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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2530 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 15, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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In the spirit of Buzzfeed and Murray's Coming Apart quiz on how thick your bubble is, what're your best questions for assessing Red Tribe vs Blue Tribe American membership accurately. I've thought of a few, wandering what everyone would add. I'm aiming more for questions that get at the cultural attitudes and feelings that underly tribal membership, rather than political positions questions, which I feel are more vulnerable to lies. So far I've got for examples and formatting, I'm setting Red as Positive and Blue as Negative, the higher your score the Redder you are:

Do you drive a car with a V8 engine?

Yes (+2), No (0), Yes but it's not my daily driver (+4), I don't know (-8), I don't drive (-2)

How often do you go to church?

About as often as I'd like (+1), less often than I'd like (+4), more often than I'd like (-4)

What is the biggest reason you prefer to buy things made in America?

They are higher quality (+4), workers are paid a fair wage (+1), it's important that we make as much as possible at home (+2), I don't prefer things made in America (-2)

How large a raise would you need to be offered to do your job in a foreign country for two years, assuming that your standard of living would remain more or less the same while you were there?

50% or more (+4), 25-50% (+2), 0-25% (-2), I would do it for less than I'm making now (-4)

I don't drive (-2)

Needs a larger negative in my opinion.

On a completely unrelated note, it still keeps surprising me how rich Americans are. People just drive around with V8 engines.

It's fairly related, actually.

Rednecks I know with no money still keep a V8 pickup or old project car around. It's the space, when you have a large property in a low-land-value area, to store it.

‘How many goals do you use for a pickup basketball game?’- red tribers play on half a court, blue tribers play on a full one.

‘Your biggest role model is_?’ Red tribers are more likely to name a parent or grandparent, blues a public figure.

‘Should people not their parents treat older teens more as adults or children?’ Red tribers would tend towards the former, blues the latter.

‘What should schools teach, but don’t?’ Red tribe answers might be vocational skills, home ec, or shop, but are more likely to be ‘civics so people don’t let the government oppress them’, blues might answer something culture warsy like sex Ed or the age of the earth(and few schools in America actually have a YEC curriculum), but I would point to STEM as probably a more common answer.

‘Is racism or a bad culture the biggest problem facing the black community?’ Self explanatory(true HBD is a fringe position in the red tribe).

‘Is racism or a bad culture the biggest problem facing the black community?’ Self explanatory(true HBD is a fringe position in the red tribe).

I like this one, but I think in more detail it could go

What is the best way to uplift black communities?

Increase funding for education (-2), Increase funding for police (+2), decrease funding for police (-4), increase attendance at churches (+6)

The black church is not always viewed as positively among cultural conservatives as the evangelical church, or the white Catholic or orthodox churches. Part of that is politics but part of it is quite literally that liberal views on sexual morality are not viewed as being compatible with helping the black community fixing its broken culture, because that broken culture is viewed as being downstream of promiscuity and poor family values.

I remember my mother- red tribe leftist- saying ‘black kids don’t have dads because their churches put women as heads of household’. Liberal views about family, gender, and sexuality are probably more of a mainline Protestant thing, but their existence in the black church takes a lot of the blame for black dysfunction in the broader red tribe.

Interesting! I've never heard that critique, possibly because I'm less into the Protestant infighting.

Still, I'd contend that it's much more likely that a person who says that inner cities need more religion would still say that despite that critique of existing black churches, they would simply say they need more proper churches.

Probably, yes. And there are distinctively black socially conservative religious movements, such as NOI and the black Hebrew Israelites. For some reason these groups are no more popular with the religious right than with anyone else, despite being sociologically pretty similar. On the other hand black KJV-onlyists seem popular with their evangelical counterparts despite predictable voting differences.

I would be very interested in examinations of the outcomes of kids born in these groups.

‘How many goals do you use for a pickup basketball game?’- red tribers play on half a court, blue tribers play on a full one.

Wait what? I would've said you just use whatever you have to hand. Sometimes that's a half court, sometimes full. Why would this have a tribal slant to it?

I don’t know how it originated, but I’ve seen reds play on a half court when a full one was readily available enough to pick up on a pattern.

I mean, obviously basketball is a very blue coded sport- especially by the standards of US team sports- but it seems like a thing.

obviously basketball is a very blue coded sport

So says the Texan. Come to Kentucky or Indiana and say that.

Wait what? I would've said you just use whatever you have to hand. Sometimes that's a half court, sometimes full. Why would this have a tribal slant to it?

