GOP candidates VS entropy

[Dannyalcatraz]

People braved crossing the Berlin Wall all the time. Some succeeded, others didn't. Ditto the IGB.

Combined, their length was MUCH smaller than the wall between Mexico and the USA would be...and, while erected at great expense, are also gone.

The people who lived on the side controlled by those who erected it suffered through enormous hardships, and maintenance and monitoring was ruinously expensive.

IOW, big, showy economic disaster. It helped ruin East Germany's economy.

And much the same could be said of the Great Wall of China. Sure, it helped keep out invading armies, but it also was key in the cultural and economic stagnation of China.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No offense to the good people of Boston, but by the stories I hear, Bostonians are dicks.

One of my better bosses got moved back out there when her husband took a VP job and transferred to the facility out there. During the 5 or so years she lived there, her neighbors still called her place by it's old neighbors name. Nobody on campus was friendly or would say hello. This went on for years. Folks out there are cold and slow to warm up to people. That's probably not all people, but as a general trend, yeah, I can see them being anti-immigrant as just an extension of that non-friendly to new folk attitude.

Well, I wouldn't go by one person's account. There is the saying that if everyone you meet in a day is an A hole, maybe your the A hole. Not saying that was the case there, but if everyone in the neighborhood was rude to them, it is certainly possible they were doing something to cause it. Some of this is culture as well. I had relatives in the south and they knew how to be painfully nice to your face but speak in code to make fun of you. Here people just may be more blunt.

Boston has a reputation for more Racism than some other places. I'm honestly not sure how it compares to other states. You certainly do see it in some places of Boston, but I spent five years in Southern California as a kid (moving there from here) and I encountered a lot more blatant racism in that area. Boston is the kind of place where ethnic identity still does matter, that might be part of it. When I was a kid I remember encounter a lot of ignorance in Mass about Cambodians and other immigrant groups that were just starting to come in large numbers. But most of us are also descendants of immigrants ourselves whose grandparents were excluded by the old New England families and culture.

That said, being a dick and being a racist are two very different things in my view. I've met plenty of dicks who wouldn't do what those two guys did. They did that because they were violent racists. I'm not going to throw the cabby who gave me the finger in the same category as the duo that beat up a Mexican migrant worker.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That said, being a dick and being a racist are two very different things in my view.

I'm thinking the Venn Diagram would look like the R circle being wholly within the D circle, myself...

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm thinking the Venn Diagram would look like the R circle being wholly within the D circle, myself...

Many of the most atrocious racists I met were incredibly polite and by most other measures, good people. I've met nasty and mean racists too. But I don't know there is a causal link there. There might be some overlap. Haven't seen it myself. Whole swaths of the country with reputation for being polite and not being dickish were some of the areas where racism was most pervasive during Jim Crow.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As a nonwhite person*, I pretty much have to consider racists as dicks. This is not to say that they can't be nice- as I have often said, nobody is unalloyed evil or good.

But racism is one of those things that, no matter how charming you are, no matter the contexts & circumstances under which you can be nice to fellow human beings, you're a dick. (Likewise, see Serial Killers.)

I'm a born southerner, myself. Lived in one part or another for 75%+ of my life. I know about southern hospitality and racism. Nice though some of those racists were to my face, they were dicks when I wasn't around. A concealed dick is still a dick.







* not that nonwhites can't be racists. They can be, don't let anyone tell you differently. My beloved paternal aunt is one...but she's a dick.

 

[Bedrockgames]

As a nonwhite person*, I pretty much have to consider racists as dicks. This is not to say that they can't be nice- as I have often said, nobody is unalloyed evil or good.

But racism is one of those things that, no matter how charming you are, no matter the contexts & circumstances under which you can be nice to fellow human beings, you're a dick. (Likewise, see Serial Killers.)
* not that nonwhites can't be racists. They can be, don't let anyone tell you differently. My beloved paternal aunt is one...but she's a dick.

Sure, but I figured by Dick people meant "overtly rude".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dicks vary in their overtness. And magnitude.

 

[tomBitonti]

And much the same could be said of the Great Wall of China. Sure, it helped keep out invading armies, but it also was key in the cultural and economic stagnation of China.

I read somewhere that one of the reasons for building the Great Wall was to use up all available labor, basically, to prevent regions from having idle men who might foment rebellion.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Janx]

With respect... everyone everywhere are dicks. There are some local variations on the theme - Bostonian dickishness may a bit different from San Franciscan dickishness, and that's different from the several flavors you'll find in Texas. You may have become inured to your own local threat-each-other-poorly styles, so you don't notice them as much, but they are there.

And, to be clear, it isn't like the US is alone in this. Italy's fully of jerks. So is England. In many areas of the world, factions of horrible people are shooting at each other, and have been for decades.

Heck, they say Canadians are all polite and nice... but I met a horrible Canadian. Maybe like a scapegoat (or the horrible ST:TNG episode in which Tasha Yar dies) Canada sloughed off all it's ugly on this guy, and shipped him out. I met him in Italy, where, in a room with four people, two of them women, one of those being the teacher of a class he elected to take, he made misogynistic jokes and comments *all day*. Crashing boor, all the way.

That's probably true, though from what I can tell of stereotypes TX and MN are pretty welcoming states normally (check out the How to Speak Minnesotan video if you can find it). Barring racial issues, both MN/TX tend to be "hey, how are you, welcome to XYZ, where ya staying, can I help you find something". Out east tends to be don't talk or look at me until I've known you for at least 10 years (per the stereotype of US-easterners ala Boston, NY, etc).

By old boss was a native Bostonian actually. A very nice person. She found it hard to get into the social groove out there for years, and it was obvious that there were some cultural differences in how they roll out there. I had her performing social science experiments on the folks in her office, just to test this (things like saying hi to people when they passed, etc).

I'm sure it's not an absolute that all of Boston is like that, but over the years, I've seen a few clues that they aren't as friendly out there. Assuming close-off, reserved behavior is a trait more prevalent, that leads to more isolationist, and eventually racist behavior.

I could be way off, it's just an observation that I don't get the sense that Bostonians are all that welcoming. Conversely, in business, I've had pretty warm welcomes from clients in Philadelphia and NJ. Whereas the folks in FL are dicks. I think business relationships color the welcome, so that's not wholly useful a measuring stick as somebody moving into the area and trying to get into the social groove, ala the problem immigrants face on a higher scale.

 

[Janx]

Dicks vary in their overtness. And magnitude.

and girth.