Ah, if that's the case the you would think #wanking is accomplishing the same thing as the article ;) What can I do to impact a person in any part of Alabama? Or rural Michigan? Or suburban Texas? Fuck all, really, I don't live there, I don't have family there, I have no connection to those places whatsoever. Shy of moving to any of those places, the best I can is to donate to political races, the ACLU, the SPLC, Planned Parenthood, etc. To think there is more I can do for those places and people is to put a savior complex on myself. What am I doing? Volunteering for two organizations regularly, three others on occasion, donating to certain non profit agencies, and trying to make the world immediately around me a bit better of a place.
I dunno, duderz. I've got nothin'. We're absolutely headed further down the rabbit hole of extreme political polarization, racial tension, and speculative economic foundations. The ultimate conspiracy theorist in me hypothesizes that this was all by design, that the eventual outcome is a post-political landscape in which the only way to stay sane is to abstain from participating in governance at any level (that's, like, what theyyyyy want, man). The optimist in me thinks that this is all an unavoidable stage in the maturation of the internet. I know we'll trudge through the challenges, one way or the other. Either way, we need to start seriously re-examining how society ingests, processes, and responds to information. Looks like Russia has beaten us to the punch, at least domestically. But I do wonder about the scale and success of our own intelligence agencies' presumably similar operations abroad. Rural America is going to lose the information war to their educated urban counterparts. In many ways, they already have, but they're gonna do their damnedest to ruin allllllll the nice things on their way to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. And again, liberal/urban America has plenty of issues, but once they get past the identity politics thing, the wheels that have been spinning might begin to grip some pavement. Spoiler: We're going to have to embrace cold (emphasis - BORING) statistics in our efforts, because emotionally-laden rhetoric is currently blowing out the nation's proverbial gaskets. And which group of folx have shown the most disdain (on top of a lack of a basic understanding) for unbiased, numerically-inclined analyses? Welp, Roy Moore and his ilk, for starters. And hey, a lot of the dumbest people are dying (sorry, grandma). Cheers! :D
So a couple thoughts on this. First, in terms of the conspiracy theory angle, have you read Sheldon Wolin's work on Inverted Totalitarianism? He posits a form of government that has the trappings of democracy, but none of the actual citizen involvement due in part to making everyone feel like their voice doesn't matter. As for the information war, I think you're largely right. Really this is an unfortunate case of a lot of people being left behind by their country. But I think that they're actually the canaries in the coalmine. Those of us in white collar jobs have a much greater cushion against the greed of the 1%, and unemployment remains a lot lower among our cadre. But you'll notice it's getting worse, and if nothing changes, I expect another generation or two will see levels of poverty and drug addiction from college-educated households approaching those that we see in Coal Country right now. Thankfully, once enough senators' kids can't find work, I think we'll start seeing some policy changes.
A big chunk of my job is driven around collecting and analyzing data, and making statistics into something useful in a manufacturing environment. Even Engineers as a whole don't have a firm grasp of both definitions and the math behind statistical analysis (why does normality matter, yo?). The shitty part is if you don't set things up correctly, or you p-hack, etc. etc. then your statistics are junk. So, I agree with you, but there is a lot of danger there, as I'm sure you already know. How do you educate people on this kind of thing? The two biggest problems I think we have (what do you think here?): 1. The Fairness Doctrine needs to come back. 2. We need to have a massive overhaul and reinvestment in our public educational system. Are either of these things going to happen anytime soon (if ever)? HAH.We're going to have to embrace cold (emphasis - BORING) statistics in our efforts
It's 3:50 AM local time, and I've just checked the weather forecast. I've wrapped my notebooks and the papers I graded tonight in saran wrap for my backpack, because my commute is public transport and a couple miles on foot. An umbrella is only good around here if you're not on the leading edge of a squall line, and god (RIP) only knows if I'll be so fortunate tomorrow. Short answer: Yes (but not to your last question, moreso your direction). I'll get back to you with more words than just that one in another couple/few/maybe-only-one days.
I die a little each time I am reminded that my once reasonable home has now thrown in its lot with Alabama. Kid Rock's stupid ass covered Sweet Home Alabama a few years back, and he's apparently running to make Roy Moore the second worst Senator (a hard title to grab, because actually nobody seems to know what Kid Rock's policy objectives [lol] are or if he has any beyond "being white trash is cool and so is being a Senator, so fuck you, I'm running"). Roy Moore was an officer of the court who literally believed that the laws of the US are based on the 10 commandments, despite the fact that (a) very few overlap, and (b), if we stopped coveting our economy would collapse. There's no combating that with words, because it's disprovable in a single sentence.
I'm gonna tell you right now, there's no argument you can make that will make a person in Rural Michigan give up their guns. Gun policy has to address the realities of people living in environments where law enforcement can not be counted on for personal protection.