Maybe a hoop in a driveway vs a full public court? An obscured way of getting at suburbs vs city?

Just say "Trump" and their reaction should be enough.

Any positive reaction: clearly red tribe.

Uncertainty or confusion: gray tribe.

Any negative reaction: clearly blue tribe.

I think that most of the members of the red tribe will have a positive or neutral reaction to Trump, but that is about all it tells you.

Scott Alexander, as firmly part of the grey tribe as anyone could be, spent thousands of words to persuade republicans not to vote for Trump. Should I suspect that he is crypto-woke?

I consider myself part of the grey tribe and my reaction to Trump is mostly negative.

There are prominent republicans opposing Trump, does that make them blue tribe?

There is tribe and then there is political party, and I think Trump is closer to tribal divide than party divide.

And the way I'd ask the question is to get their initial reaction to Trump, not their thought out and considered reaction. If someone randomly brought up Trump to you would your reaction be something like "why are they bringing him up?" Or "what about Trump?" That would be the "confusion" reaction. Meaning you don't really respond to him emotionally too much. Strong blue and red tribers will skip past the conversational confusion and straight to a reaction about the man, because he has a strong emotional salience to them.

Scott Alexander, as firmly part of the grey tribe as anyone could be, spent thousands of words to persuade republicans not to vote for Trump. Should I suspect that he is crypto-woke?

He also wrote "you are still crying wolf" about Trump being racist. Which had some strong blue tribers almost foaming at the mouth mad at Scott. Your reaction and Scott's reaction to me seem grey tribe leaning blue, because you are forming opinions about Trump because of policies or things he does. If you were strongly red or blue tribe the facts would literally not matter.

I do not consider Scott ultimate grey tribe. I think that he thinks he is very grey tribe because he likes living in super heavy blue tribe areas and he knows he doesn't fit in among them. But there is the rub: he likes living in super heavy blue tribe areas.

Do you feel more comfortable among blue tribe or red tribe?

I think I'm grey tribe leaning red. I'd be confused if someone randomly brought him up. But his antics sort of use me, and I generally dislike his policy prescriptions. I'm not strongly emotionally attached either way to him.

he likes living in super heavy blue tribe areas

Well, he lives in Silicon Valley, which probably has the highest relative density of grey tribe (10%, perhaps?).

SV is also heavily urbanized and thus is overall very blue. But a high population density is kinda required if you want to meet people of your minority. Even if the fraction of people belonging to the grey tribe in rural Texas was equally high, meetups would involve much longer drives.

I agree that from what I know about his cultural upbringing, Scott is likely closer to the blue tribe than the red one. If he spent his youth fixing his car on his farm, he talks very little about it.

Of course, one could also discuss how much Trump himself fits into the red tribe. From my understanding, he was born elite and spent an awful lot of time in NYC. I don't think he ever shot his dog because it was going after the neighbors chickens. Definitely not a redneck/borderer type. On the other hand, he passes (imo) successfully as a working class man who comes to own a big fortune (even though he is nothing of that sort). Where other elites are into refinement, and perhaps subtly understate their wealth, Trump is the opposite, going for straightforward opulence.

Understatement: Jeff Bezos could have named his company Bezos. He did not. Trump likes to put his name on anything he is involved with. While I don't know the truth about that rumor, of all the people who might be able to afford a toilet bowl made out of gold, Trump feels like the person who would be most likely to signal his wealth that way.

Refinement: Other elites might marry sophisticated people with an advanced degree in fine arts. Trump goes straight for hot models. Where other elites would dine on food with fancy French names unknown to ordinary Americans, Trump likes his fast food.

Meaning you don't really respond to him emotionally too much.

I concede that. My reaction is more like 'urgh, please let us not have four more years of that clown', not 'he is a fascist and he will destroy democracy in America (this time!)'.

There are prominent republicans opposing Trump, does that make them blue tribe?

Indubitably yes! Remember that the red/blue split was not supposed to cleave on party affiliation or even ideology, but cultural affiliation. A republican from, say, the northeast, who comes from money and lives on an estate is going to be blue tribe almost without fail.

On the other hand, Cheney and Romney.

Cheney and Romney are the prototypical examples of Blue Tribe Republicans.

Cheney shot someone. Does that make him more or less red tribe?

More: He used his shotgun to shoot something on a hunting trip.

Less: He (hopefully) missed his real target. (ETA: And shot someone without killing him.)

Less. Bird bunting is a common wealthy blue tribe activity. More if he had been deer hunting.

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