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Comment by mikenyc | Hacker News Reader

To me, the interesting thing about these survey results was not that they convinced me this was actually likely to happen, but rather to contemplate that 31% of Americans (and likely voters at that) could actually believe this is likely in the next 5 years.

What does that say about the state of America? As I noted in another comment, at least somewhat it probably says people aren't very conscious of the immensity of what a US civil war means. So that speaks to civics and educational issues, which are real and relevant.

But I would just say that in a society people's feelings matter, whether rational or irrational. Irrational feelings lead to real world outcomes all the time.

So even if you think that believing this outcome is likely in the next 5 years is extremely irrational, the fact that a significant proportion of the voting population could believe this has real-world implications.

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> So even if you think that believing this outcome is likely in the next 5 years is extremely irrational, the fact that a significant proportion of the voting population could believe this has real-world implications.

We're in a country where a lot of people believe the president when he says three million people voted illegally. [1] If you believe in the existence of those imaginary people, you might wonder what will happen when they take up arms.

[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/...

Civil war in America could only happen(IMHO), if it dems/reps came together to fight the central government, and police forces. I think the more authoritarian the country becomes (just look at the atrocities of ICE, and the major issues with NSA, and all the police brutality in the news), the more likely it could push us over the edge in that regards.

However, for that to happen we'd have to give up our politics, which has polarized the country. The two party system has successfully divided and conquered us, it puts us in two separate camps, so we don't organize against the real threat which is the rise of income inequality/elitism and the marginalization of the worker class.

However, the rise of the machines replacing workers could push the pain point enough for (if not a civil, a revolutionary) war to be inevitable, unless the government puts things in place like GBI/Universal Healthcare to quell the masses who are no-longer able to work.

5 years is a bit of a stretch though, 15 is probably when the real pain from automation is going to be felt.

I agree. I really wish we could collectively lay off the media consumption, especially the culture war stuff. I disconnected from news and social media a while ago and it's amazing what a contrast there is between my perception of the world now vs. then. If you go down an ideological rabbit hole, it seems like the whole world is about to come crashing down. Then you go out and experience the actual world and most people are happily going about their business.

I've come to start thinking about media (and specifically our extremely high levels of media consumption vs. the past) as a distorting lens which prevents us from perceiving reality accurately.

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