Difference between American public and private opinions | Hacker News Reader

Difference between American public and private opinions

axios.com

22 pointsbalderdash10 comments

Given that non-adherence to the Received Narrative will get you banned from social media and fired from your job, it's not that surprising that people who don't adhere to the Narrative pretend to in public.

Non-adherence doesn't do these things, being an as*ole does however. It's easy to have a differing viewpoint but just done be an as*ole about it and you're fine.

Except that they don't have to say anything. People don't get fired for being silent.

Boo. That is just a soft form of enforced compliance.

Edit: how the heck is the first reply flagged/dead? Doesn’t that exactly prove their point?

If we're going to have any system of upvoting and community-flagging, then that's the outcome. It's like when people point to upvotes and downvotes on Reddit as examples of some sort of pernicious media bias; no, it's an online community where upvotes and downvotes are supposed to serve some sort of valid ranking, and everyone thinks the poster was wrong, or an asshole, or whatever. To complain about the effects of the downvotes is to basically say the downvoters shouldn't be allowed to express their opinion via that available mechanism.

That is precisely the problem. If you have the "correct" opinions, you can be as abusive as you'd like in how you express them, to the point of inciting physical violence and it's totally fine -- but if you have the "wrong" opinions, then no matter how carefully you walk on eggshells, the hatchet man is always right behind you.

> If you have the "correct" opinions, you can be as abusive as you'd like in how you express them, to the point of inciting physical violence and it's totally fine

How many examples do you have of that? Of physical violence?

I'm someone with a number of more conservative opinions, and I think my main reason for not expressing them consistently is that I wouldn't want to be associated with contemporary "conservatives" (i.e. people who continue to vote Republican even though the party has been taken over by Trumpism). And I think this is a problem for a lot of us, esp my friends, who represent a fairly diverse mix of anti-Trump, non far right views. This is highly underrated by...everyone, IMO, including progressives and Democratic leaders.

I'm limiting my thoughts only to the kinds of issues mentioned in the article--those are things about which, for the most part, reasonable people may disagree.

That being said, I also think there are opinion so wrong that people should be booed out of the public square for denying them (e.g. denial of genocides, such as the Holocaust and the Uighur genocide).

"then no matter how carefully you walk on eggshells, the hatchet man is always right behind you."

I still don't get how people shutting up is that much of a problem. Not only do we still have election results that reflect the difference (i.e. peoples' true opinions are counted where it counts), but shutting up is probably better for the person themselves. Look at the time we waste bullshitting about this stuff on HackerNews...

It seems like you just read the headline and pulled out whatever axe you have to grind.

I assume you would say that "abortion is a Constitutional right" is part of the "Received Narrative," and yet some people feel inclined to hide it:

> Republicans, meanwhile, were less likely to privately say Roe v. Wade should be overturned (51%) than publicly (64%).

The questions asked were mostly related to opinions and ethics, not hard facts. They have nothing to say about a "Received Narrative".

For the life of me, I cannot understand why honesty is such a difficult and/or feared concept in so many aspects of society. If you're an asshole, everyone around you deserves to know; if you're ashamed of being an asshole, then change your beliefs so you're not one anymore. If you're not an asshole, then you have no reason to hide yourself.

I couldn’t find how they got the “private” opinions out of people.

Individual interviews vs a group setting? Otherwise don’t see people revealing private opinions to some random person on the phone.

It’s not unlike seeing high support numbers for Putin in Russia. “Hi! We are from a totally independent polling organization. Trust us. Tell us how much you hate our president.” - “Oh, right. He’s fantastic. Please, sent him my greetings and well wishes!”

Obviously exaggerating here, but wondering how they managed and accounted for that effect.

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