public stand is warranted and well, when that happens, someone will get marginalized.  (I remember doing that in an LA fitness when someone was being bodyshamed by two other people.  I said something out loud to them, to well, in part shame them.  That wasn't my goal though, it was really to uplift and provide support to the person "being" shamed.  I could tell she could hear it and it was really affecting her.

The tl;dr version, social change can be effectively accomplished through the use of varied tools from our social interaction utility belt.  Two I identified with can be through fostering relationships or sometimes through public confrontation in which to normalize the person being marginalized behavior.  Confrontation does have the byproduct of marginalizing someone else.

A nice thoughtful answer. In my experience, we all tend to have some ingrown bias against 'others'. I know I have it.  The trick is, I refuse to let it affect my behaviour.  My awareness of it let's me strangle it. As to confrontation, yeah, not always a good solution. I would suggest the Socratic method  myself. 

[Ormond]

To try to get use back closer to the Elections, here is a New York Times article on polarization in American politics which advocates that multi-member House districts would be one solution. I'm not sure if that would work myself. Part of the argument, though, seems to be that it's natural everywhere in the world for urban areas to be more "liberal" and rural areas to be more "conservative" and "populist."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/opinion/campaign-stops/the-divided-states-of-america.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

 

 

[maarsen]

I am sure that the Assyrians, when they built the first city-state, had rude thoughts about those who lived outside of the walls. The urban rural divide  has been with us since then.  The problem is usually exacerbated by more voting weight given to rural areas even as urban areas  outgrew  them. Strict rep by pop will help.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, Ormond said:

To try to get use back closer to the Elections, here is a New York Times article on polarization in American politics which advocates that multi-member House districts would be one solution. I'm not sure if that would work myself. Part of the argument, though, seems to be that it's natural everywhere in the world for urban areas to be more "liberal" and rural areas to be more "conservative" and "populist."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/opinion/campaign-stops/the-divided-states-of-america.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

 

 

I would love to see the US do away with single member districts for the HOR and go to proportional representation.

[Hereward]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

 Part of the argument, though, seems to be that it's natural everywhere in the world for urban areas to be more "liberal" and rural areas to be more "conservative" and "populist."

 

Taking the Brexit referendum as a potential counter-example, poor urban areas outside London voted Leave, the populist position, while richer rural areas voted Remain, the conservative position.

[DanteGabriel]

Well, it finally happened. Ted Cruz, the Second to Last Principled Conservative Senator, is endorsing Trump. Or, as Deadspin puts it:

Ted Cruz Planning to Cuck Himself

Is anyone surprised?

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, maarsen said:

I am sure that the Assyrians, when they built the first city-state, had rude thoughts about those who lived outside of the walls. The urban rural divide  has been with us since then.  The problem is usually exacerbated by more voting weight given to rural areas even as urban areas  outgrew  them. Strict rep by pop will help.

It was the Sumerians that first established the city-state. This is the kind of ignorance that Trump preys upon. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

11 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Well, it finally happened. Ted Cruz, the Second to Last Principled Conservative Senator, is endorsing Trump. Or, as Deadspin puts it:

Ted Cruz Planning to Cuck Himself

Is anyone surprised?

Kinda. Seeing as how he didn't do it at the convention, I didn't think he was going to do it period. I guess Little Reince Priebus's threat got taken serious for some strange reason.